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Treated 'worse than animals': thousands of Indian women feared trapped in ashrams
Nearly 250 women and 48 girls so far found confined behind gates in properties belonging to the Adhyatmik Vishwa Vidyalaya religious organisation
Michael Safi in Delhi - Fri 29 Dec ‘17
Neither the din of traffic nor the roar of aircraft from a nearby airport could blot out the screams neighbours say they regularly heard from the apartment building in West Delhi.
On Saturday, on the second floor of the unassuming complex in Mohan Garden, authorities discovered 21 women and children living in a heavily fortified “spiritual university”, at least five believed to be minors.
Raids across India in the past week on properties linked to the same religious organisation, Adhyatmik Vishwa Vidyalaya (AVV), have unearthed nearly 250 women and 48 girls apparently confined behind layers of locked gates.
Authorities in Delhi say they fear thousands more women could be living in similar conditions in the 300 properties estimated to be linked to the group nationwide.
Syringes and medicines were found scattered throughout the Delhi ashrams and many of the residents appeared to be drugged, according to Swati Maliwal, the city commissioner for women, who participated in five of the raids.
Most of the women have refused opportunities to leave the ashrams. Those who appear to be under 18 have been taken to shelters but are providing little concrete information, Maliwal said.
“We ask where they’re from, they can’t say. We ask them the address of their parents, they don’t have that. We ask how long they’ve been there, they give evasive answers,” she said.
Gurus are enlightening guides in the lives of many Indians, providing counselling on issues ranging from moral quandaries to the choice of a new car.
But months after a flamboyant guru, Ram Rahim Singh, was convicted of raping two followers – sparking riots that killed 30 people – the raids of the past week have cast light on the immense, often unchecked power wielded by some spiritual leaders.
At the centre of the organisation is a self-styled “godman”, Virendra Dev Dixit, with a chequered history including allegations of sexual assault dating to 1998. He is currently being sought by police and could not be reached for comment.
Accusations contained in documents filed with the Delhi high court allege that Dixit, 75, is portrayed by ashram workers as an incarnation of the Hindu god Krishna, with the women and girls cast as his gopis, or wives.
The group claims to be a fundamentalist offshoot of Brahma Kumaris, an Indian spiritual movement with about 800,000 members and branches around the world including in the US, Australia and the UK. Brahma Kumaris disavowed Dixit decades ago and reject his beliefs.
Families have complained of losing daughters to Dixit’s organisation for decades but have been unable to secure official attention until this year, when the Delhi high court took up a public-interest lawsuit against the group.
The case was spurred by the November disappearance of a 24-year-old woman from a town near Jaipur in Rajasthan state. Family members said she had initially become involved in Yoga and meditation events put on by the Brahma Kumaris.
But quietly, over the past five years, she was growing closer to members of Dixit’s group.
One day last month, in what investigators believe is standard practice for new converts, the woman entered a local police station with a signed affidavit declaring she was joining the AVV of her own free will. Soon after, she vanished.
A frantic search effort by the family traced the woman to a large Dixit ashram in Rohini, a neighbourhood in the north-west of the capital.
In submissions to the Delhi high court, the family say they were only permitted to meet their daughter after protesting for days, and had to pass through seven layers of locked gates to meet her. They claim she was flanked by women guardians, and appeared to be anaesthetised.
“The girl told them, I am 24, I have come here of my own wish, and I should not be forced to go back,” said Satendra Singh Rathore, a lawyer for the family.
After their story was broadcast by Indian media, disaffected former members of the group and other families searching for their daughters reached out with their own allegations against Dixit.
According to the public-interest lawsuit, they include accusations that Dixit has sexually assaulted multiple women and children and keeps residents confined in conditions “worse than farm animals”.
A spokeswoman for the AVV declined to comment but the organisation has previously said its residents stay of their own volition and are well-treated.
In a society riven by caste hierarchy and yawning economic inequality, ashrams and large-scale spiritual communities, called deras, were an appealing site of social equality and fraternity, said Ronki Ram, a professor of political science at Panjab University.
Their popularity has grown as India’s economy has opened to the world and incomes have soared in past decades. “Once people have everything, a partner, a good job, a family, and find they are not really happy, they go to a dera,” Ram said.
Spiritual organisations have also stepped to provide welfare in places where the state had retreated, he said. “Some have their own schools, hospitals. When the state starts withdrawing from providing basic facilities, the deras fill in the gaps.”
He said politicians have been more likely to seek out gurus for votes than to try to regulate their communities: “They see [the gurus] have a large numbers of followers who can be constituencies.”
Dixit has never registered his organisation with the government. Years of criminal complaints against the guru did not heed a single inspection of his properties. Maliwal said it was typical of the lawless environment in which many spiritual leaders operated. “Nobody bothers to go inside their ashrams,” she said.
“These babas are very influential people, they have a lot of clout. Sometimes they have mafias, and sometimes they are mafias. Nobody wants to deal with this issue.”
“It is a strange setup where hundreds are lodged in closed confines. Where is the concept of free consent or spirit when you are not allowed to meet family or friends or wear what you want to or cannot go out when you want to?”
"no privacy even for bathing"
Official Statement of Brahma Kumaris Organization Clarifying Its Stand on 'Adhyatmik Vishwavidyalaya' to the Press
New Dehli, Dec 26: We hereby inform the Press that Prajapita Brahma Kumaris Ishwariya Vishwa Vidalaya has no concern whatsoever with Virender Dev Dixit and his organization 'Adhyatmik Vishwavidyalaya'.
The Brahma Kumaris organization is an International NGO having consultative status with United Nations and it has been redndering spiritual services since 1936. It has more than 10 lakh followers in more than 140 countries and The Knowledge shared by the organization has attained a reputation par excellence.
The Brahma Kumaris organization does not endorse the views of Virender Dev Dixit and his organization 'Adhyatmik Vishwavidyalaya' which is a completely separate entity and has nothing to do with the Brahma Kumaris organization.
The Brahma Kumaris organization is not responsible for the acts and conduct including any illegal activities of Virender Dev Dixit and his organization 'Adhyatmik Vishwavidyalaya' or its members in the past, present or future. The claims of the members of that organization to be part of the Brahma Kumaris or calling them as Brahma Kumaris is without our permission and not endorsed by us."
BK Brij Mohan
Chief Spokesperson
Brahma Kumaris Organization, Mount Abu
M: 9659692057. E-mail: brijmohan@bkivv.org
"He needs six girls every night between 10 pm and 5 am. There is a person assigned with the duty of sending girls at regular intervals"
Women and girls are made to sign samarpan patras (letters of submission). This makes them Dixit's property. They also write confession letters to confide in him about their past relationships or mistakes.
Former Navy personnel Rabindranath Das, who says that Dixit has filed a court case to usurp his three-storey house in Kolkata's Salt Lake area, throws more light on Delhi's own Dera Sacha Sauda. "I met him at his maternal grandparents' house in Kampil in 1992. Dixit loves colourful clothes and food cooked in desi ghee."
Das was earlier associated with the Brahma Kumaris, a spiritual movement, but he was more impressed by Dixit, and started assisting him. Das signed some papers in blind faith and gave his Kolkata house to Dixit. In March, he asked Dixit to vacate the house following issues with inmates. He also noticed changes in Dixit's teachings. While a court case is going on Das now lives in a small garage in the same house. He does not eat food from the inmates of the ashram as he suspects that he would be killed anytime.
Dixit is said to have followers even outside India. One such case is of a PhD student from the United States (US), who came to live in the ashram on her own and does not want to return. Her parents in Hyderabad said they have met their daughter five-six times in the last two years. According to Das, there were people of nine religions staying at the Centre in his Kolkata house. "There were followers from the Philippines, Canada, United States and many other places. Even I used to travel across India to impart Dixit's teachings," Das said.
In a short span of time, we've been able to get extremely good results in the very first initiative undertaken by us i.e. our fight against tainted Baba Virendra Dev Dixit and his organization "Adhyatmik Vishwavidyalaya".
The Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) ... has sought to know from the University Grants Commission (UGC) if the institute was recognised by the regulatory body.
It also sought to know if the UGC had received any complaint or representation regarding the operations of the institute, along with the details of action taken on such complaints.
If not recognised, the women's panel sought to know what action would be taken by the UGC against the institute for using the word "vishwa vidyalaya" (university) in its name, thereby misleading the people.
"It has been learnt that the said 'vishwa vidyalaya' at Vijay Vihar and at other places across India has been functioning with the title of Spiritual God Fatherly University for decades.
"Hundreds of young girls and women have been enrolled as residential students of this institute at several centres across the country," DCW chief Swati Maliwal said in a letter written to the UGC.
She strongly recommended that if the institute was not a university, it should be barred from using the word "university" in its name.
Maliwal also said strict action should be taken against the management of the institute for wrongly claiming it to be a university.
"Considering the gravity of the matter, you are requested to please provide the above-mentioned information latest by January 12," the DCW chief said in her letter.
"He had subverted our muralis for personal use,” says Brij Mohan, the additional secretary of the Brahmakumaris.
ex-l wrote:The first more serious investigative report I have seen has been published, giving a little more background to Virendra Dev Dixit's life story, Hardlook: The cult of self-styled godman Virender Dev Dikshit.