Author:Arti
In 2012, ‘Oh My God’ (OMG) movie portrays the issue of ‘religious fanaticism’ in India and revealing the extreme side of the religious belief and its consequences. The movie also brings out the dark truth of the Hindu Babas and their befooling of the illiterate Hindu devotees and looting them in the name of faith. Kudos to director Umesh Shukla and his entire cast and crew in dealing with this issue!
With the coming up of the movie, we have witnessed the fraud and scams of many Babas at the same year to name a few were Nirmal Baba, Sai Baba and now Asaram Bapu. They gather a darbar or samagams hatching a plot to cheat the poor who supposedly visit them to resolve their problems. So many devotees they have, so many speech they deliver and their so called ‘ashirwaads’ and baseless solutions to those innocent devotees and extracting money from them.
Alert to the true face of these Babas, many people has started complaining against them. In 2012, an FIR was lodged against Nirmala Baba for extorting thousands and thousands of money in a fraudulent way. He became the controversial Baba whose unaccountable money was seized and later was convicted under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. Dated on May 12, 2012 in ZNews a victim to cheater Nirmal Baba complained that the latter cheated him of Rs 31, 000 by promising cure for his ailment, but he did not find any relief.
Even the self-styled godman, Asaram Bapu had a raid recently whose 10000 crore wealth is accumulated in the forms of bank accounts shares, debentures and government bonds. Thus, these Babas preaching faith are extracting huge amount of Fund without any possibilities of paying income tax. In this regard, Economic Matters Advocate should deal with it seriously.
Making money in the name of religion and fearing dates back to the early 18th Century where Jonathan Swift in his ‘A Tale of a Tub’ satirises the religion which changes its principles for the sake of gaining power and money. People in most parts of India willingly succumb to these useless Babas preaching nonsense. The Bible (chapter 23, verse 27) quotes Jesus by saying, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside is full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean.”
Babas are nothing but a bunch of fools loitering among a huge crowd of masses who apparently are not God loving people, but are God fearing people. Although they are being investigated and are getting arrested, a noted Corruption Matters lawyer dealing with money laundering probes on this by saying, “Arrest is not a solution at all. The trusts they run are funded in the name of donation and they don’t need to pay Income Tax which is why these Babas are super rich. In order to stop such streamlined business of them, Income Tax Law should be imposed on them as soon as possible.”