A religious gathering is not a place of death. Yet 126 people died in a stampede at a satsang in Uttar Pradesh. This was the annual meeting organised by the trust run by Suraj Pal, known as Bhole Baba or Narayan Sakar Vishwa Hari to his followers, mainly Dalits. The deadly stampede occurred in Hathras, where around 2,50,000 followers had congregated in a space where the authorities had given permission for only 80,000. Whether the tipping point came from the actions of the self-styled guru’s security guards who hemmed people in or pushed them back, or from the devotees’ rush to touch the dust of the guru’s feet is not clear. What is clear, however, is the administration’s hands-off attitude that allowed the overcrowding either out of callousness or a refusal to interfere in a powerful religious leader’s meeting and organisational mismanagement. Some people have been arrested, the chief organiser among them. Although the police failed to find the guru in his Mainpuri ashram — a palatial mansion — he expressed his sadness on media from that spot. He also alleged a conspiracy against him.

Indian godmen, a large number of them far from godly, enjoy a remarkable level of immunity from law-enforcers, partly because of their followers’ unshakeable faith and often because of their political patronage. In Haryana, Rampal’s followers prevented the police from arresting him for a week in 2014 although he was accused of murder. The bodies of four women and an infant were found when the police used bulldozers to break into his ashram, while mutilated bodies were found near Asaram’s ashram when he was arrested for raping a minor girl. One godman was arrested for the rape of 13 women and another for running a sex racket. There are others. Yet governments baulk at investigating complaints against them — Bhole Baba was not named in the first information report — perhaps because no party wants to upset their huge followings, and they often have political links, as is being alleged in Hathras. People’s dependence on them has as much as to do with the vulnerability produced by strained socio-economic circumstances as with religion. These gurus earn the administration’s indulgence by offering the distractions of devotion and hope. The phenomenon will continue to thrive as long as governments go on turning a blind eye.