What’s With Our Love For Dubious Godmen?

Godmen
Image used for representation only

 

Reports of self styled godmen committing sexual offences appear almost every day from one part of our country, or the other, and yet a lot of these ‘fakes’ survive and only become larger than life.

The popularity of these self proclaimed Godmen in our country has grown to the extent of  their criminal conviction resulting in followers running amuck, turning cities into war zones. Interestingly, even the highly educated citizens of our country fall prey to their claims of supernatural powers.

We spoke to a cross section of Pune citizens to get their take on this increasing trend to idolise Godmen despite several nefarious cases against a host of them..

“There’s a fine line between dangerous superstition and just faith,” says Nimisha Pawar. “Some people are blind followers of such ‘living creatures’ that is what these people take advantage of. I have seen people worshiping them as deities.

“How can a human being like us be equivalent to the supreme power?

“One should understand that only a doctor can treat us of the illness, no amount of cow urine can cure cancer,” she adds sarcastically.

For Vishal Bose, it is the weak mind that seeks aid from these ‘dhongi babas’ and fall prey to their vicious intentions “The last resort for many such people to escape their troubles are these fraud men. And staying true to their dubiousness, these babas leave no stone unturned to monetize their fear.

“We need to be aware of such people. They take advantage and then exploit; some go onto threaten people who complain about their misdeeds,” he adds.

“Being faithful to a master or guru and being a fanatic of some Godmen who claim to possess some para normal powers are very different from each other,” says Priyum Meghawala.

“I do have a guru with whom I talk and take suggestions when in dilemma. He never tells me to perform unnatural activities not even fasting or performing havans etc. Such people are more as a mentor than just some Tantrik waiting to extract money or fraud people on the name of God,” he adds.

 

 

#All views expressed in this column are those of the individual respondents and Pune365 does not necessarily subscribe to them.

Loveleen Kaur