– Chaitanya Kejriwal
Millennials, we call ourselves. A fresh generation. A fresh mindset. A different, rather aggressive approach towards life. The desire to achieve something early in life. A generation that truly believes in – “Be the change you want to see.” A generation that has their set of idols that they look up to, that they learn from, who they want to be like when they grow up. To add to this, a different outlook towards right and wrong. Not right, not wrong – different. Different. Are we different because we want to be individualistic? Because we want to be unique? I’m afraid not.
Godmen are people who claim to have a connect with the heavenly, the Gods that we worship, the ones we consider to be the creators of mankind. Some even claim to be a reincarnation of the Gods themselves. What’s that one word that should pop into anybody’s heads when they hear of Godmen? Let me guess, spiritual! And now, let’s look at what words we, in fact, come across when we type their names on the mean world wide web – Rape, Extortion, Conmen, Murder, Kidnapping, Encroachment, oh wait, Jail! As examples, let’s look into the personal lives of a few of them. Swami Premananda- accused of raping 13 girls. Asaram Bapu- sexual assault against a minor girl. Swami Sadachari- caught for running a brothel. And the list goes on.
In this age of technology, the youth is opinionated since a very early age and have their own mindset instead of giving in to the conventional way of life the previous generation has been following. Would you say your parents are wrong to be believing in Godmen, in case they do? You can’t. It has been observed that a considerable number of people that once believed in these Godmen have now chosen to steer clear of them, mainly because they now are exposed. The cruel media, in their own hunt for TRPs, won’t let them fool the general public anymore and is always on the lookout for such stories of Godmen that portray them in a different persona from what they’ve been showing their followers.
The need of the hour, in my opinion, is an eye-opener for the blind followers these masterminds have. One can never forget the huge resistance the police faced when they arrived to arrest the Dera Sacha Sauda chief, Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, another such personality recently arrested on charges of murder, castration of followers, amongst others and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. It’s astonishing to see someone defend them under the pretext of “them being human too.”
Rape isn’t justified with an argument that starts and ends at, “they are human too.” It comes as a surprise when I see these followers sending in people from their family, to a Godman who is involved in a sexual assault case against him under the hope of getting a divine intervention in their lives. Ever wondered where the thousands of crores of rupees donated to them have gone? I’m sure nobody has a clue. And the sad part is nobody ever will. Every single penny given to them remains unaccounted. I say if you’ve really used the resources you were provided with, from the public that was fooled into doing so, then what’s the harm in showing it out? It is important to make the population, the rural population in particular, about who these fraudulent people truly are and where they belong.
That, however, is not the only reason why youth does not want to reason with them. “Pour a vessel full of milk at the stem of a tree, and your life will take a turn for the good,” many have said. In this age of poverty, where millions of people don’t have access to the basic necessity – food, the youth would choose to feed them instead of emptying a vessel full of milk at the stem of a tree. We’d rather donate a sum of money to an organization that we know does good for the society instead of emptying our wallets in a box outside an ashram. Besides, a considerable percent of the millennials, now choose to be atheists, turning the concept of Godmen to a distant figment of one’s imagination. Besides atheist and having no belief in the concept of God whatsoever, there also is a huge population of people that believe in the supernatural existence of God, or as they like to say, an external supernatural sensation of energy, they don’t choose to believe that these self-proclaimed Godmen are the path to reach out to the divine force.
Moreover, from the exposure that the youth now has, they don’t see the need of Godmen in society and they prefer working hard to achieve their goals in life over waiting for all their dreams to come true miraculously.