WHO WILL SUCCEED RAM RAHIM?

AFTER THE CONVICTION OF DERA SACHA SAUDA HEAD GURMEET RAM RAHIM, THE SECT IS HEADLESS. SPECULATION BEGINS ON WHO COULD SUCCEED HIM

Dera Sacha Sauda is in the news for the wrong reasons, as its head Gurmeet Ram Rahim was recently sentenced to 20 years of jail for raping two sadhvis of his Dera. However, not many people know that the Dera was founded immediately after Partition in 1948 by an ascetic Mastana Balochistani, who hailed from Balochistan (now in Pakistan). He was known for his social work and spartan lifestyle, and after his death, his successor Shah Satnam Singh headed the Dera till 1990. Gurmeet Ram Rahim was appointed as the head of the Dera in September 1990. Unlike his predecessors however, he was very flamboyant right from the beginning and fond of bright and fancy clothes and luxury cars. Interestingly, after Gurmeet Ram Rahim took over, the Dera Sacha Sauda grew in size as the number of followers increased. The Dera also started yielding political influence as political parties flocked to it, especially during elections for support. With popularity and power however, controversies soon followed suit. The first controversy erupted when two sadhvis wrote an anonymous letter to the then PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee saying that they were raped by Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh. In fact, his present jail sentence is the fallout of that letter. After that, Ram Rahim’s name was associated with many controversies, including the murder of Sirsa based journalist Ram Chander Chhatrapati. In 2007, violent clashes broke out between Sikhs and followers of the Dera, after Ram Rahim appeared in a newspaper advertisement, which the Sikhs saw as an impersonation of their tenth Guru, Gobind Singh. Ram Rahim’s conviction has now set off a battle for succession to head the Dera, which has wealth worth hundreds of crores. The three names in the forefront of the succession battle are Jasmeet Singh, Honeypreet and Vipassana.