Yoga guru Ramdev’s stance on zero corruption is a farce, as he chooses to keep mum on alleged con man in his employ, say complainants

On March 31, 2009, iconic yoga guru Baba Ramdev slammed the government for being soft on netas, who hoarded money in Swiss bank accounts.

In fact, Ramdev has always projected himself and his organisation to be squeaky clean and free from any charges of corruption.

It is therefore ironical, that among Ramdev’s employees is  a man who has allegedly swindled a Trust he used to work with earlier, of Rs 6 lakh.

And more irony the man, Rajiv Dixhit, says he works for Ramdev’s anti-corruption organisation, the Bharat Swabhiman Trust in Haridwar.

Flashback

In December 2004, five donors from Dubai and Oman, handed Dixhit, who worked for a social upliftment organisation called Bharat Peetham, cheques totalling Rs 6 lakh for the purchase of charkhas for villagers in Varud village of Wardha.

MiD DAY has copies of the receipts given by the trust to the donors. Incidentally, Mahatma Gandhi had set up an ashram in Wardha in 1934, which still exists.

However, trustees of Bharat Peetham said that though they had received the donation of Rs 6 lakh, the money had never been spent on charkhas.

They  alleged that Dixhit had misappropriated the funds. Said Sanjeev Jha, senior committee member of Bharat Peetham, “Charkhas donated by another organisation were distributed in the village.

But Dixhit in his letter to Ajay Jain (one of the Dubai-based donors) said those charkhas had been funded by the Dubai donors, which is a lie.”

The matter came to light when Jain, called Bharat Peetham in June 2005 and asked whether the charkhas had been bought.

“Dixhit said he had bought the charkhas, but later changed his stance saying the money had been used for the tsunami victims and then for construction of buildings,” said Jain.

“We are extremely upset that the funds meant for the poor were misappropriated. I have also lost face with the other donors, as they contributed at my behest,” he added.

Over the next three years, says Jain, Dixhit fobbed off enquiries on the donations and in 2008, Jain and Dixhit met up in India. The latter  admitted he had lied and had never delivered the charkhas.

Joins Ramdev

The same year, Dixhit joined Ramdev’s Bharat Swabhiman Trust. Consequently, both the trustees and the donors shot of three complaint letters to Ramdev, asking him to address the issue.

Copies of the letters are available with this paper.

Said Jain, “Baba Ramdev is aware about the matter as a meeting had been called at his ashram on March 11, 2009.

Ramdev was present with the trustees, but nothing came of the meeting. I was also invited for the meeting, but could not make it.”

Added Abhimanyu Giri, another donor from Dubai, “Many letters have been sent to Ramdev on the issue, but he hasn’t dealt with Dixhit.”

Rs 1.47 cr
Cost of the Scottish isle Baba Ramdev bought to set up a wellness retreat

The Other Side

Dixhit, who is in Haridwar at Ramdev’s Ashram, maintained that all the allegations levied against him are baseless.

“I used the funds for constructing the Bharat Peetham building in Wardha with the prior information of all the donors, except Abhimanyu Giri.

He did not want the funds to be used for the building. All the charkhas were purchased from the funds and distributed to the villagers.

I am the secretary of the Bharat Swabhiman Trust and a reply was given to the donors by Baba Ramdev in the meeting at the Haridwar ashram six months ago.”

Tejarwala, a spokesperson of Baba Ramdev, said, “Yes, Dixhit is certainly part of our organisation, but he is not a secretary. He is a karyakarta, like the thousand others who work for Baba Ramdev.”

Baba in the News

July 2009: Yoga guru Baba Ramdev has approached the Supreme Court challenging the Delhi High Court judgment legalising gay sex among the consenting adults.

August 2007: Subodh Gupta, a corporate yoga trainer based in London, challenged Baba Ramdev for giving misleading statement or remaining silent on misleading news regarding weight loss achieved through his yoga.

Ramdev claimed that one can lose weight with yoga at a yoga camp in US.

January 2006: CPI (M) leader  Brinda Karat had alleged that human bone powder and animal parts were used in Ayurvedic medicines manufactured by Ramdev’s pharmacy.

Who is Baba Ramdev?

Baba Ramdev is known for his efforts in popularising yoga. He is also the founder of Patanjali Yogpeeth at Haridwar, said to be the biggest yoga centre in the world.

The Bharat Swabhiman Andolan, the umbrella organisation for the Trust was set up to eradicate corruption in India and restore prosperity.

 It has always amused me to see how people are so gullible as to fall for the cheap tricks employed by the “Godmen”. The crook hires a few actors who pretend to be sick or handicapped. He then calls them on stage, mumbles something or touches them with his “divine fingers”, and then – they are cured! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! Its a miracle! Of course there is a choir playing some religious music in the background to numb the senses of the audience. At this point of time, the crook’s sidekicks pass out buckets among the audience to collect money “in the name of the Lord”.

How come his can’t cure his own flickering eye? He talks about “curing” the gay people with yoga, as if it is some kind of desease. This jerk has commercialised everything - yoga, God, blessings, and what not. As long as people don’t use their own brain, crooks like him will continue to flourish. I am doing my part by trying to expose all of these thieves.

Recently, Baba Ramdev publicly made comments around sexual life of ‘actresses like Celina Jaitly’ on the front page of a leading newspaper. On her standing up for gay rights, he stated, “These actresses know nothing about Bhartiya sanskriti. They stay away from their parents and have no morals. Unke partner har mahine badalte hain.”

Truly livid, Celina reacts as she bares her heart out in this candid conversation.

Your sex life seems to have come under the spotlight now. Any comments?
[Sighs] Well, this great, great Brahamachari seems to know more about my sex life then I may know myself.

In any case, now I feel I can truly say that he is not a true ‘Yoga’ teacher. After all ‘yoga’ knowledge comes from Adi Shiva, who in Hindu scriptures is active when there is ‘Shakti – The Cosmic Female’.

For a brahamachari, every woman is ‘Maa’ and nowhere in ‘bharatiya sanskriti’ is it written or practiced that you can make sexually motivated comments on any girl; especially by a brahamachaari. He does not know the meaning of true ‘Brahamacharya’.

Well, Baba Ramdev has also claimed that he can cure homosexuals?
I can just laugh when he says that he can cure homosexuals by Pranayam and meditation. With all due respect to Baba Ramdev, he ‘may’ have the so called ‘cure’ for homosexuality but the point is LGBT community ‘does not’ see their homosexuality as a disease.

The point is no one is interested in buying this ‘over the counter’ prescription for curing what is not a disease at all. This is what they are and they are comfortable with their self. They are not interfering in anyone’s life or religion but unfortunately everyone wants to interfere in their lives and tell them how they should eat, sleep and have sex. It is plain and simple ridiculous!

He has created a clout for him though over a period of time…
But because of that, he cannot become ‘Samaaj Ka Thekedaar’, right? Yes, I give him credit for contributing to realization and revival of yoga in today’s time and date. But this is it.

These people prefer to live in a cocooned thought process of their own and do not wish to come out of it. Ok, good for him, it’s his fundamental right to speak his mind. We, the youth, too are using our fundamental rights the way we wish to do, so I guess we are even.

So what is it that you wish to tell Baba Ramdev?
That even if he screams from every rooftop of India, the reality is homosexuality will not cease to exist. It is there since the homo sapiens have existed.

Also, according to zoologists, even today homosexuality is exhibited in over 15000 species of animals, leave alone humans. Once even Hitler thought that Jews were an impure race and ancient scientists thought the earth was flat but then ultimately truth persisted, right?

It is up to people to follow blindly or to respect the truth and slowly come around. Just because some people think LGBT is a threat to the family system, what should we do? Give rise to another genocide based on closed views?

Now Baba Ramdev and several other religious groups have filed a case against the verdict.
All I can say is that the respectable judges of Supreme Court will definitely consider the human rights aspect and the fight against the growing HIV AIDS epidemic in India.

I am confident that ‘jiska koi nahi hota hai uska khuda hota hai’. Society needs to focus on one issue and it is that for any step towards progression, change needs to come from within.

If everyone just takes the responsibility for improving themselves from within by becoming more tolerant, becoming giving, becoming kind and being honest, everyone would be happier and contended. That would lead to a happy and peaceful community.

And your message for the ‘aam junta’?
Take your own responsibility first that’s it. As for these Babas, they are doing whatever their remote upbringing and closed mindset is dictating them to do.

Only togetherness and standing up for what is right can change this mindset. So let’s all stop people from being misled by publicity hungry self proclaimed gurus of the society.