At first glance, Dera Sachkhand, tucked away at one end of village Ballan, off the Jalandhar-Pathankot highway, looks like a white domed hideout of normality. On the way to the dera stand burnt bogies of a train, still smoking at Jalandhar Cantt Railway Station, several charred vehicles not yet cleared from the highway, rows of silenced markets and shuttered shops in a city under curfew.

Initial estimates are already in of the enormous damage to public and private property ever since the ghastly shootout in Vienna, allegedly by “radical Sikhs”, that injured the dera’s head, sant Niranjan Dass and killed his second-in-command sant Rama Nand. The Doaba region bore the brunt of the violent reaction—Jalandhar alone saw 123 vehicles set ablaze.

Punjab is the state with the highest percentage of Dalits in the country—about 29 per cent, according to the 2001 census—and Doaba is home to the highest concentration of Dalits in the state. A majority of the Dalits in Doaba belong to the Ravidasiya sect—they are followers of the 14th-century Bhakti saint, sant Ravidass. Dera Sachkhand Ballan is the largest dera of the Ravidassis in the region.

Inside the dera complex, filled with strains of devotional music, followers sit quietly in the courtyard facing the multi-storeyed building that has flats for NRI devotees. Dera Sachkhand has zealously spread out abroad. The Vienna visit ended in tragedy, but frequent trips to countries all over the world are a matter of routine for its sants; generous donations flow in from abroad and help run its charitable hospitals and schools. They also helped set up the hi-tech studio in the dera premises from where live telecast of the satsang is beamed to several countries and a regular weekly progamme is produced for Doordarshan.

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