In the districts of backward southwestern Punjab like Bathinda, Sangrur, Mansa and Muktsar, the Sacha Sauda Dera has acquired a phenomenal following. In Bathinda, District Collector Rahul Bhandari hazards an estimate: Dera followers constitute 1.5 lakh of the total district population of 13 lakh. They are spread out all across — you will find them in every office, every workplace, he says.

The following is said to have dramatically expanded in the tenure of Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, its third and most controversial, and also its most gimmicky chief. Stories abound of his “miracles” and the blind devotion he commands. At his urging, his supporters are known to pitch in free labour to build houses for the homeless within the day. An imposing cricket stadium was built in Sirsa in 42 days, and a hospital in 46.

But there may be reasons why this area offers particularly fertile ground for a cult such as this one.

In 2001, Bathinda ranked 12th in the state’s then 17 districts of Punjab in terms of literacy. Unlike the Doaba area where every household will have one person settled abroad, the NRI phenomenon is almost invisible here. And there is little or no industrial growth.

According to official figures, in 2001, the registered working factories in Punjab were 14,663; in Bathinda only 512. The average number of workers in Punjab were 4,81,484; in Bathinda only 16,592.

More significantly, drug addiction runs extremely high. Bhandari says on an average at least one person among the state’s 2, 29,000 households is addicted to alcohol or poppy husk. “Bathinda district has the highest rate of addiction in the region” agrees Maninderjit Singh, civil surgeon Bathinda. Nidhi Gupta, psychiatrist at the de-addiction centre in Bathinda civil hospital, gives the figures: In 2006, the total number of indoor patients was 704, and the total number of outdoor patients 9026. This was an increase from the numbers of 2005: 611 indoor patients and 8039 OPD patients. Of the nearly 80 patients that Gupta sees daily in OPD, over 50 per cent are addicts.

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