A God for Mokhimpur

The 70-odd villagers of Mokhimpur in Uttar Pradesh were nobodies. Spurned by their neighbors because their subcaste was regarded as backward and ignorant, the Baghbhans of Mokhimpur had little to sustain them but their faith in the Hindus' God of Preservation, Vishnu. Some day--the Baghbhans have told each other for generations--Vishnu himself, in his reincarnation as Lord Ramachandra. would turn up in their village in the guise of a sadhu, or holy man, and from then on. all would be well. This faith has long made their village a favorite target for the hordes of self-appointed holy men (estimated total: 8,000,000) who roam all over India like carnival medicine men in the frontier U.S., wandering the face of the land in search of a quick rupee, with little to attest to their powers but a loin cloth, a straggly beard and a fanatic mien.

The Best House. "In our country," runs the preamble to an Indian parliamentary bill which now seeks to put the sadhus under some form of government supervision and control, "the number of holy men is increasing day by day. Most of them indulge in vices, which, if not checked, will help crime to increase unabated." But to millions of superstitious Hindus, the sadhus, good and bad, are potent miracle workers who transcend the laws of men. Three months ago, when the beardless holy man who called himself Baba Raghubaranand arrived in Mokhim-pur, established himself without a by-your-leave in the best house in the village and promptly went into a trance when its occupants asked where they themselves could now live, the Baghbhans were all too ready to believe that Ramachandra the Preserver had at last arrived.

Gorging himself contentedly on fat food offerings from the poverty-ridden villagers, Raghubaranand repaid the kindness with a never-ending stream of spiritual advice, giving his time generously in private audiences to the village women when their husbands were off at work in the cane fields. He even went so far as to honor the village by singling out one robustious young virgin as worthy of sharing a god's bed. But if the godly sadhu could be generous with his favors, he could also be terrible in vengeance. When one old villager dared doubt his authenticity. Raghubaranand simply ordered the man's own family to drive him out of the village. The ugly job done, the villagers of Mokhimpur returned to the pleasanter task of dancing and reveling in the company of their resident god.

One day last week, two local Moslem farmers passing through Mokhimpur were seized by villagers and beaten with sticks until, weak and bleeding at the feet of the sadhu, they consented to cry, "All Hail to the Hindu God Ramachandra." Released at last, they staggered away and called the police. Next day, five policemen on bicycles and an officer on horseback rode into Mokhimpur to interrupt a scene of nightmare revelry. The men dressed only in loin cloths, the women with their saris tucked up high above their knees, the Baghbhans were doing a wild dance around their sadhu, who himself was playing a screeching air on the flute. As the police approached, the dancing stopped, and the dancers, seizing spades, sticks and axes, raced screaming to attack them. Two policemen and their commander were hacked to death, their ears lopped off and their eyeballs gouged out by the frenzied villagers. Badly bleeding, the other three escaped, but even as they ran for safety, the orgiastic dancing began again.

The Burning Hut. That afternoon the bloody scene was repeated again as more police, accompanied by a civilian posse of 150, bore down on the villagers. A civilian, armed with a gun, was beaten to death. The officer in charge was knocked to the ground and bitten by angry villagers as he lay dying.

That night, news of the slaughter reached the district headquarters some 40 miles away. Police Chief Prakash Chander Mull rounded up his deputies, 250 well-armed cops, and a magistrate (the only official with authority to give the order to fire on a crowd), loaded them into trucks and headed for Mokhimpur. Taking cover in the cane fields, they fixed bayonets and prepared to charge the still-singing villagers. Suddenly the dancing stopped, a shot rang out from the village, the police answered with another, and Sadhu Raghubaranand fell to the ground, his shoulder grazed. Frightened and screaming, the villagers scattered. Some dashed into a hut and bolted the door. More shots followed. The hut's grass roof burst into flame, and as panicked villagers streamed out again, the police fired a few more rounds. When the last shot was fired, three more men and four women lay dead.

That night, in jail in Moradabad. the wounded sadhu announced that he would soon go into another trance. "The police were wrong in disturbing the peace," he said. "I am the reincarnation of the Lord Ramachandra, and I am here to create a new way of life." Police records bore no evidence of this one way or another, but they did show that up to three years ago, the self-appointed god of Mokhimpur had been a messenger boy in the Uttar Pradesh Department of Public Works who had been fired for misbehavior.

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