Sikandra Rao, Hathras: The Hathras stampede happened because ‘women are impressionable’ — this was a common refrain in conversations among men at the Sikandra Rao police station premises Thursday afternoon.
Of the 121 people who died in the stampede at Bhole Baba’s satsang in Sikandra Rao’s Fulrai village on 2 July, 112 were women — most of them elderly — seven were children and two were men, the Hathras police have said.
This has given rise to a wave of misogyny in the villages in the district, with men blaming women for being followers of the baba and voicing opinions such as ‘women should stay at home’.
The men discussing the case at the police station Thursday were from different villages in Hathras, but they all agreed the incident would not have happened if such a large number of women didn’t go to the satsang.
“I don’t know why these women go to such satsangs? Do they go to satsangs to die? Had they not gone there, this accident would not have happened,” said a roughly 40-year-old man in the group.
Asked whether only women attend satsangs, another man said that since men go out to work, it’s mostly women who have the time for such programmes. Women, not men, follow Bhole Baba, he claimed.
“Women are always engrossed in faith. They are emotionally weak and get easily influenced. So, they fell for the baba‘s deception,” another man in the group said, interjecting.
It’s not just these men at the police station — women’s impressibility has emerged as one of the main topics of concern across the district.
Kripal Singh, one of whose relatives is under treatment at the Hathras hospital, said, “Why leave the house? Sit at home and do path puja. These women have no business outside. If they must do something, they should serve the elders at home, but they don’t even do that.”
However, women in Hathras villages attribute the incident to superstition and mismanagement.
‘Superstition took lives’
Varsha from Sokhna village, who lost three family members in the Hathras tragedy, had been warning her family against superstition for a long time. Varsha’s mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and the latter’s daughter have died in the stampede.
Speaking with ThePrint, she said she had always opposed superstition. Her now-deceased mother-in-law had asked her to accompany her to the satsang on 2 July. However, Varsha refused, saying that she did not believe the baba to be God and that if she wanted to worship God, she would do it.
“It was their blind faith,” said Varsha.
She added that her mother-in-law had also brought a locket with Bhole Baba’s photo for her son to wear, but he had refused.
“Superstitions had consumed their lives. One should not have such blind faith,” she said.
Sikandra Rao Congress president Aamna Begum said there has been increased resentment among women against the baba after the incident.
She dismissed the notion that women were to blame for the incident. Speaking about her meetings with people after the incident, she said she saw some women tearing and discarding the baba’s posters during her visit to his ancestral village in Patrauli.
It’s not true that only women are devotees of the baba; there are many men among his followers, she said.
“Baba’s satsangs had many male attendees as well. Blaming women for it is incorrect,” Begum said.
She holds the healthcare system responsible instead. She said women went to the baba’s satsangs due to a lack of access to healthcare and seeking alternative solutions to their domestic problems.
Begum also holds the baba responsible, saying that when he realised the crowd was growing too large, he could have stopped his car and appealed to people not to follow him.
Priyanka, who lives in Sikandra Rao, expressed her concern that the incident would only make male domination in society worse.
Priyanka, who is from the Jatav community and is a BA student, said, “It’s the Jatav community that most reveres the baba since he rose from this community. Now, if people blame women over this incident, it will adversely affect the freedom of women, especially Dalit women.”
(It’s not just Jatavs — Bhole Baba has followers from diverse backgrounds, including OBCs, ‘upper’ castes and Muslims from as far afield as Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh.)
Priyanka said the baba’s sevaks are also predominantly men and that it’s men who’ve been protecting him since the stampede.
After meeting Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi in Hathras last Friday, a few members of the victims’ families defended the baba while speaking with mediapersons.
“If a stampede occurred after the baba left, how is he responsible for it?” Umesh Kumar had said after meeting Gandhi.
Another victim’s relative, advocate Umesh Pal, asked how the baba could have known that lakhs of people would attend his event.
On the other hand, most of the members of baba’s Manav Mangal Milan Sadbhavna Samagam Committee, which organised the 2 July satsang, are men. They include principals, lawyers, teachers, and Army personnel.
Gaurav Thakur, a resident of Fulrai, said that more women attended the baba’s satsangs because he claimed to have solutions for their family problems, often stemming from alcoholism and ending in violence.
“As people get education and health facilities, superstitions will end,” Priyanka asserted.
(Edited by Madhurita Goswami)
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