'Miracles' and hope: Deadly stampede spotlights India's craze for godmen

BAHADURNAGAR — Just a pat on the back by preacher "Bhole Baba" and Ramkumari said a stone in her kidney vanished.

The 85-year-old gave no proof, but this story and countless others of similar "miracles" led to Baba's following rocketing in India's northern states.

A gathering addressed by the former police head constable at a crowded field on July 2 drew a quarter of a million people, resulting in one of the deadliest stampedes in the country.

Bhole Baba, or Innocent Elder, was born Suraj Pal Singh Jatav. He quit the police force in 2000 to join a series of Hindu preachers and gurus who are sought by millions for miracle cures and spiritual advice. They are often called godmen, and many have been wooed by politicians for the influence they wield.

Their patrons have included international celebrities like the Beatles, who spent days in the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the late 1960s. Some of these gurus expanded beyond India, most famously Osho, who lived and preached in the United States in the early 1980s.

Almost all of them are credited by their followers with miraculous powers.

"I had gone to one of his early gatherings and told him I had chronic pain from a kidney stone for many months," said Ms Ramkumari, Baba's former neighbour in Bahadurnagar village in India's Uttar Pradesh state, where he was born and still has a home.

The village has only about 50 homes and is set amid fields which grow corn, wheat and rice. On the periphery is a sprawling, pearly-white ashram run by Baba's devotees.

"He smiled and blessed me with a pat on the back. The stone vanished soon after," said Ms Ramkumari, who gave just one name.

Another resident in the village, 55-year-old Surajmukhi, said Baba's blessing helped her give birth