Asaram Bapu Ji: History and Controversies

Recently, there have been lots of allegations against Asharam Bapu ji. The allegations ranged from trivial issues like slight mismanagement of one of his ashrams to big one like children being gravely mistreated in his ashrams.

However, the popularity of Asharam Bapu has not taken any negative turn in spite of so much negative media coverage. People still gather in his satsang in large number. The soothing voice emanating from his mouth is still compelling lots of people to forget their problems and enjoy the life on this planet Earth.

Asharam Bapu was born in a Sindhi family as Asumal Sirumalani on April 17, 1941. His father was a known businessman of Sindhi Community. After the partition, the family had to flee from newly carved Pakistan leaving large sums of property in Pakistan. During this time, Asumal Sirumalani also lost his father. Later, he got married but was unhappy with happening around him. He left home and reached Vrindavan. Visiting Vrindavan was the first step of Asumal to become Asharam. From here he fought a long, hard, and tenuous battle to defeat his worldly desire and become Asharam Bapu.

The spiritual work of Asharam Bapu was started in the twilight years of 1960s. His new logical approaches to teach Vedanta to everyone had become quite famous in a short span of time. Those were times when India was seeing too much problems. The country was not that much matured and the wound of partition was still there among Sindhis of Gujrat. It was, in fact, Sindhi community who began to follow Asharam in large number. The Sindhi Community also offered large sums of donation to Asharam Bapu to open his branches of Ashrams. Asharam Bapu opened his first Ashram in 1971 in Ahmedabad, Gujrat.

The success of Sindhis in Indian business fraternity had only helped Asharam Bapu ji to take his teachings to different corners of the nation.

Soon, the popularity of Asharam Bapu crossed the western boundary of India. People began to come in large number to just hear his calm words. He became the most famous spiritual guru of Northern India. His ashram began to broadcast his preachings on various television channels which made Asharam Bapu a household name.

However, the more popularity cost him and lately, he saw himself in lots of controversies.

There have been some charges against Asharam Bapu ji and his associations about tax evasions. His foundation is earning huge amount of money by selling ayurvedic products, spiritual publications, and lump sum of money coming as donations and grants. The foundation is registered and is exempted from tax because of its involvement in social service. However, the foundation is yet to show a strong case of it using money in social service.

In 2009, the Gujrat Police filed an attempt to murder case on Asharam Bapu and two of his close associates. However, later it was found out that the whole episode was managed by a media house to malign the image of Asharam Bapu. It takes a sting operation by a news channel to expose this whole conspiracy.

When two children died in Sabarmati River, the whole national media stood on its feet to criticize Asharam Bapu. However, again, the thorugh investigation by Crime Investigation Department (CID) found nothing against Asharam Bapu and his ashrams.

Whatever one might say, the fact is that Asharam Bapu has something really special in him. His voice has the power to heal.