Come elections, no politician is immune to the pull of the planets. A huge industry rests in the space between reason and unreason.
SIXTY YEARS after independence, why have India and Pakistan – siblings born merely a day apart — led such remarkably different lives? Astrologers have a delightful explanation. The answer, they say, lies in the countries’ respective janam kundlis. A country’s kundli is determined by its birth time and place and astrologers had dutifully warned India’s first prime minister that August 14 wasn’t an auspicious birth date for a country. Sadly for Pakistan, half-anhour made all the difference: Nehru signed the dotted line at midnight on August 15.
If this story is believable, it is not much of a leap of imagination to understand why a few months before every general election the glassy image of modern India turns over on its head. Politicians invoke the divine with unmatched fervour. Astrologers are in epic demand. The gods become India’s most wooed constituency.
This year too, as India laces up for its fifteenth general election, goats are being sacrificed to the sound of clanking cymbals; 1,000 people are sitting in precise groups of 11, chanting in unison and blowing into rising flames; somewhere, an unassuming blind man is being handed a brown chappal; and an inconspicuous alleyway is blotted a bright red with all the red donations being showered upon it. An electoral aspirant is turning herself and the nomination box to face the sun. Elaborate rituals are being supervised outside peeling government offices; anxious candidates are turning to a strapped watch on their arm, waiting for the exact minute when the universe suggests they should file their nomination papers. (BJP Opposition leader LK Advani chose 12:39 pm because it is said that is when Ram killed Ravan.) A politician is secretly slipping an extra “a” into her name, hoping no one will notice her changed signature. Hordes of India’s poor are being ushered into manicured lawns for sudden propitiating banquets. In the temples of Lord Bhairon and Kali, alcohol is being offered to the deities, then fed to beggars as prasad. Suddenly, everywhere, politicians have turned into puppets, lifting a designated leg as they enter shrine or office, at the command of their master stargazer.
Dressed in a bright orange kurta, a long tika running up his forehead, Acharya Raj Jyotishi Shukla is emerging from the Congress office at 24 Akbar Road in Delhi. It’s a surprise to see him there, for Shukla says he was officially appointed BJP’s raj guru in 2006 at the behest of Sanjay Joshi, former BJP general secretary. “People in the BJP liked me because I talked about kattar Hindutva. They appointed me the upholder of Hindu religion and asked me to make sure it is never wiped out,” he says. But now he doesn’t restrict his consultation to just the BJP: he has risen above the political divide. “No politician knows where else I go,” he winks. In the last two months, Shukla says he has performed 40 poojas for 40 MPs, each lasting anywhere between two to 12 hours. The scale of each pooja depends on the particular disjunction between the planetary positions and the candidates’ desires. One can only wonder what impact the varying monetary value of each pooja will have on different candidates’ fortunes.
Politicians might be loath to disclose their particular position on the Richter scale of faith and superstition, but suffice it to say that according to a Business India story in 2004, the astrology industry in India adds up to a whopping Rs 40,000 crore. At election time, it apparently jumps by another Rs 600 crore.
UNIVERSAL ADULT franchise obviously brings many dreams, crises and fears for the ‘futures’ doctors to tend to. What follows is only a small recounting of epic pleas and epic interventions:
• Apparently, Trinamool Congress President Mamata Banerjee recently had her assistant call the popular numerologist Swetta Jumaani for tips on how to get an edge over the CPI(M). Jumaani advised her to change her spelling from ‘Mamta’ to ‘Mamata’. If events in Bengal are anything to go by, the Reds are reeling under the onslaught of that extra ‘a’.
• During the nuclear deal stand-off in Parliament last year, much to the horror of animal rights activists, Kishore Samrite, a Samajwadi party legislator, sacrificed 302 goats and 17 buffaloes to seek a divine boost for the Congress-led vote on July 22. Aided by some horse trading, the goats seem to have worked.
• Where there is a crowd, there must be a leader. Jalandhari Baba, now dead, or as his followers put it, “who has now taken leave of his body but left his rose fragrance behind” — was once one of the most sought after gurus in Delhi and had several politicians flocking to him. If you connected with Baba at a personal level, his devotees say, you didn’t even need to tell him what you wanted: your energies just spoke for themselves. In that tacit speaking line were some pretty powerful names. Pranab Mukherjee and LK Advani, apparently, visited Jalandari Baba on several occasions. PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti sought his help to extend her father’s term as Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir and NCP President Sharad Pawar asked for a cure for his cancer.
• In the hyper-surreal landscape of Tamil Nadu politics, short of a written diktat from AIADMK party chief Jayalalithaa, astrology enjoys an official place in all party affairs (see box on page 54). A senior party leader told TEHELKA that all those who wanted to contest the Lok Sabha polls this year had submitted a copy of their horoscope along with their application. “When candidates are shortlisted for a particular constituency, the horoscope of the candidates may help the party chief in taking the final decision,” he said. Adds R Balasubramaniam, a political commentator, “Jayalalithaa makes no bones about her belief in astrology.” Apparently, it is mandatory for AIADMK politicians to file their nominations exactly at 12.32 pm. Jayalalithaa herself is a stickler for the colour green. Before she leaves her Poes Garden residence, her car must face a small temple of Lord Venkateswara next to her home. Once, on her way to address supporters, she was horrified to find a temple to her left and the crowds to her right. A complete U-turn was made to have the temple on her right and the crowds on her left. Relieved that the planets were realigned, she continued with her speech.
• Elsewhere, Shiv Sena leader Gajanan Kirtikar, who has been indicted for his role in the Mumbai riots of 1992, turned to an astrologer to pick the choicest full moon day for filing his nomination from the Mumbai northwest constituency. One hopes he didn’t suffer the fate of Rajkumar Patel, a Congress candidate from Madhya Pradesh. Patel was told by his ace consultant to file his nomination for the Vidisha seat at the last hour for the most auspicious impact. Unfortunately, a technical slip required him to go home for additional papers. By the time he returned, the deadline for filing his nominations was past. Perhaps Sushma Swaraj’s spiritual contacts were better because with Patel disqualified, she has no serious contender in Vidisha.
• In Gujarat, a key minister has asked Asaram Bapu for help with a particular yagna, which will be performed at the candidate’s home on April 30. Perhaps the minister is taking a leaf out of his leader Narendra Modi’s book, because the story goes that at the height of the pogrom of Gujarat 2002, the controversial chief minister had a band of 17 priests performing the all-powerful Rudravishek prayers to invoke Lord Shiva.
“They are all into it but many won’t own up to it on paper,” says Hemang Arun Pandit, CEO of Ganeshspeaks.com, the portal that handles the backroom operations of top astrologer, Bejan Daruwalla. “They all come to me almost everyday from across the country asking for the right dates to file nominations,” says Daruwalla. In 2000, ex-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had called Daruwalla to strategise about the prospects of the NDA. “They also want to know what suggestions their rival candidates have taken from me,” Daruwalla adds. Some ambitious politicians go a step further and take the kundlis of political rivals to astrologers. “A rival party in UP asked me to read Mayawati’s kundli,” UP-based astrologer Pandit Padmesh Dubey told HNN.
RIVALRY, VULNERABILITY, ambition, greed, faith, intrigue, counterintrigue, and at the end of that manic cycle, unkept electoral promises and the intractable, faceless Indian voter. What can a politician do but turn to the stars?
“They are all eager to win and are at their most vulnerable before an election,” says senior astrologer Ajai Bhambi, who has been so inundated with calls before election 2009 that he has cancelled all out-of-station tours. He gets the largest number of calls before tickets are to be handed out. “Once I had my terrace full of candidates for rival parties, embarrassed to see each other at my door,” says Bhambi. Some clients who have offers from two different parties ask him to read the party’s kundli and the party leaders’ kundli to decide which party would gel better with their own kundlis! (Yes, even parties have kundlis, based on the day and time of their birth. Sometimes a leader’s individual kundli could have led the party to a win, but because it is also influenced by the party’s collective kundli, the candidate ends up losing.)
Bhambi is a staunch believer of kismat (whatever is written in your kundli will happen) and refuses to embark on machinations to alter the divine plan. This is not necessarily a good strategy. Says Acharya Kishore, another pandit operating within political circles, “I looked at [former Congress leader] Madhav Rao Scindia’s kundli and told him he would never be the PM.
His wife immediately took me aside and said, ‘Don’t talk like this, he will get angry.’”
Some like Bhambi and Acharya Kishore stop at predictions. Others conduct yagnas. But there is a fast growing group of ‘futures’ traders who stop at nothing, readily venturing into the dark underbelly of astrology — the tantric jaal, rituals usually performed at night to destroy one’s enemies. A client can choose from four lethal options — turn the enemy in your favour, destabilise the enemy, make the enemy go berserk, and kill the enemy. “Politicians don’t just want prayers. They want their planetary positions to change. We tell them this is not possible from us. Naturally, most of them turn to occult practitioners,” says Hemang Pandit.
No surprise then that a week ago, in the interiors of Orissa, the state’s Finance Minister Prafulla Chandra Ghadei had conducted a special ritual at the dead of night at a Biroja temple meant for women. Even before he could complete his special prayers, Ghadei had to flee the spot after tribals, armed with bows and arrows, attacked him and the priest, protesting against the occult ritual.
BUT IT is probably the powerful and tantra-surcharged Kamakhya temple in Guwahati that is India’s premier enemy warding-off institution. Visit before election 2009 and one finds that yellow is the pervading colour at the temple of Bogola Devi, one of the 10 forms of Kamakhya Devi. A little girl selling yellow flowers at the bottom of the steep stairs that lead to the temple yells, “Come and buy some flowers for the goddess. All the big ministers buy flowers from my stall.” If you talk to her, she will tell you that all of them come late at night. There is a popular belief that Bogola Devi vanquishes enemies. Politicians come to ask her for help far from the public gaze. Rajiv Sarma of Kamakhya Debuttar Board says openly that Kamakhya Mandir is not an abode of astrologers but that of tantricism. “But most of the politicians who turn up to offer prayers here do so at the advice of astrologers,” he says.
The head priest of the Bogola Devi temple, Pankaj Sarma confirms that politicians of all parties come there to ask for more power and that many perform rituals after midnight, but he refuses to name anyone. Other sources, however, tell TEHELKA that controversial Congress candidate Mani Kumar Subba is a staunch devotee of Kamakhya Devi. His farmhouse in Delhi has a temple with a permanent astrologer and he regularly goes to Rishikesh and Haridwar for consultations with others.
Others choose milder routes. The Ajmer Sharif dargah in Rajasthan has always been a pilgrimage spot and a tourist attraction, but during peak election season, it draws a wide range of politicians too. “Many politicians call me, email me, and ask me to offer a dua for them,” says Qutubuddin Saki, the chief maulvi. If they cannot go themselves, they send their wives and children. Visitors who come to the dargah tie a thread around a revered pillar and ask for divine blessing. If their wishes are fulfilled, they are supposed to return and untie the thread. In the past, the seekers have included Govinda, Sanjay Dutt, and Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot who came months before the assembly elections and returned 15 days after his win to untie the thread. Other politicians who visited recently include Mulayam Singh Yadav, who came six months ago, Vasundhara Raje, Shri Prakash Jaiswal, Shahnawaz Hussain and Sachin Pilot, all of whom have visited in the last two months. Saki is now waiting to see which among these returns to open the blessed thread and thank the influence wielded by the Ajmer dargah.
Meanwhile, in Mumbai, priests and security guards at the city’s famous Siddhivinayak temple are already having sleepless nights as they brace themselves for the onslaught of politicians from across the country, who visit at peak hours. Congress MP Priya Dutt, who took over the mantle of the constituency after her father Sunil Dutt passed away, may not be a very religious person, but the prospect of retaining her father’s seat seems to have ignited a newfound spirituality. Before filing her nomination, Dutt made a marathon trip to the key religious shrines in the city, including the Siddhivinayak temple, the Mount Mary church and the Haji Ali dargah. After all, one never knows which religion the planets may favour on judgment day.
But Dutt is not the only new believer on the horizon. NCP top boss and prime minister aspirant Sharad Pawar, a known atheist and a key figure in the socialist movement of the 1970s shocked many when he paid a visit to the Tulza Bhavani temple in Osmanabad district before filing his nomination last month. In fact, almost every political leader in Maharashtra has visited this temple to pay obeisance before the elections.
IN KOLKATA, the Kalighat temple lies close to a rivulet that many say was the original Ganges. After the clock struck twelve and brought in another Bengali new year last week, Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee apparently slipped into the temple quietly with two of her trusted aides for a special prayer. The next morning, a handful of her supporters sacrificed 50 goats for a neighbourhood feast. “Didi must win,” they chanted to thundering cymbals. Even Kolkata’s CPM leader Mohammed Saleem is said to have visited a Hanuman temple to request a divine shield.
Back in Delhi, astrologer RB Dhawan sits with long sheets of star patterns and web kundlis flashing on his laptop. “The energy of action can influence the auras around,” he says. Through what astrologers call “upayas” — action to negate or please dominant planetary influences — bad times can be delayed, good times advanced, and planetary alignments reworked. It is no coincidence, says Dhawan, that the BJP has made illegal money from Swiss banks an election issue. The current planetary alignment shows a connection between Rahu (a moon-dependent phase), Jupiter and Saturn. Rahu stands for darkness and anything black, Saturn signifies foreign travel. And Jupiter is the king of money. Also, of religion. A shrewd astrologer would know that a party associated with religion would benefit from turning this divine alignment in its favour. Sources say Advani has at least five astrologers, picked from across India for their varying specialties. Dhawan suspects they had something to do with Advani’s sudden interest in Swiss banks.
Her son Varun’s planetary alignments might be askew but Maneka Gandhi is luckier. She doesn’t have rely on orbits or engage a troop of astrologers to make laborious calculations. She has only to think about Jalandhari Baba. Once, an eager supporter told her he had bet an acre of land that she would win from her UP seat with at least 1 lakh votes. Once the counting was over, she did win, but with a margin of 80,000. Travelling back from Barielly to Delhi, Maneka silently cursed Jalandhari Baba. He had allowed a man to lose a precious acre of land because of her. “Why did guruji let this happen?” she asked herself over and over again. Before she left the UP border, her cell phone rang with unexpected news. There had been a recounting of votes. Maneka had won by a precise margin of 1 lakh!
It’s easy to be dismissive of politicians’ extreme reliance on their attendant soothsayers. But this proclivity is of a piece with the average Indian’s deep religiosity and his enduring belief in the illogical. Transpose all that into the high tension atmosphere of imminent elections in one of the most populous countries in the world, that also happens to be striding towards modernity, and it isn’t difficult to understand why politicians clutch at whichever supernatural straws they can.
Perhaps, it is this dichotomy that best explains our continuing passion for astrology and that of our elected representatives too.
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