Chandigarh prof on a mission to expose deras

Sushil Manav

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Tribune News Service

Sirsa, December 7

Panditrao Dharennavar, an assistant professor of Sociology at Government Postgraduate College, Chandigarh, is on a mission to expose deras working in the region and create awareness of how they have been thriving on their misguided faith.

Panditrao was in Sirsa today and met people of various villages to spread his message. He went outside the Dera Sacha Sauda on Begu road and urged people to stop visiting the dera in view of the Punjab and Haryana High Court’s recent observation of an intelligence report on arms training in the dera by ex-servicemen.

“I am telling people that they should believe in Holy Scriptures such as Guru Granth Sahib, Bhagwad Gita, Bible and Quran, if they want to imbibe the real message of God. These deras have become centres of unlawful activities. People have seen the truth of Rampal’s Satlok Ashram with their eyes, they have seen the truth of Asaram and now, the truth of Dera Sacha Sauda, which is already embroiled in several controversies, has also come to the fore after the Punjab and Haryana High Court suo moto notice of the intelligence reports pertaining to armed training in the dera,” Panditrao said. He said when he was giving his message, some dera followers tried to stop him, but later, they went inside. “Perhaps, they were scared or awestruck by the suit and tie I was wearing,” Panditrao said jokingly while speaking to The Tribune.

Panditrao came from Chandigarh in a car, but hired a bicycle here to visit various villages and Dera Sacha Sauda for his campaign. He also visited Satlok Ashram after Rampal’s arrest.

Basically hailing from Karnataka, Panditrao is fond of Punjabi language and has translated Japji Sahib, Sukhmani Sahib and Zafarnama by Guru Gobind Singh into Kannada language.

In 2012, Panditrao travelled all the way from Chandigarh to Sirsa to meet ailing Punjabi litterateur Hari Singh Dilbar and went around the town on a bicycle to make people aware of his condition.

Dilbar, an octogenarian Punjabi poet known for satirical poetry with a punch, had been reciting his poems at Red Fort on Independence Days and Republic Days since 1953, but was living with abject poverty in an ailing condition at that time.

Through his “Chaukes and Chhakkes” – four liners and six liners - the octogenarian hits out sarcastically on the social inadequacies. The Tribune had highlighted Dilbar’s poor plight in a news item “Ailing Chauke Chhakke poet suffering in penury” on October 16, 2012.