Ravindra Puri, the north India head of Mahanirvani Akhara, lounges on a kingsize sofa in his newly-built, palatial home. He has just finished his Tuesday-special Hanuman puja. "Akharas have to change with time. Jogi (ascetics), pani (water) and lakshmi (wealth) must always be in a flow to remain pure. Economic reforms brought cash to the market and competition has increased in every sphere. We are expanding too. Around 50 per cent of Kankhal (a town that falls in the city limits of Haridwar) is our property. We are upgrading and developing residential complexes," he says. The gleaming Volkswagen in his backyard came with the "flow" that Puri just spoke about.

A policeman sits on an adjoining sofa. He has been newly posted to Kankhal and has come for Puri's darshan. "Aapke sanidhya mein rehna hai, to aapka ashirvad liye bagair kaise chalega (how can I be in Kankhal without your blessings?)," he says, reverentially touching the Baba's feet. Puri talks of all the DIGs and DMs who have visited him and adds, with a hint of a threat: "No official has survived his posting here without the akhara's blessings".

***

Sitting in the uber-furnished office of his Haridwar ashram, Swami Rishiswarananda keeps receiving calls from 'Vidhayakji', the MLA. Two persons visit him, ask for help to get a relative admitted to Pantnagar University. Congress MP from Haridwar and camped in the ashram during the 2009 Lok Sabha polls. An Innova and a Scorpio, with VIP numbers UK04 L0888 and UA08 E 1008, are parked in the swami's courtyard.

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A booklet in Jairam Ashram has photographs of the ashram head, Brahmswaroop Brahmchari, with Rajiv Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi and other prominent leaders. It also talks about his "active career" in the NSUI and Congress and how he is ever ready to work for the party.

The Babas of Haridwar realised it earlier, and better. That spirituality and business make for an easy blend. So far, Ramdev has been the biggest brand to have come out of this temple town, but the other babas know the market is big enough for all of them. All they have to do is identify their product and mark that USP. So, the babas have wide-ranging interestsfrom real-estate to education.

Many of the bigger akharas own vast tracts of property across Uttarakhand and investment in real estate is a natural choice for many of them. The relatively newer lot, the babas who emerged in the last two decades, had little land and so, identified niche segments for themselveskathavachan (narrating mythological stories), education, yoga, personality development and trading in Indian exotica like churans, chavanprash, beads. All this while, politics played a key supporting role.

Curiously, most of these enterprising babas are from Haryana: Baba Ramdev, Rishiswarananda, Ravindra Puri of the Mahanirvani Akhara, Jairam Ashram's Brahmswaroop Brahmchari, Swami Hansdevacharya of the Jagannath Dham Trust and many others. The babas have their own theories for this.

"Haryana is the land of sadhus. It means Hari ka aana (the arrival of Lord Krishna). He arrived in Kurukshetra and delivered the Gita," says Hansdevacharya.

Another baba says, "Haryana means Hari ka yaan (The vehicle of Lord Krishna). The Lord drove his chariot in Haryana."

Puri says Haryana has been the land of Sapt-rishis, the land between Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati.

Yet another attributes it to the natural enterprise of Jats that they made it big in the competitive world of babas.

Many of the young babasin their thirties or early fortiesclaim to have postgraduate degrees in economics, philosophy and engineering. They drive flashy cars, flaunt LCD televisions, chic phones and business cards with email IDs. These are babas with ambition and gumption.

Brahmswaroop Brahmchari, for instance, joined Jairam Ashram in 1986 after his post-graduation in economics and, in what was a phenomenal rise, became its head in 2005. He also served as founder V-C of Uttaranchal Sanskrit University from 2005 to 2007.

These are no forgiving, beatific babas, though. Competition is tough and they are quick to fault their rivals, talking about their "ill-gotten wealth" and "corrupt practices". While they secretly envy Ramdev for his "business skills", the yoga guru's image seems to have taken a beating after his failed fast and eviction from Delhi. "Ramdev sells churan worth Rs 50 for Rs 150. He sells everything...dhaniya, mirch. Nothing to to do with spirituality. It's pure business," says Puri.

"Baichehi dharm dehi dudh lina (They sell religion to milk it)," Baba Hathyogi quotes Tulsidas while talking about fellow sadhus. In between, he stops to take calls on his cellphone. "The police recently told me to be cautious after I opposed Ramdev. They have sensed a threat to my life," he says, sitting on the terrace of his goshala, the keys of his Indica dangling from his saffron dhoti.

Together, they constitute the babadomthe rise of godmen in Haridwar over the last 20 years.

The homemakers

Along the ghats of the Ganga, at Ghanta Koti in Kankhal, a multi-storeyed residential building is fast taking shape. The Mahanirvani Akhara is planning more buildings and villas on either side of the river and families living here have been asked to shift.

"They even demolished the 200-year-old Ghanta Ghar, a landmark of this area," says a local.

"Don't worry about the papers and legalities when Mahanirvani Akhara is involved. Investing money in our homes is the safest option. You can contact Sharma Constructions," an akhara official tells a prospective buyer. Sharma Constructions, the biggest realtor in Kankhal, has been managing properties of the akhara for over a decade.

With space running out in Haridwar, people have been looking to suburbs like Kankhal to invest in property. And akharas like the Mahanirvani Akhara sensed a business opportunity. The akharas tied up with builders and came up with several residential and commercial complexes.

The akharas usually don't sell their property but give it out on lease and charge a monthly rent. A two-bedroom flat earns them a deposit of about Rs 15 lakh and Rs 700 a month as rent.

"The akharas usually have no documents for their properties. If someone goes to court, they will lose. But these are powerful people. No one dares speak against them," says a resident of Kankhal who did not want to be named.

Another big real estate player in Kankhal is Premnagar Ashram of Pauri Congress MP Satpal Maharaj. The ashram is spread across several acres in the heart of Haridwar. When the ashram built a commercial complex in its premises, it got a legal notice from the Haridwar Development Authority for encroaching on public space. In fact, most of the ashrams in the real-estate business have got notices slapped on them by the Haridwar Development Authority. But they usually get away with it.

A 1998 UP Government Order had prohibited construction for up to 200 metres of the Ganga. But after the ashrams protested, a fresh order was issued in 2000, modifying the earlier one, making it easier for ashrams to build.

Ashrams that had no land to spare simply converted their properties into hotels. So AC and deluxe rooms replaced the once austere premises. "Jairam Ashram is now entirely in the business of real estate and hotels. In the name of dharmshalas, they offer expensive AC rooms," says Baba Hathyogi.

The ashrams give a receipt of charity against room rent, exempting their earnings from tax.

A district official shares a curious practice. "Devotees often donate money to ashrams to build rooms in the memory of a dear one. The babas charge between Rs 1 lakh and 10 lakh to build such a room. But all they do is hang a nameplate outside the room. When the devotee leaves and another comes with the same demand, they take the money from him and simply replace the nameplate."

The business grows under the benevolent eye of the administration. "Whenever officials go for inspections, the babas immediately dial Dehra Dun and the inspection is halted," says an official.

Puri boasts of his akhara's connections with the Nehru parivar. "Motilal Nehru was our counsel in Allahabad," he says. "When Jawaharlal Nehru visited Haridwar in 1962, there were only two cars in the area. One was the Akhara's German-make car and the other belonged to a royal family. Nehru moved around in our car," says Puri.

The storytellers

Swami Harichetnanand is one of the prominent kathavachaks (story tellers) to have emerged in the last decade. He specialises in stories from the Ramayana and the Gita.

The Baba wears a gold Rado watch and drives a Verna. The marble plaque outside his Ashram says it was inaugurated by then chief minister N D Tiwari in 2006. A group of women from Kota, Rajasthan, sit in rapt attention. "He is the best kathavachak," says one.

With religious CDs and DVDs selling briskly and religious TV channels scoring on TRPs, babas with a gift of the gab see this as a lucrative avenue. The babas tour the country on the invitation of devotees and charge between Rs 1 lakh and 20 lakh for a sermon.

Santoshi Maa, 48, says she has been sermonising since she was eight. "I had a divine revelation of the Vedas and Upanishads in my previous birth," she says. The head of the Shakti Upasna Trust in Kankhal is among the few women sadhvis to have made it big.

Hathyogi, the baba who is critical of most other babas, says, "New avenues of wealth have affected them. A public movement is required against such babas. The government should check them," he says.

The Ganga Babas

Even before Swami Nigamananda, the swami who died after he went on a fast opposing mining on the banks of the Ganga, Haridwar has had its share of 'green babas'. Like when sadhus of various ashrams came together and met Union Ministers Pranab Mukherjee and Jairam Ramesh to demand the scrapping of the Loharinag Pala power project, saying it would affect the natural flow of the Ganga. "Though they had spent Rs 600 crore on the project, if they had gone ahead with it, it would have swallowed the Ganga," says Swami Rishiswarananda. "After we raised our demand, Pranab Mukherjee met the PM and the next day, we were called to Delhi. The same evening, Jairam Ramesh held a joint press conference, announcing the annulment of the project," he says. The delegation that went to Delhi included one-time senior BJP ideologue K Govindacharya, indicating that the babas have political clout across party lines.

However, Hathyogi thinks babas are no crusaders. "Sadhus also cause a lot of environmental damage. They immerse garbage in the Ganga. Nigamananda, a boy of 34, sacrificed his life because his Guru forced him to go on a fast. But sadhus are cutting trees and getting realtors to build homes. The fact is, saints are not serious about saving the river or the environment," he says.

The character builders

A queue of devotees waits for a darshan of Shail Didi, head of Vaidmata Gayatri Trust. Between 7.30 and 8.30 a.m. everyday, she meets around 500-700 visitors at Shanti Kunj.

Spread across several acres, Shanti Kunj is a self-sustained township in Haridwar that grew exponentially in the last 15 years. The campus has a university, a CBSE school up to class XII, a post office, medical centres and a legal cell. The Trust brings out a journal, Akhand Jyoti, sales of which rose from 10 lakh copies in Hindi in 2000 to 50 lakh in 7-8 languages.

The Trust focuses on character development, with the individual, family and nation as key thrust areas. According to income tax officials, the Trust owns property worth Rs 500 crore in Haridwar.

The Trust claims its USP is "scientific spiritualism"a scientific interpretation of the mantras. It has attracted many professionals like Saurabh Mishra, 33. Mishra was a lecturer at IIT-Mumbai but quit to join the Trust with his wife, a doctor at Shanti Kunj. "My students asked where was I going. I told them I was a material scientist so far, now I will be a spiritual scientist."

After a BTech from BHU and MS from Pennsylvania State University, US, Mishra now gets Rs 2,000 a month from the Trust. "There is no end to needs. I am happy and at peace here."

The solitary reapers

Swami Vimalananda, head of the Divine Life Trust, plays Vedic mantras and Hanuman Chalisa to the tune of Om Jai Jagdish Hare on his Casio before a handful of devotees in the prayer hall.

This elite Ashram, spread across two hillocks overlooking Ram Jhoola in Rishikesh, receives quite a few foreign devotees during its "winter retreat" in December. Every evening, swamis in the ashram play badminton, an older swami yelling out angrily every time the shuttlecock lands outside the court.

But the head swami is a bit of a loner. He likes his walks through the woods with one attendant behind him.

Swami Durgesh, in his fifties, says he could do with some followers. A fortnight ago, Durgesh shifted from Delhi to Haridwar with his wife. He owns a photo lab in Shahdara, east Delhi, and now has a newly-constructed ashram in Haridwar. "My mother was a famous spiritual guru in east Delhi, my younger brother is also a guru," he says.

A changing city

Considered the tirtha (holy water) of Kalyuga, Haridwar is considered to be one of the most pious cities of India, attracting sadhus from across the country. Akharas set up their headquarters here centuries ago, as kings donated land to them and other sadhus.

Together these babas drove the city and its economy in close association with politicians and the administration. Till the early '90s, BHEL was the only big name in Haridwar. The post-reforms era saw the likes of Hero Honda, HLL and Kirby setting up their plants.

Today, almost every market has property dealers and investment managers. "Babas are now looking to invest in equity too," says a dealer.

Certain things do not change, though. A decade ago, among the most visible images on the city's streets were posters of B-grade Hindi films. Today, Sheetalbhabhi.com, a movie based on India's first porn toon character, is running to a packed house atwhere elseGanga Cinema.

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