Asumal Sirumalani Harpalani (born 17 April 1941), known by devotees as Asaram, is an Indian spiritual leader and convicted rapist, who started to come into the limelight in the early 1970s.

[6][7] In January 2025, Asaram Bapu was granted interim bail by Supreme Court till 31st March 2025 on medical grounds.

[9] In 2024, Supreme Court lawyer and activist of the 'Fight for your Right' organisation, Ms Kirti Ahuja alleged significant deficiencies in the legal proceedings in Asaram Bapu case.

She said that the trial courts in Jodhpur and Ahmedabad failed to address several lacunae within the case, leading to a potential miscarriage of justice.

[10] In December 2017, Asaram was declared as a fake baba by Akhil Bharatiya Akhara Parishad, the apex organisation of Hindu Sants (saints) and Sadhus (ascetics) in India.

[18] He received his formal education at Jai Hind High School, up-till class III, when his father died.

[17] In one such event away from home, a local religio-spiritual figure had[19] ordained him as his disciple at an ashram in Gandhidham,[13] and named him Asaram on 7 October 1964.

[17] Sources mention him to have been involved in a variety of professions ranging from selling liquors[14] and tea[16] to repairing cycles[15] and trading sugar,[20] prior to his establishment as a religious leader.

[26] According to his official biography, Asaram returned to Ahmedabad on 8 July 1971 and on 29 January 1972, built a hut at Motera, then a village on the banks of the Sabarmati.

[17] Although his official biography does not mention it, Asaram had lived in Motera's Sadashiv Ashram for two years, before setting up his own hut adjacent to it.

[13][20][33] [a] Many political leaders went on to visit him to pay him respect through the decades; primarily in lieu of commanding the votes of his followers, including Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L.K.

Advani, Narendra Modi, Digvijaya Singh, Farook Abdullah, George Fernandes, Raman Singh, Uma Bharti, Kapil Sibal, Ajay Maken, Motilal Vora, Krishna Tirath, Vilasrao Deshmukh and Kamal Nath[13][35][36][37][38] By 2013, Asaram claimed to have four hundred major and minor ashrams in India and 18 other countries, with over forty million followers.

[41] Emphasizing upon the prominence of Brahmcharya[42][43] and Guru-Shishya relationship, it was instilled among the devotees, to accept Asaram (and his son) as infallible, be blindly obedient to them and not to question them about anything, whatsoever.

[19] Asaram has been long vocal against increasing sexual liberation of the society and deemed the adoption of Western culture artifacts as corruption of morality.

[45][46][47] Asaram's proposal was supported by many prominent Indian politicians including union ministers and the President of India.

[48] In 2015, the Government of Chhattisgarh state even institutionalized the practice, and directed all schools to observe Matru-Pitru Diwas ("mother-father day") every year on 14 February after Asaram urged the Chief Minister Raman Singh in this regard.

[32] The incident led to unprecedented state-wide public agitations,[20] with allegations that the boys had been sacrificed by Asaram and his followers through black magic.

[32][61] There were widespread local protests with calls for closure and numerous parents chose to take away their wards as a result, especially after the ashram authorities tried to prevent any telephonic conversation between them.

[67] A concurrent CID probe, ordered on the behest of the High Court of Gujarat had already rejected the claims of practice of black magic, in 2010.

[68] It was reported that after this event, Narendra Modi had warned the Vishwa Hindu Parishad not to support Asaram in any public forum.

"[73][74] He went on to opine against harsher punishments for the accused in the Delhi rape victim case (under retrospective provisions), as he felt that the law had the potential to be misused.

[85] Before his arrest he got wide-scale support from Bharatiya Janata Party in the state of Madhya Pradesh, including local MLA Ramesh Mendola.

[90][91] Asaram had submitted to the court citation letters from former presidents KR Narayanan and APJ Abdul Kalam, former vice president Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, and Congress leaders Digvijaya Singh, Kamal Nath and Kapil Sibal[92] to buttress his claim of having performed charitable acts over the years.

[109] On April 26, 2019, Narayan was convicted under Indian Penal Code sections 376 (rape), 377 (unnatural offences), 323 (assault), 506-2 (criminal intimidation) and 120-B (conspiracy) by Surat Court and sentenced to life imprisonment.

[13] Less than a week later, another former devotee, who was earlier thrown out of the ashram on spurious charges,[19] was subject to an acid-attack but he managed to overpower one of his attackers; subsequent grilling revealed that the group were instructed by a devout follower of Asaram to assassinate witnesses in the case.

[17][32][118][119][120] Narendra Yadav, a vernacular journalist who profiled multiple stories on Asaram's exploits, was attacked in September 2014; he survived.