In the blistering heat of Rajasthan’s Dudu district, a group of Hindu seers have chosen fire and fasting over comfort. Since 15 April, saints of the Dadu sect at Bhairana Dham, a revered 500-year-old site linked to the Bhakti saint Dadu Dayal, have been performing agnitap — sitting beside sacred fire pits even as temperatures soar above 40°C. Many have already fainted. Yet they continue their indefinite hunger strike, determined to protect the forest sanctuary they hold dearer than life itself.
Joined by local residents and environmental supporters, including Rajasthan’s well-known “Tree Man” Amar Bhahda, the ascetics are protesting RIICO’s plan to acquire forest land adjacent to the dham for an industrial investment zone. They allege that hundreds, if not thousands, of trees have been felled and wildlife buried alive during land-levelling. For them, this is not mere conservation; it is a defence of sacred ground — a place of meditation, heritage, and spiritual liberation — against what they see as needless desecration.
The resolve is profound. Saints such as Ramratan Das Maharaj, Dev Das, and Prakash Das Maharaj have warned that if their demands to declare Bhairana Dham a protected area and restore the lost trees are ignored, they will take jivit samadhi — ending their earthly existence — at the site. Pits have already been dug. Prakash Das Maharaj has made the stakes plain: the dham’s sanctity and the living forest matter more than any development project.
Chief Minister Bhajanlal Sharma has visited and offered assurances, but after more than two weeks the fires still burn and the fast continues.
In an age when material progress often overrides older values, these ascetics, barefoot and unbowed, embody a striking reminder of Hindu ascetic tradition: the willingness to sacrifice one’s life for what the soul holds sacred.
Yet the seers have not entirely given up hope in the government. “It is a Sanatan government,” one of them told reporters at the site on Saturdat. “Why would they not accept our demands? I am confident they will listen.”
