‘Acid was thrown on me, I hid under a car’

“We did a survey of houses and found at least 15 cases of diarrhoea, sunstroke etc due to the heat exposure that day,” says BJVJ Gujarat chairman Jayant Pandya. He later got the village sarpanch and the bhuva, Valji Vaghela, to issue a public apology.

In 1993, a grand ‘ashwamegh yagna’ was organised in Rajkot to bring “rain to the region”. The organisers had invited several dignitaries, including the governor and the chief minister.

The BJVJ, of which Pandya was then district convenor, wrote letters to the dignitaries, asking them not to attend. “The CM and governor did not come and public attendance was thin. In the evening, a mob of around 300 Bajrang Dal men vandalised my office and manhandled me,” says Pandya.

The son of a practising Brahmin, the 57-year-old rationalist holds degrees in English literature and law.

In 2003-04, protesters threw acid on Pandya in Vadodara, while he was there to expose how Brahmins were “looting” people by telling them that there was a flaw in their stars and that they should donate some precious metal to bring them luck.

Pandya says the worst of those attacks were when he had campaigned against animal sacrifice. “Several of our volunteers were injured and I had to hide under my car when we were attacked by the Vaghari community in Amreli in 2007-08 when we had gone there to prevent the sacrifice of 35 goats.”

Since its formation, the BJVJ claims to have exposed 1,003 bhuvas, babas and faith healers. It has 2,000 registered members in Gujarat, including police officers, doctors, civil servants etc.