A year after Ramdev had a successful run in the United Kingdom and delivered a speech at the United Nations in New York came plans for a yoga tour of the United States. India’s foremost yoga guru was scheduled to start his tour in New York on 30 June 2007 and wind it up in Coventry in the UK on 8 August, rumbling through New Jersey, Chicago, Glasgow and London in between. Animesh Goenka, then president of Heritage India, a small charitable organization that was involved with the planning of Ramdev’s tour, had told the media that the US leg of the tour, estimated to cost $350,000, was to be funded exclusively through charitable donations from private individuals and corporations. The sale of tickets to the yoga camps, priced between $100 and $500, was expected to raise half a million dollars. This money, Goenka had asserted, would be funnelled into research on amla and developing a product for which a patent could be sought. While Ramdev prepared for his international tour, Balkrishna was making certain critical and far-reaching changes. On 18 May 2007, fifteen months after its formation, Patanjali Ayurveda Pvt. Ltd dropped the word ‘private’ from its name. This was a critical move if the company wanted to list itself on the stock market.

But Ramdev missed something brewing in his own backyard. Amid his heady successes, and hectic travel, he failed to see that his guru Shankar Dev was ailing, increasingly unhappy and isolated in his own home, Kripalu Bagh Ashram. For instance, Shankar Dev, who was the convener of the Divya Yog Mandir Trust, was not on the boards of any of the new companies that were set up by Ramdev.

But what Ramdev could not see, though it was in plain sight, many in Haridwar saw. Several remember the swiftly ageing Shankar Dev, ravaged by spinal tuberculosis, becoming increasingly frail and forlorn. Shankar Dev is still the subject of hushed conversations in Kankhal today. Those who remember tell of his trials and speak of his tribulations in lowered voices – no one wants to cross the now all-powerful Ramdev. In a small place like Kankhal, word can get around. They are right to be worried. For instance, when I asked about Shankar Dev’s deteriorating standard of living Balkrishna became positively belligerent and furious at me.

It was when Ramdev was in Chicago that news came from Kankhal. On 14 July 2007, Shankar Dev disappeared. Vanished without a trace. He left that morning for his usual walk and simply did not return. It may have been devastating news for Ramdev.

Or maybe it was just inconvenient timing. With the Chicago schedule drawing to a close, Ramdev had to choose: Should he go on to London, where the House of Commons planned to receive and honour him, or should he send his regrets and rush back to Kankhal to lead the search for his missing guru?

There is no way of knowing what Ramdev truly felt when he heard of the disappearance or if he struggled with the decision or for how long, but in the end he decided to carry on with his tour. The day after his aides filed a missing person’s report at Kankhal police station, on 18 July 2007, Ramdev attended a ceremony at the British House of Commons in his honour.

An investigation began in India, but clues were scarce. A cryptic note was found in Shankar Dev’s room: “I have taken some loan from you for this trust but I cannot repay it. Please forgive me. I am leaving.”

He was seventy-seven years old. The note raised more questions than it answered: Exactly how much did this old man who continued to live as simply as before Ramdev’s meteoric rise borrow that he could not repay the sum? Why did he borrow it? When had he taken the loan? And from whom?

More importantly – why did Ramdev, sitting atop an empire worth at least Rs 100 crore, not repay the loan on his behalf? Why did Shankar Dev not ask him for help? Or had he?

Even though Karamveer had left the organization, Shankar Dev, who missed him dearly, often called him– sometimes for financial help. “I used to send whatever little I could so he could get by,” says Karamveer. Vipin Pradhan, a former aide and Karamveer’s nephew, says, “By then, the trust was being run by . . . relatives of Ramdev who had come in from outside and had no intention of serving any interest other than their own. They treated Shankar Dev badly and he was very unhappy.”

An uneasy silence always follows questions about Shankar Dev among Kankhal residents. People always ask, “Can I trust you? Are you writing for him or against him? You see, Ramdev has become too powerful. And look what happened to his guru . . .”

When he returned to India, more than three weeks had passed since Shankar Dev’s disappearance. To outside observers it seemed as though Ramdev was too busy chasing fame and fortune, making them wonder: did he even care?

After his return, Ramdev summoned a press conference in Haridwar, remembers the Jansatta reporter and Haridwar resident Sunil Pandey. “At the press conference he was saying how Shankar Dev was like a father to him and how sad it was . . . I asked him that if he really was like a father to him, why didn’t he come back?”

“I was in the US, conducting camps,” answered Ramdev. “Well, if a family member disappeared, one would come back, isn’t it?” Pandey pressed Ramdev.

“If I knew he was alive, I would have,” replied Ramdev. “So you are admitting that you know that he is dead?” demanded Pandey.

Little of this murky business was reported in the national media at that time. Across the country, Ramdev’s star was ascendant. It was only in October 2012, five years after Shankar Dev’s disappearance, that the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), India’s apex investigative agency, initiated a probe to find him. In his inimitable style, Ramdev welcomed the investigation on the one hand, but also attacked the CBI and the government, accusing them of a politically motivated conspiracy to frame him in the case. Given the sour relationship between Ramdev and the Union government at that time, his allegation did have some credence.

Whatever the CBI’s initial motivations, it was widely reported that it initiated a move to close the case in December 2014 – by this time the Narendra Modi–led government had taken charge at the Centre – because the agency had failed to make any headway. The special CBI magistrate in Dehradun set the date for the next hearing as 12 January 2015 but this is where the public case file goes cold.

It’s hard to ascertain what happened thereafter. While a right to information (RTI) request I filed with the CBI in Delhi met with the response that the CBI was not covered by the RTI, another filed in Dehradun met with the response that the CBI does not answer questions on open cases. Ergo, the case is still open.