Johnny Lever is one of the most famous comedians in Indian cinema. The 64-year-old actor has worked in over 200 films. While most people see him as a good entertainer, only a handful know that he has turned into a Christian preacher. Fondly known as ‘Brother Johnny Lever’, the actor was into full-time preaching for over a decade and still attends healing meetings. In some interviews, he claimed to have cured ailments including breast cancer, liver swelling and paralysis, among others.
Johnny Lever: The journey to becoming ‘the miracle healer’
There must be a trigger that turned the comedian into a miracle healer or faith health. For Lever, the time came when his son Jessy Lever got a tumour on his neck. According to his own ‘testimony’, when Jessy was a little boy, he got a tumour on his neck. Lever got him checked at Nanavati hospital, where doctors refused to treat him as the procedure was too complicated and could have resulted in permanent paralysis on one side, loss of vision and other complications.
As Lever saw his son’s condition deteriorating, he took his family on a trip to the US to cheer up his son. Lever said, “This was the time when I became religious. We used to take our son to healing meetings. Those meetings where people claim to heal diseases by praying to Jesus. My wife took my son to many places. For two years, we kept on hearing, ‘Jesus will heal your son.”
During his trip, he visited a church where the Pastor approached him after noticing the tumour on the neck of his son. The Pastor asked him to visit a specific hospital in New York and told him, ‘Jesus will heal your son’, something that he had heard for years. When he reached the hospital, he learnt that the doctor who was supposed to treat him also treated actress Nargis. He claimed that after a recommendation from late actor Sunil Dutt, the doctor operated on his son successfully. After the incident, he became more religious and stopped doing films. His whole concentration was on spreading the “word of God”.
On other occasions, he has claimed that his son suffered from cancer. He has said in the past, “It was God’s will. I had always been a religious person, but one incident changed my life. My son was diagnosed with cancer. I was helpless and turned to God for help. I stopped working in films and spent all my time praying for him. Ten days later, when he was taken for a test, the doctors were surprised because the cancer had vanished. It was the beginning of a new life for me.”
‘I cured Hrithik Roshan’ – claimed Johnny Lever
Lever made numerous claims just like other faith healers like Bajinder Singh, Ankur Narula, Kanchal Mittal, Bakht Singh, PC John, Nirmala Joshi and many others. According to Lever, after starting preaching the word of Jesus across the world, he gained healing powers. Though he did not directly say he has powers, but he did hint towards having supernatural “healing touch”. The most bizarre claim that he has made in several interviews and healing meetings is that he cured the old liver ailment of actor Hrithik Roshan.
A clip is making rounds on social media in which Lever could be seen addressing a large crowd in an event organised by Youth Associate International. It is a missionary organisation based out of Pune that claims to “help people find answer in Jesus”. Interestingly, they have two photographs of former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in their photo gallery on the website. It is unclear if the former PM attended their program or they added his photographs out of context.
Anyway, coming back to Johnny Lever. During his address to the crowd, Lever said, “One day, on a shoot, I saw Rakesh Roshan limping. When I asked him, he said he was feeling as if someone had put 100 KG weight on his shoulders. I asked him if I could pray for him. He agreed. I prayed, and within minutes he was fine.” The crowd applauded. “A few days later, after the release of Hrithik Roshan’s first film, I met Rakesh Roshan and congratulated him for the success of the film. That day, Roshan told me about the liver ailment of Hrithik. He told me he had been suffering for years, but there was no improvement. He asked me if I could pray for Hrithik as I did for him,” Lever added.
Johnny Lever said he was amazed to see Roshan asking for help for Hrithik. He called up Hrithik and “[while gesturing as if he was pointing where the liver is] I asked Hrithik you are not well? Now you will be fine. ‘Jesus heal him’, I prayed, and till date, he did not have to take any medicine for his swollen liver.” Interestingly, Lever has been making such claims for years now, but no one from the Roshan family had denied it. Such claims not only make people believe in so-called ‘Change meetings’ or ‘Healing meetings’ but also give a boost to frauds like Bajinder Singh and Ankur Narula, who lure naïve people to convert to Christianity on the pretext of ‘miracle treatment’.
During the same address, Lever claimed to have cured the stone of many workers on the set of a film. He said, “A man came to meet me while I was reading Bible in my van. When I asked him to sit, he sat with great difficulty. When I questioned him, he told me he had stone. I prayed to him ‘In the name of Jesus’ and asked him after two minutes. He was cured.” Lever further alleged that when he came outside, there was a long line of people with a similar health problem. “I worked on the set for ten days and cured all of them by the end of the shoot,” Lever alleged.
In another claim, Johnny Lever alleged he cured Mitali Singh’s (Ghazal singer) breast cancer who lived in his building. He said, “I met Mitali, who lived in my building. She told me she was diagnosed with breast cancer. I was shocked and felt petty for her. We struggled together. While I was talking to her, I heard a voice in my head ‘her cancer is cured’. I told her the same. She showed me a report and said two more reports are awaited that would take a week. Later she showed me reports that the cancer was still there. I told her to get checked again. She was cured. Now she has two reports, one with cancer and one without cancer.” Lever made this claim during an interview with actor Anupam Kher.
In the same interview, he alleged that he cured the paralysis of the driver of actor Asrani. He said, “One day I was reading Bible when Asrani’s driver came to meet me. He told me he had a paralysis attack and was on bed rest for months. I touched the hand that was supposed to be paralysed, and suddenly it started moving.”
Doctors cured his son, but he cured people with a ‘miracle touch’
There is a saying, “God help those who try”. Johnny Lever’s son was saved by the doctors. One may believe that God showed him the path. There is nothing wrong with having faith, no matter which religion you follow. However, it is farfetched, misleading and highly problematic to say that Johnny Lever gained supernatural powers that enabled him to cure stone, lever swelling and cancer, among other health problems.
While doctors with years of experience cured Jessy Lever, his father travelled around the world alleging Jesus cured his son and claimed to have cured different health problems by just praying and touching the patients. As a preacher, Lever follows the path of the “miracle healers” that have been converting naïve people across India, promising them to heal them. Hrithik Roshan never called out his bluffs, and he may never do so.
