Modernity and GodmenVol - XLIX No. 3, January 18, 2014 | Ajay Gudavarthy 

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Any amount of incriminating evidence does not seem to

dither the followers and devotees of godmen, and they

continue to invest their faith, trust and affection in them. The

sociology of faith in a deeply divided and hierarchy/status-

conscious society like ours needs deeper probing and public

reasoning, even if this phenomenon looks beyond reason. 

Ajay Gudavarthy (Gajay99@rediffmail.com) is at the Centre

for Political Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

The recent conviction of Asaram Bapu and his son Narayan

Sai for alleged rape and sexual assault charges have once

again brought to the forefront the culture of power and the

way it is exercised over trusting followers. The catch,

however, is not merely the breach of trust of the devotees

but also the refusal of the followers to believe the mountain

of evidence against their revered guru. This again is not the

first time such a situation has emerged. Earlier we had

incidents of young men found murdered in the ashram

headed by Puttaparthi Sai Baba in Ananthpur and evidence

against his claims to perform magic of presenting his

devotees with gifts created out of thin air. Any amount of

incriminating evidence does not seem to dither the followers

and devotees of godmen, and they continue to invest their

faith, trust and affection in them. The sociology of faith in a

deeply divided and hierarchy/status-conscious society like

ours needs deeper probing and public reasoning, even if this

phenomenon looks beyond reason. Divided societies would

have divided reasons; specific to their own social location,

though externally it would like a following that has blind faith

beyond any sociological causation. To begin with, in modern

societies the very idea and feeling of investing hundred

percent faith and trust in anything is itself a unique and a

rewarding emotion. Modern society based on critical

rationality and self-doubt also makes human beings restless

who become like nomads with a deep sense of

homelessness. The compulsion of unrelentingly pursuing

one`s own self-interest, in order to merely survive and get

what is perceived to be one`s due could be an exhausting

experience for most; in that to find a faith, a resting-place

could be very soothing. For the bulk of the population groups

and the common man to find someone whom you could trust

without second thoughts could be a very uplifting experience.

Since complete faith is in itself a necessity, it is not easily

given up even when you offer incriminating evidence

because this can be accepted only at one’s own peril:

believing the evidence is as damaging to the followers as the

guru himself.

Revolving Around the  Self

To the well-off sections of the society, where the followers

come from higher echelons of caste and class, it is not so

much about the need for faith but the dire need to protect

their self-image of being distinguished and exceptional. The

logic could be one where you follow a guru who is great and

larger-than-life, and in following him, or realising that

greatness one reassures one`s self that he or she is also

unique and exceptional. As modernity propels a process of

homogenisation of social roles, while all along demanding

uniqueness and laying premium on individuality, one might

realise this in following a sect that is different from the run-of-

the-mill religiosity. Reflected glory becomes a compulsive

mode for ego-gratification, and recognising that the guru

could be fallible also raises doubts about ones own

exceptionality. It is also these sections of  society that are

looking for reasons and causation in ones life without

locating them within a larger society; they need  explanations

and solutions that begin and end with themselves.

Much of the discourse of the religious cults of babas and

gurus place the follower exclusively at the centre of their

explanations as to why things happen the way they do. This

gives both a sense of control over one’s own life and also

creates a justification for absolute trust in the guru. It is a

reasoning that is pre-social, or for that matter post-social in

nature, since society is looked as the cause or source of

ordinariness, finding one’s own self hyper-separated from

the social domain looks highly gratifying. While modernity

and the discourse of individualism augment hyper-separation

of the self from the social, discourses of religiosity and

spirituality provide a similar avenue with a social justification

rooted in the reality of “our modernity”. This also goes well

with the new middle classes and their acquisitive nature that

new market relations have shaped with their unrelenting

encroachments into personal and cultural domains. Here too

things begin and end with the self ‒ a neatly crafted and

segregated entity that was otherwise lost in the crowd. This

is precisely what Betrand Russel had advocated as the

source of unhappiness and argued in his celebrated

classic The Conquest of Happiness that the real source of

happiness lies in impersonal interests and curiosity to learn.

Urban classes, it seems steadily have lost the capacity for

both. Neither they have a modern culture of hobbies, nor

have they managed to retain traditional respect for

knowledge. Instead, the cultural milieu is one against

experimentation, which suspends into a mode of self-denial,

wherein what one does not know either does not exist or is

irrelevant. This creates a deep sense of vacuum in much of

social life,  sucks meaning out of social and even personal

interactions and opens up the everyday life to a deadly

combination of insecurity and predictability. The sheer

banality of everyday life has to but resort to a belief in magic

and mantras; they serve the purpose of providing

entertainment and quick-fix solutions (that goes well with the

culture of making quick-money). Dancing and singing by the

gurus provide the much sought relief from highly disciplined

and regulated life.

Faith and the  Aam Aadmi

The scores of poor and marginalised who come to the gurus

seem to find in them a mode of bridging the class and social

exclusion that they experience as a routine. The

performative meetings/spectacles held by the gurus emerge

as new social spaces shared with the well-to-do, allowing

them to reclaim a residual assertion of dignity and perceive a

degree of social visibility and inclusion. Unlike the traditional

religiosity of visiting a temple, the lively aspect of seeing a

real-time godman in blood and flesh could be empowering

and offer a dose of self-confidence that is in massive scarcity

in societies like ours. Breaching this formidable social logic

and undercurrent could well be of a different order from

condemning and finding mountain of evidence against

godmen. The value of symbolism in the performative

dimension for the common man, or in more recent

parlance aam aadmi, is then not just restricted to the cultural

domain but could transpire in the political domain as well. To

get past or even negotiate with this symbolism in the

political, one  has to comprehend its source in the psycho-

cultural domain.

At one end as “aam admi” is susceptible to symbolism, at the

other end of the spectrum, the dominant notions of power

are reinforced in the extra-institutional domain. While leading

spiritual gurus like Sri Sri Ravishankar reiterate the need to

privatise education so that people realise its importance and

thereby a meritocratic order is restored, sacred pilgrim sites

such as Tirupathi work through given notions of social capital

and connections. A visit to Tirupathi will allow one to realise

how its daily operations are based on connections with

ministers (VIP darshan is made possible through the

recommendation of the minister of endowment or the chief

minister’s office), and there is a self-evident display of social

status and money. These everyday practices in the psycho-

cultural domain reinforce the dominant notions of power in

the political domain. It is therefore not surprising why

Narendra Modi, with his aggressive posturing and masculine

image looks powerful, and why the likes of Rahul Gandhi

look uninitiated and lethargic. The dominant and the

dominated, governed and those governing, the elite and the

subaltern are inextricably linked through the same socio-

cultural practices, disallowing not only claims to an

“autonomous domain” but also making it difficult to

unabashedly celebrate the cult of the subaltern. This then is

an agenda as much for the political activists as cultural torch-

bearers in India.