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How India ‘created’ its many gurus

When RSS ideologues declared some years ago that everyone in India is a Hindu, it opened up the way for extended discussions on who is a Hindu and what might Hinduism mean.

How India ‘created’ its many gurus

Holy cows: The author laments that a growing neo-liberal economy has created circumstances conducive to the popularity of these gurus. He also bemoans the failure of the Marxists to provide Indians with an alternative world view that would have enabled them to withstand the allure of these ever-burgeoning gurus



M Rajivlochan

When RSS ideologues declared some years ago that everyone in India is a Hindu, it opened up the way for extended discussions on who is a Hindu and what might Hinduism mean. This was a question that flummoxed the English when they decided to rule India. Viceroy Warren Hastings, before he was impeached for corruption, tried to figure out an answer by hiring a set of pandits and maulvis from Benares to give him a briefing note. Since those days, 250 years ago, every now and then someone brave enough comes up to provide the definitive answer. This book is the latest addition.

The book begins with a 20-page introduction that asserts that Indians have always been religious. Religion, the next chapter — two pages in length — warns us, “reflects humanity’s lack of control over the social forces that resulted from class domination”. Some of what the author means by such cryptic comments becomes clear in the subsequent chapters.

The third chapter claims that Hinduism has always been syncretic in nature and even allowed for ‘social reform’ and ‘lower caste protest’. Much of the transformation of Hinduism in modern times happened, as the author is at pains to suggest, in response to new ideas and conditions that accompanied the British rule in India. In an aside, the author says that in the recent past there has been a transformation in religion. It has come under the influence of a ‘monolithic, majoritarian, Brahminic version of Hinduism as popularised by the Sangh Parivar’. The author follows this up by giving us his views about the role of gurus in India.

His exegesis on gurudom begins with the Vedas, covers the smritis and puranas, the tantra tradition, the Bhakti movement of medieval times and ends with what he calls is ‘the growth of the Hindutva forces’. This is followed by a chapter each on Rajneesh, and three bapus, Morari, Asharam and Aniruddha. We did note that the chapter on Rajneesh studiously avoids addressing him as Acharya, the title preferred by Rajneesh’s followers. Morari, Asharam and Aniruddha, though are respectfully addressed as Bapu or Shree.

The four chapters are almost identically structured. These start with a brief history of the pre-godhood days of that man. These then explain in a few pages the main teachings. These teachings are placed within the Great Traditions of India. Asharam is given a pat on his jailed back for not ever referring to anything from the Great Tradition involving Ram, Krishna or the Mahabharat. Each chapter ends with a lament on how a growing neo-liberal economy created circumstances conducive to the popularity of these gurus. The author also lets out a minor lament on the failure of the Indian Marxists to provide Indians with an alternative world view that would have enabled them to withstand the allure of ever burgeoning gurus.

There is no specific portion marked as ‘Conclusion’ in this book. Just as it does not have a bibliography. Its last sentence is a despondent remark culled from a 1985 article in the Illustrated Weekly (presumably of India): “The prospects of fresh revolutionary energies springing up from the subterranean consciousness of the masses are not bright. The power of the establishment to neutralise dissent knows no bounds”.

No one can disagree with such conclusions. All that one can say is that the book, perhaps inadvertently, suffers from a pro-men, anti-women bias. Nowhere in its analysis does it include any Devi, Goddess or godwomen. They, I would imagine, are the more successful ones in the god business. For, while many godmen are currently in jail for doing hanky panky with women followers and worse, the godwomen of India continue to be out of jail, free of any taint of sexual harassment and continue to provide solace to their followers.

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