‘Gurus and Media’ traces the evolution of guru, the species

Mrinal Pande

I hesitated somewhat before agreeing to review this rather sombre-sounding door stopper of a book, ‘Gurus and Media’. Despite the introduction beginning in a somewhat ponderous Shashi Tharooresque style, one will be pleasantly surprised by the various perspectives on the Vedic concept of a guru and how it has mutated and grown and produced so many avatars. The volume is a carefully-chosen collection of 13 papers by Indian and western scholars. They got involved in a joint effort at bridging the gap between the original concept of a guru and, over time, its various forms visible in the media and popular visual culture today. They help the readers understand how an original concept of a guru, as a fountainhead of learning imparted verbally by the teacher to his disciples, was able to mesh almost seamlessly with the audio-visual media and produced the multi-faceted popular concept of a guru.

The writers investigate the mutating guru iconographies by combining art history, films and even important work done on the caste system to help locate a hidden, troubled history between various gurus like Dronacharya and Kautilya and their non-caste disciples. It is interesting to see them join some puzzling dots to show how India’s political systems over thousands of years have chosen to patronise and help sustain ancient Brahminical hierarchies in learning. Also, how in the secular State created by Baba Sahib Ambedkar’s Constitution and with reformers like Periyar, the pre-democratic concept of guru is being given a new political spin that reshapes it to match the Sangh’s dream of a Hindu Rashtra, yoked to the Brahminical version of Hindutva and the guru.

The etymology of the word ‘guru’ stretches back to the Proto-Indo-European root ‘gwere’ (Patrick SD McCartney and Diego Lourenco). In Sanskrit, guru means the heavyweight. But across time and space in India, it has had many avatars. Central to all is the act of handing down knowledge. Arkotong Longkumer’s essay on ‘The Sonic Guru’ should also interest ethnographers and music lovers. The sound and appearance that singer Guru Mashangva uses encompass a whole culture, rituals, politics, tradition, geography and identity of a people.

The present leadership, authors David Landau and Nina Rageth feel, aims to project a traditional version of Raj Guru, a king and guru in one, heading a Brahminical version of a Bharat full of ancient wisdom and religious thought where cows, gurus and mothers are venerated. The goal, ultimately, is to sell to Indians a whole new exercise in nation-building and globally to tap a rich market in a world full of anxieties and stress. Yoga tourism to toys and dolls to western disciples of Indian gurus like Tagore, Vivekananda and Gandhi are all being promoted in a big way. As gurus, the new India offers not merely spiritual gurus living in the Himalayas, but also master craftspersons, traditional dancers, musicians, multiple-language media and market-savvy gurus.

Given the ambition to market the guru as a commodity, the methodologies for first ensuring the guru’s presence among global disciples are also being subjected to a major change in outfits, speaking patterns and language used for profundities he/she may utter. Hindu gurus and Hindu nationalism have a long history: Vivekananda, the Ramakrishna Mission, Tagore and Gandhi all shared a strong agenda of religious reform and social transformation so that India could free itself of colonialism and its deep sense of inferiority to the white man. Early association between the governing body of the BJP, the RSS, and its crafting of a militant Hinduism is part of that historical yatra. Modiji’s orchestration of this guru image and using a pliant media has helped the Sangh create a Hindu-dominant society and polity, which is an organic development of the genre. This has, in turn, guaranteed his indispensability to the father organisation.

Here is where the book makes some interesting points: to see the evolution of a guru is to see continuity in the innovations, how they may be rooted in the socio-economic and, lately, political needs on the ground. Particularly interesting is Amanda Lucia’s paper (‘Flooding the Web, Media Strategies of Nityananda’s Digital Empire’). The insights could well apply to controversial gurus such a churning has been throwing up: Asaram Bapu, Ram Rahim and Baba Ramdev. There are regular reports on how a guru’s manipulative performance while disseminating specialised knowledge and historical perspective may be actually a dangerous tool for political manipulation of simple trusting folk and creating vote-banks. The messages such gurus send out for mass consumption vastly compromise the moral and spiritual registers of real received wisdom, while making the devoted followers believe in the concept of guru as an embodiment of divinity.

Trust is the keyword. Srirupa Bhattacharya and Jacob Copeman and Koonal Duggal’s papers underscore how a guru can simultaneously be many things to many people. He is different from the pujari or temple priest as a teacher and trusted counsellor. Most Indian homes display photographs or busts of sectarian gurus, slick cosmopolitan gurus like Sadhguru and Sri Sri, high-profile tech and market gurus, and disciples can choose from the vernacular or Anglophone among them.

The media becomes a double-edged sword. It acts as an asset for the guru to draw disciples, gather more power and offerings, but the media also gives space when scandals involving gurus have been highlighted, leading them to jail from where they continue to exercise clout and are routinely released on bail to help political parties win elections.

Market-led development and liberalisation have brought much prosperity to a part of the Indian middle class. These gurus are popular among them and are called to bless them and hold satsangs. Performance and theatricality seem to be essential for a successful guru. Many frequently fly abroad to bless disciples, give lectures. All live glamorous lives in well-appointed ashrams.

The guru today thus needs to be seen as a meta person: more than human but also, all too human. David Landau and Nina Rageth deal with a powerful politician’s shape shifting into a guru during the Covid-imposed isolation of the public overexposed to the media. And how this created a brand new image for a neta as an ascetic guru, who would meditate in caves and on sea shores.

What effect gurudom and its various successful representatives are going to have on a secular State only time will tell.

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