Nothing spiritual when sects control politics
Rise of cults in India have benefitted politicians. To now talk of a crackdown seems hypocritical
The Dera’s support of the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) brought the party to power. To talk now of a crackdown, when complicity and cooperation marked the relationship, seems hypocritical.
As violence spreads across Punjab and Haryana, a spectator has to ask broader questions beyond Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh’s conviction for rape. Where are these movements? How do they grow so exponentially? Why is the state so illiterate or complicit about them? One has to place this event within a broader history.
The rise of new millennial sects is one of the most fascinating and disturbing phenomenon today. Like all millennial groups, they represent the downcast and the downtrodden. Millennialism brings to their lives a set of dreams, aspirations, dramas where the future is more enticing, and the present more pregnant with expectation. Millennialism is usually elliptical to the state and, unlike radical movements, expects change through the acts of an extraordinary prophet. It threatens the state and at another level operates parallel to the state. It expects a miracle but a miracle all can share, where the believer is rewarded with a cornucopia of gifts, accessories which makes Father Christmas look stingy.
The performative power of these sects is amazing. Peter Worsley talks of groups that expected a new Christ to come and whose second coming was accompanied by the skies opening and dropping Frigidaire products and other gadgets.
The Dera Sacha Sauda sect of Singh is another fascinating example. The name of the man itself signals a collage of equal religions. Singh is tech savvy, like all new spiritualist groups. His followers come from lower castes and classes, and believe he is a prophet of a new, more equal age. Like other sects, he is utterly Mcluhanese where he can proudly announce the medium is the message, as he stars in films that make science fiction look silly. In times when electoralism is colourless and repetitive, Singh is a technicolour prophet, whose ideas offer to speed up the golden age. He seeks attention, and gets attention, by claiming records like the Guinness record for the most massive blood donation camp. In fact, the first three records of mammoth donation all stand in the name of the sect. When altruism becomes a mass phenomenon, the message of the sect is driven home. The sect is reformative, even progressive in a performative way as when it organised a mass marriage ceremony for former sex workers. Here again an exemplary act goes beyond legislative
The sects realise that the progressive and the miraculous go together. The ethic they offer is an ascetic discipline where spirituality and equality create a miraculous solidarity.
and political piety and creates a world of legitimacy for a marginal group like sex workers. The prestations at these ceremonies are cornucopian as each married couple receives a cheque of Rs150, 000. After the government fussing silly over doles of Rs500 or Rs 1000, Singh looks far more credible and promising. Yet there is always a progressive touch of the scientific and the hygienic, as Singh announces that all workers were medically examined prior to the ceremony.
It is amazing how the sect springs up in an anonymous little town, an aspiration of some spiritual ascetic, as a sect of ashrams and has gone global ten years later. The membership of theses sects has to be seen in demographic terms as they can outpace even groups like the RSS. It is this ability to command crowds and a fanatical loyalty that makes Dera Sacha Sauda’s ashrams a threat to the state as they create a regime of parallel governance — both civic and spiritual.
There is an egalitarian appeal to justice and solidarity in an age where aspiration meets hierarchy. The sects realise that the progressive and the miraculous go together. The ethic they offer is an ascetic discipline where spirituality and equality create a miraculous solidarity. Here social reform in an almost immediate sense accompanies political equality as widows are offered remarriage, sex workers a new dignity, disaster victims a prospect of rehabilitation. It was Dera Sacha Sauda that filed a petition in the Supreme Court asking it to grant legal status to transgender peoples in April 2014. Organisationally, these groups are efficient enclaves, little communities which also command large real estate.
The epidemic power of such movements is clear. All over UP, Punjab and Haryana, the ashrams under questionable prophets offer dreams of a more millennial world. As democracy turns sour, these movements are appearing as a challenge to the electoral world. Spirituality in all its forms is becoming a powerful force. The sects with higher caste support like Sadhguru, Saibaba or Swaminarayan have eventually merged into the corridors of power, serving as auxiliaries to governance. The newer millennial sects with an OBC following will be threats to law and order, to a democracy that has little sense of the realities of small-town lives and dreams. It is clear today that the ashram is an alternative model of power and governance, capable of threat and violence, challenging the state which has no sense of the ruthless rise and proliferation of these groups. —The Wire