Gods
for Sale
By Satya Sagar
Znet
27 January, 2004
It
is a very, very Indian story.
A few weeks ago
a friend of mine filed a petition in the Indian Supreme Court against
- believe it or not- the tenth incarnation of the Hindu God Vishnu!
Or at least, against a person who claims to be nothing less than that
and has in the past decade drummed up a following of over several million
people in the southern part of India.
Blasphemous as the
claim of this fake avatar is the court battle is not really about the
finer details of Hindu cosmology or theological doctrine.
Based on several
years of painstaking investigation and research it is my friend's claim
that 'Kalki Bhagwan', as the defendant calls himself, has taken money
from the public for rural development activities and fraudulently diverted
it to his personal bank accounts as well as that of his close relatives.
From being an ordinary clerk working for a state-owned life insurance
company fifteen years ago today the 'Tenth Incarnation of Vishnu' is
allegedly worth many million dollars and owns vast properties in many
parts of South India.
The Indian Supreme
Court has been asked, based on the merits of the evidence presented,
to order a thorough investigation by state agencies into the functioning
of the 'Kalki' empire.
The 'Kalki' case
is not very unique in a country that gave the world the word 'guru'
to begin with and produces more of them every year than the rest of
the world combined. (I am including some software programmers here!!!).
The manipulation of abstract (often abstruse) thought to manipulate
animate creatures has deep roots in this ancient land, which has produced
several of the world's major religions apart from numerous cults and
mystical traditions.
Out of all the 'gurus'
that routinely spring up on the spiritually fertile Indian soil only
a few are genuinely enlightened souls who help spread goodness and true
religiosity around them. The bulk of them are unfortunately ordinary
conmen out to make a quick buck.
Once upon a time
the typical 'guru' would prey on the gullibility of the predominantly
rural and illiterate Indian population. Considering the raw deal these
village folks got here on Planet Earth their attraction to anyone promising
a better life in the Heavens above was never surprising.
But in recent times
god men and gurus of all kinds have developed a huge following within
the urban Indian lower middle and middle classes. Since the early eighties
in particular there has been a boom in the `guru industry' across urban
India and some of them have acquired virtual pop-star status. (All that
long hair helps, I am sure)
So what explains
this phenomenon of otherwise educated, well-heeled Indians queuing up
in droves to fall at the feet of fake god men and shower them with money?
Is this about the genuine quest of individuals seeking spiritual salvation
in a very materialist world or is it about their dishonest attempts
to get quick-fix solutions to the moral dilemmas they face in an increasingly
unscrupulous world? To be fair I guess one would have to say it is a
bit of both.
On one hand there
is a genuine search for spiritual satisfaction that many individuals
undertake, in a world where there is growing material consumption but
diminishing human happiness. This leads many to experiment with one
false prophet after the other in the hope of arriving at a magic formula
that will bring balance between mind and matter.
Also given the inability
of institutionalized religion to cater to the specific spiritual needs
of individuals, many people turn to gurus who offer precisely such personalized
service. Like having your own custom-built conduit to nirvana.
At another level,
the kind of things that most members of the middle-classes need to do
in their jobs to both keep their jobs and get ahead of the Jains (the
Indian equivalent of the Jones) creates considerable moral turbulence
to say the least. While most people justify whatever they do as being
part of 'what everyone does to survive' the fact is their conscience
still undergoes a torment that simply cannot be wished away- and hence
has to be whitewashed away.
The more troubled
a society is by feelings of guilt and sinfulness that the consumerism
of the few amidst poverty of the many engenders, the more frenetic its
public display of pretended religiosity. It is this vast growing market
for moral mufflers across the small towns and cities of India that the
guru industry has managed to cleverly identify and capture.
With their instant
solutions of spiritual salvation- sold at steep moral discounts with
pay-as-you-pray options- the gurus have struck a commercial goldmine.
In exchange for a fat fee they offer the modern citizen an easy way
out of the more difficult task of maintaining integrity or decency in
their day-to-day lives.
There was a time
in the past when the typical guru would become popular by exhorting
the public to give up their material desires and then sit back to watch
all the lovely money flow into his own bank account. Nowadays though
the average guru is more realistic about public attitudes and instead
promises them all kinds of shortcuts to instant wealth while charging
a commission for his services.
"Don't shun
worldly pleasures, seek ultimate happiness" the Tenth Avatar is
quoted as preaching to his devotees, (sounds like the late Chairman
Deng to me!) to whom he promises everything from winning lotteries to
marrying a bride who looks just like their favorite movie star. His
foundations charge followers for attending courses on something called
'pragmatic materialism'.
The Indian public
is lapping up this kind of drivel and paying for it too. Today the sad
situation is that while the average urban Indian becomes more and more
overtly religious in his/her public activities, politics, priorities
and cultural symbolism- this is accompanied by a steep fall in his/her
actual moral worth.
For all their hedonist
holiness the Indian middle-classes have neither become more charitable,
or generous, or kinder or tolerant- not a single sign that they have
somehow become better human beings than before. ('Don't interrupt my
orgasm! You unhappy, pseudo-secular, bloody communist!!' I can hear
them say)
At the macro-level
too there are other pressures that bear upon the individual pushing
them towards blind unquestioning faith. One of these is the deliberate
injection of uncertainty into the material lives of millions of Indians
in recent decades by successive governments implementing neo-liberal
economic policies.
Since the early
eighties successive Indian regimes have pursued a path of Liberalisation,
Privatisation, Globalisation (the LPG model) which has resulted in increasing
income inequalities, diminishing job opportunities and the rapid erosion
of the rights of employees in both the state and private sectors. The
last two decades of the Indian economy has been aptly characterized
by some as consisting of an industrial sector which had growth without
jobs, while the rural sector saw employment without income. According
to the Indian Planning Commission there are currently 212 million people
in the country between the ages of 14 to 24, but only 107 million have
jobs.
The insecurity of
the average Indian family today is one of gigantic proportions as they
witness before their own eyes the systematic destruction of all hopes
for a better life by policies designed only to enrich a few at the expense
of the many. Unable to understand this process and in the absence of
organized resistance many have resigned themselves to their fate or
sought refuge in the false but comfortable world of pseudo-religiosity.
Another major factor
promoting the growth of spiritual supermarkets and religious retailers
in India is of course the speculative greed unleashed among its middle
classes by the 'casinofication' of its economy- as a consequence of
globalisation.
The sheer volumes
and velocity of global financial flows conjures an awe among many human
beings that was once upon a time reserved only for the grand forces
of Mother Nature. And in a world where money mysteriously appears in
some lives and disappears from others, like the incarnation of an ancient
God, it is difficult not to become superstitious.
It is not accidental
therefore that financial speculators, aptly dubbed as 'wizards' by the
media, have become the new high priests of our societies and role models
for many people. "When in sorrow contact Soros, for happiness try
the Hedge Fund! " has become the new mantra of the punting classes.
And like all gamblers
everywhere the speculating middle-class citizen today will do any damn
desperate thing to keep fate of his/her financial investments prospering.
Go through the classifieds section of any major Indian newspaper and
you will find outfits peddling everything from astrology, numerology,
fengshui, magic gems side by side with finance companies, stock brokers,
real estate agents, investment consultants, wheelers and dealers of
every description.
So what we have
right now in much of urban India is a mad scramble by the middle classes
to blindly bet everything they have on the market and equally blindly
buy insurance from the nearest holy-looking scamster and hope it all
works out fine.
While I have described
so far the dilemmas of the temple (also mosque/church in the Indian
context) going public the question that troubles me is that if the people
have become vulnerable is it not the responsibility of the truly religious
to restore their moral spines? Unfortunately as far as most contemporary
religious institutions are concerned one sees no attempt whatsoever
to help ordinary citizens cope in an honest and dignified manner with
the momentous economic and social upheavals tossing around their once
simple lives.
Instead what we
witness is that religious outfits- after having served out their feudal
masters in the past- are quickly adapting to the corporatisation of
the world and becoming full-fledged enterprises on their own. And all
signs are that they have been extremely successful too- using every
modern corporate tool from slick advertising to internet marketing to
get their customers.
Just to give an
example from Thailand- one new Buddhist sect here called the Dhammakaya
which preaches the Kalki/Deng line of "to get rich is glorious'
actually won a national award in 1988 for its 'market planning strategies'
from the Business Management Association of Thailand.
Before anyone gets
me wrong let me explain that I do seriously believe in the possibility
of religious institutions playing a very positive role in many societies
provided they put the interests of ordinary folk above that of rich
elites or their own survival. Just to give another example from Thailand
again the Buddhist Sangha here does a fantastic service to society by
absorbing large numbers of rural youth from poor farming families into
the monkhood. The Sangha provides the young monks with shelter, a basic
education and a sense of social responsibility and at the same time
is not dogmatic or rigid about their leaving the monkhood to take up
other professions. Some of Thailand's best know writers, artists and
even social activists come from a background in the monkhood.
Maybe one can argue
that it is the role of the state to provide such welfare but in many
a developing country given the dysfunctional state of the state such
traditional social welfare systems still have an important role. (If
such opportunities were extended to young Thai women, who are unfortunately
discriminated against, Thailand could get rid of much of its notorious
commercial sex industry)
In stark contrast
in India, with a few splendid exceptions, most religious institutions
have ceased to serve the public in any meaningful way and instead parasitically
live off them. At the time of Indian Independence Jawaharlal Nehru,
the first Prime Minister, famously claimed that industries would become
the 'temples of modern India'. What we see now is that instead it is
the temples that have become 'industries of a revivalist India'!
If this is going
to be the case then I have a suggestion to make. Subject all religious
institutions to the same laws that apply to all other industries, businesses
and trade. Allow all those employed by the religious industry to form
trade unions and empower consumers of religion to claim compensation
in the courts when they get products of 'low spiritual quality'. If
they are in the business of selling God then there should at least be
a sales tax on the proceeds. Tax these religious outfits and use the
money to pay for truly religious actions such as giving the weak and
poor a better life.
A good start would
be to straighten out the booming business empire of none other than
our dear 'Tenth Avatar of Vishnu'.
Satya Sagar is a
journalist based in Thailand. He can be reached at [email protected]