Hindu Nationalism, Gurus and Media

Abstract

This commentary offers a reflection on the triangular interactive relationship between Hindutva, gurus and media. It suggests that Hindu nationalists understand gurus to be a specific form of valued Hindu cultural good, which helps to explain mediatised activist attempts to defend gurus from legal and media scrutiny, and historicises the theme of guru domination, caste politics and Hindutva through the optics of matter and media, exploring both the mass remediation of Brahmanical guruship models that attended Hindutva’s rise in the 1990s and the oppositional response it provoked, which we term ‘the subaltern counter-publicity of the guru’. It discloses how Hindutva is itself structurally composed of guru logics at different scales; it embodies a kind of ‘fractal guruship’. However, if Hindutva mediates principles of guruship, we also see how a multitude of public gurus mediates principles of Hindutva. This ‘bi-instrumentalism’ of Hindu nationalism and some gurus is witnessed in the instances we describe of gurus—and the idea of India as a guru—being used as a means of branding in order to convey and normalise the ‘Hindutva idea of India’. We suggest, in light of the frequent mutual mediation of gurus and Hindutva, that continued investment by devotees and commentators in gurus as figures embodying hope and the promise of post-communal amity can aptly be described using Berlant’s evocative phrase ‘cruel optimism’.

“Guruji Rocked . . . Duniya Shocked”

“…However, if his previous support for the Congress had afforded him a measure of protection, the political winds were such in 2014 that strategic alignment with the ongoing populist politics of the BJP came to make sense. It "worked" for both parties up to a point-the BJP made gains in the guru's regions of influence (parts of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, and to a lesser extent Delhi) and in government it ensured that his first feature film MSG: Messenger of God was released, despite the Censor Board's initial ban on it, a subplot that we discuss further elsewhere (Copeman and Duggal 2023). Eventually, however, the quantity and gravity of the charges against the guru outweighed the protection the BJP was willing or able to give him, and in 2017 the guru was sentenced to twenty years in prison for the rape of two sadhvis (female ascetics), while, in 2019, he was convicted for the murder of an investigative journalist and sentenced to life imprisonment.…”

“…Curiosity is maintained: What image will come next? In the afterlife of these ruhani mehfils (evenings of spiritual entertainment) other means for circulation of his image include studio portraits in printed materials (hoardings, magazines), video performances, and most recently feature films (Copeman and Duggal 2023).…”

“…Without interaction or synthesis between the opposing principles, he embodies and projects both transcendence of caste (the name Insan, human, borne by him and his followers, was explicitly instituted as a means of transcending and invalidating jati) and caste pride (as in his film Jattu Engineer). Army tank driver and stockpiler of weaponry (see Copeman and Duggal 2023), the guru of MSG nonetheless celebrates-and seeks to claim affiliation with-"Gandhi's message of winning one's opponent through non-violence" (Roy 2017). In the same film he "addresses himself as fakir, but is seen in elaborate never-repeating costumes that feature some [of the most] heady imaginations with bling that you would ever see" (Roy 2017).…”