Commerce of Godmen

Commerce of Godmen

Spiritual entrepreneurs start with the peddling of intangibles by way of highfaluting sermons in florid flourishes of language, using arabesque turns of phrase and idiom. It is often accompanied by spectacular rituals that compel attention and the recycling of fossilised wisdom from old texts, all in exchange for the not so intangible collections from their followers ostensibly for the promotion of the Faith, the best Instrument to tackle the problems of the modern world. As Meera Nanda taunts in The God Market ‘...tradition is modernity and to go forward, Indians must face backward.’

Intoxicated by the unexpected success of these start-ups, the purveyors of supernatural and theological virtues first enter the fields of education and health care, both highly rewarding areas, and follow it up with obtaining grants of land from a benevolent government to aid their socially beneficent schemes. Exercising a business acumen that has been highly developed from the handling of large finances some eye real estate and parcel out land (against substantial donations) originally acquired for an Ashram, retailing it for the stay of devotees in the larger family defined by the ashram which is now lorded over by the New Age Guru.  Such is the usual trajectory of the Babas that a gullible population worships and deifies.

However, the ambitions of unbridled ascetics soar high and aspire to match the successes of the tycoons of commerce and industry. Diversification is the tool to use and the manufacture of fast moving consumer goods provides a potent answer. The constituency of devotees becomes a captive test market and in some cases acts as a distribution network greatly subsidising the costs of selling. Even the tasks of copywriters and advertisement managers become easy by using terms like Ayurveda, Patanjali, Science of the Ancients, Naturopathy, all of which tug at the emotions of a people not yet unburdened of tradition. The competition which starts by facing organised industry takes on a different fierceness when pitted between different ashrams. Brand loyalty is yoked to Guru loyalty.

If these spiritual enterprises, having co-opted the temporal without deviating from the spiritual, are to follow the well trodden path of modern industry, we may soon see black knights and white knights manoeuvering for control of the smaller corporations and even perhaps mergers and acquisitions. There are quite a few ashrams in decline and in need of resurrecting. Will the larger spiritual corporations come to their rescue?

As Gramsci said “The point of modernity is to live a life without illusions while not becoming disillusioned.”