Confessions and Exposés of Indian fallen godmen and cults: Bikram, Gurmeet, Asaram, Osho, Mahesh Yogi, Nithyananda, Sai Baba

ASPIRATIONS AND TRADITION

Before expanding internationally, many of these leaders first shored up their support base in India. One factor helping them achieve domestic popularity is the country’s increasing religiosity. Some 54 per cent of Indians surveyed believed that religion played a bigger role in society today than it did two decades ago, according to analysis by the Washington-based Pew Research Centre released in April last year.

This, combined with unquestioned beliefs in religious ideas, left many Indians feeling helpless about their own lives, said Avinash Patil, head of Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (MANS), an organisation that promotes rationalism and fights belief in superstitions.

“People feel like they have no control over their lives, that their lives are controlled by these higher powers. In moments like these, they need someone to make sense of things and give them a feeling of control,” he said.

“People often feel that their problems can’t be solved by such a system. Hence, they turn to godmen claiming to have supernatural powers that can heal or make life better for their devotees,” Patil said.

Across India, spiritual leaders look to fill this vacuum by carrying out charitable activities, from running free schools and hospitals to carrying out small-scale developmental works, especially in rural areas.

Said journalist Bhavdeep Kang, author of the 2016 book Gurus: Stories of India’s Leading Babas: “If you are at the bottom of the socioeconomic pyramid, these gurus can offer you not just spiritual help, they also offer financial and medical aid, and even education. Often, they subsume the role of the welfare state.”

HOW THE WEST WAS WON

What explains the international popularity of these gurus? According to Kang, the answer lies in the slow but sure spread of Hinduism and its spiritual ideas through the West in the 20th century. “Sometime in the 1960s, there was a growing realisation, in the Western world especially, that despite enjoying material prosperity, many felt disenchanted and were looking for a higher purpose. That’s when India’s spiritual gurus stepped in and filled in the void,” he said.

Kang points to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, whose success opened the door for other spiritual leaders. The Maharishi was one of the earliest global spiritual leaders to hail from India, and the founder of the 1960s Transcendental Meditation movement. He at one point counted the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys among his followers.

Celebrity endorsements, widening political influence and expanded networks of patronage slowly gave these gurus the status of cult leaders. As spiritual organisations started operating like multinational corporations, the gurus themselves started leading famously lavish lifestyles.

According to his BBC obituary, the Maharishi lived in a 200-room mansion, with a fleet of cars and helicopters. Osho Rajneesh, who was the subject of the popular Netflix documentary Wild Wild Country, had a large collection of Rolls-Royce cars and a clutch of international bank accounts.

Both Kang and Patil believe it is the accumulation of power and influence that ultimately corrupts many spiritual leaders.

CRIMINAL ACTS

MANS, the organisation dedicated to fighting superstition, until recently had an investigative team that would conduct “sting operations”, using hidden cameras and recorders, against thousands of so-called gurus in India who claimed to perform miracles. These operations stopped after the provincial government of Maharashtra – where the group did much of its work – passed an anti-superstition law in 2013.

MANS head Patil said the organisation had conducted at least 150 such exposés annually for the past three decades. “When we investigated these tip-offs, we realised 70 per cent of them were criminals who were trying to conceal previous criminal acts by becoming spiritual gurus. But the police would often not be very comfortable taking complaints against such high-profile gurus.”