10-11-2011, 11:20 AM
[size="3"][url="http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Citycitybangbang/entry/the-divine-middlemen"]The divine middlemen[/url] : TOI, 09 October 2011
[/size][indent][size="3"][quote name="Santosh Desai"]During the Anna Hazare movement, a puzzlingly important role was played by a variety of spiritual leaders. We had the Baba Ramdev soap opera that ended badly in sari-drenched absurdity, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar in dulcet huddles with Anna, and a curious gentleman by the moniker of Bhaiyuji who surfaced mysteriously and played a role of unspecified importance in the negotiations with the representatives of the government. And while the movement attracted people from different sections of society, including mandatory film stars and not very famous celebrities, eager to be seen and heard, the fact that these Godmen were not only present but were called upon to play key roles needs some reflection.
The Godmen involved in the Anna Hazare-led movement have little in common- one is a yoga guru famous for fierce palpitations of the stomach, that has won him a middle class constituency, another a guru catering to white collar misery and the need for beatific consolation, while the third one comes without a known constituency, antecedents and the hirsute persona otherwise deemed mandatory for entry into guru-dom. What unites them is thus nothing other than their apparent other-worldliness, and what makes them suitable for the role that they were asked to play or insisted successfully on playing, is nothing more than the fact that they are spiritual leaders with constituencies.
The need for Godmen comes from two opposite ends of the spectrum. They attract both those who have failed unreasonably and those who have succeeded inexplicably; ... [color="#9932cc"]....bla bla bla.... more bla....[/color]
In many ways, Godmen are truly and perhaps in the most complete sense of the word, middlemen. They mediate between matters of the earth and sky, worldliness and the transcendental, belonging and detachment, surface and depth, ritual belief and individual awakening. ... [/size][color="#9932cc"][size="3"]....bla bla bla.... still more bla....[/size][/color]
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It is this quality that makes him invaluable as a mediator. Wearing a shroud of culturally-enabled legitimacy for they are after all, holy men, Godmen are middlemen of unclassifiable power representing an undefined constituency. Unlike the politician whose constituency is often paid for, the Godman enjoys the distinction of have true followers and audiences that come of their volition in very large numbers to hear their leader. Nothing sticks to him, no scandal, no television sting expose, no allegation of embezzlement, molestation or murder- the spiritual guru enjoys immunity of a kind that politicians have done so far, only with far greater legitimacy. In some ways, the spiritual leader is a politician of a different religion, wearing saffron instead of white, <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/angry.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':angry:' /> dealing in prescriptions instead of promises and attracting believers instead of voters. If the politicians find themselves channelizing the potent power of the state, the Godmen funnel the even greater and more intangible belief in the divine.
The Jan Lokpal movement represents a de-institutionalisation of democracy as it moves from being an alien ritual performed with awkward hesitancy to something that is owned and practised with cultural self-confidence. As democracy breaks out of its institutional straitjacket and spills over into the realms of cultural practice, it will begin to absorb the larger forces at work in society.![[Image: smile-yes.gif]](http://i1219.photobucket.com/albums/dd436/sumishi2009/Smileys2/smile-yes.gif)
The inclusion of Godmen into the mainstream political discourse might not be a one-time phenomenon but a sign of things to come. In the use of democracy as a mode of public expression rather than ritual enactment of a political system, lies a new engagement with it which will be at once more real and more fragmented and chaotic. The separation of politics from life is about to end, and one by-product of that is that we have may have read about people like Bhaiyuji Maharaj more often than we have imagined.[/quote]
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[/size][indent][size="3"][quote name="Santosh Desai"]During the Anna Hazare movement, a puzzlingly important role was played by a variety of spiritual leaders. We had the Baba Ramdev soap opera that ended badly in sari-drenched absurdity, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar in dulcet huddles with Anna, and a curious gentleman by the moniker of Bhaiyuji who surfaced mysteriously and played a role of unspecified importance in the negotiations with the representatives of the government. And while the movement attracted people from different sections of society, including mandatory film stars and not very famous celebrities, eager to be seen and heard, the fact that these Godmen were not only present but were called upon to play key roles needs some reflection.
The Godmen involved in the Anna Hazare-led movement have little in common- one is a yoga guru famous for fierce palpitations of the stomach, that has won him a middle class constituency, another a guru catering to white collar misery and the need for beatific consolation, while the third one comes without a known constituency, antecedents and the hirsute persona otherwise deemed mandatory for entry into guru-dom. What unites them is thus nothing other than their apparent other-worldliness, and what makes them suitable for the role that they were asked to play or insisted successfully on playing, is nothing more than the fact that they are spiritual leaders with constituencies.
The need for Godmen comes from two opposite ends of the spectrum. They attract both those who have failed unreasonably and those who have succeeded inexplicably; ... [color="#9932cc"]....bla bla bla.... more bla....[/color]
In many ways, Godmen are truly and perhaps in the most complete sense of the word, middlemen. They mediate between matters of the earth and sky, worldliness and the transcendental, belonging and detachment, surface and depth, ritual belief and individual awakening. ... [/size][color="#9932cc"][size="3"]....bla bla bla.... still more bla....[/size][/color]
[size="3"]
It is this quality that makes him invaluable as a mediator. Wearing a shroud of culturally-enabled legitimacy for they are after all, holy men, Godmen are middlemen of unclassifiable power representing an undefined constituency. Unlike the politician whose constituency is often paid for, the Godman enjoys the distinction of have true followers and audiences that come of their volition in very large numbers to hear their leader. Nothing sticks to him, no scandal, no television sting expose, no allegation of embezzlement, molestation or murder- the spiritual guru enjoys immunity of a kind that politicians have done so far, only with far greater legitimacy. In some ways, the spiritual leader is a politician of a different religion, wearing saffron instead of white, <img src='http://www.india-forum.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/angry.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':angry:' /> dealing in prescriptions instead of promises and attracting believers instead of voters. If the politicians find themselves channelizing the potent power of the state, the Godmen funnel the even greater and more intangible belief in the divine.
The Jan Lokpal movement represents a de-institutionalisation of democracy as it moves from being an alien ritual performed with awkward hesitancy to something that is owned and practised with cultural self-confidence. As democracy breaks out of its institutional straitjacket and spills over into the realms of cultural practice, it will begin to absorb the larger forces at work in society.
The inclusion of Godmen into the mainstream political discourse might not be a one-time phenomenon but a sign of things to come. In the use of democracy as a mode of public expression rather than ritual enactment of a political system, lies a new engagement with it which will be at once more real and more fragmented and chaotic. The separation of politics from life is about to end, and one by-product of that is that we have may have read about people like Bhaiyuji Maharaj more often than we have imagined.[/quote][/size][/indent]