India’s relationship with godmen has always been complicated. Part spiritual teacher, part mystic, part motivational speaker, and part celebrity, these religious leaders — often colloquially known as ‘guru’ and ‘baba’, meaning ‘master’ and ‘father’ respectively — have been critical to the subcontinent’s cultural history. They occupy a curious space in the Indian imagination, inspiring awe and ridicule in equal measure. Popular culture, too, has long recognised the absurdity and danger of blind faith and hero worship, often turning the figure of the spiritual guru into a mirror for society’s anxieties.

Take the films ‘Mahapurush’ (The Holy Man, 1965), ‘OMG – Oh My God!’ (2012), and ‘PK’ (2014), for example. Despite a gulf of almost four decades between them, these films are united by a shared scepticism towards the commercialisation of faith and the unquestioning reverence accorded to self-proclaimed spiritual authorities in India. Each of these films exposes how charisma, fear, and the promise of divine intervention enable fraudulent godmen to exploit vulnerable devotees in India.

Even outside India, the phenomenon of ‘the guru’ has been too strange and too fascinating to ignore. From real-life gurus like Osho, also known as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and Deepak Chopra to reel-life gurus like Jimi Mistry’s Ramu Gupta — the dancer-actor turned ‘Guru of Sex’ — in ‘The Guru’ (2002) and Mike Myers’ Guru Pitka, the self-styled ’second-best Guru in the world’, in the much-maligned ‘The Love Guru’ (2008), even Hollywood has mined the figure of the Eastern spiritual teacher, turning the image of the self-styled spiritual master into a comedic archetype, reflecting Western fascination with “oriental” enlightenment, pithy wisdom, and the capitalistic idea that salvation can be branded and sold in a conveniently marketable form — which, if the global faith economy is any indication, is possible after all.

But the persistence of the guru is not simply because people are gullible. While it’s partially true, that explanation is too easy and conveniently absolves modern society of examining the conditions that create these figures. The rise of godmen is often a symptom of deeper societal failures: the institutionalisation of faith, the lack of public education and healthcare, social isolation, economic insecurity, and the human need for meaning in an increasingly chaotic world. The godman thrives in the modern world because modern life has created a strange paradox of people who are surrounded by the entire world’s information at our fingertips, yet who feel increasingly powerless in the face of unprecedented crises. We have more choices than any other period in human history yet less certainty about our purpose. We are more connected than ever, and yet lonelier than ever. 

The genius of the modern godman is not convincing people that he is divine. It is convincing them that he understands their suffering, and that he is the one — and the only one — able to ease their pain. This is why the figure remains endlessly fascinating, and endlessly profitable. The robes change from saffron to yellow to white to blue; the vocabulary evolves with time; the marketing strategy becomes more sophisticated, but the business of faith remains remarkably consistent across time and space.

Here’s more from Homegrown:

India’s Most Interesting Babas And Their Rather Bizarre Stories

‘The Divine Hustle’: Watch A Documentary On Faith, Survival, & The Business Of Religion

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