The Dark Side Of The Bhajan Rave: When Religion 'Rebrands'

Raves have officially left the nightclub and taken over everything — coffee shops, sneaker stores, galleries, bakeries, rooftops, kitchens, bathrooms, even trains and buses — and just when it felt like every possible, outlandish variation of a rave could be imagined, 'Bhajan Raves' entered the chat. 

Bhajan raves, also known as bhajan clubbing, are organised gatherings where young people come together in public spaces to sing devotional songs, chants, and bhajans in an environment that resembles a night out at a club. The trend started gaining attention in Indian cities such as Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata in the mid-2020s as young people began looking for alternatives to conventional nightlife and ways to connect with spirituality on their own terms. Another wave of viral videos in 2024 and 2025, showed large groups of mostly Gen-Z and millennial attendees chanting lines like “Shri Krishna Govind Hare Murari”.

At a bhajan rave, performers lead crowds through devotional music using both traditional instruments like the harmonium, tabla and dholak and contemporary ones such as the guitar, keyboard, and light percussion. The gatherings are often held in cafes, halls, and open venues instead of temples, attracting hundreds or even thousands of participants. Instead of the ‘satsangs’ that older generations are familiar with, these gatherings are more contemporary, designed to look like a rave; hence the name.

None of this is actually new in the Indian context. From the medieval Bhakti movement onward, devotion here has always travelled through song and dance, especially in public. And we know why. Anyone who has been at a concert or in front of a live set at the club is aware of how quickly a group can feel united through sound. Bhakti traditions understood this centuries ago. Saints like Kabir, Mirabai and Tukaram sang in streets and temple courtyards, composed verses people could remember, encouraging collective participation. Kirtans and satsangs were built around the same, synchronised movements, call-and-response, clapping, swaying, and sometimes even dancing, which became a form of dynamic meditation to connect with a higher power. 

But crossing over that boundary from the faith-based celebrations to a full-fledged night out with the holy spirit marks a new political shift. Over the past decade in India, religion has moved from being largely personal or ritualistic in urban spaces to being loudly visible in public discourse, as a push towards religious hegemony. It has escaped no one that once religious identity becomes so tightly fused with national identity, fascism is potentially right around the corner. In that climate, religion becomes a central organising force in how belonging is defined.

Which is also something the youth is looking for. Growing up in late-stage capitalism already means that your self-worth is systemically tied to how productive you are, how desirable you look, and how well you brand yourself. On the other hand, social media turns identity into something you constantly measure and compare. So even if you’re a fairly woke, self-aware person, that lack of a sense of self and value puts you at risk of being radicalised. It's the allure of an attachment to a group identity, especially when it carries ideas of pride, strength, and even purity. In India, that pull is stronger because religion is already woven into family life from childhood. Even if someone questions politics or social systems in young adulthood, separating themselves from religious identity is much harder when it is embedded in the emotional realities and memory of rituals and festivals with their family, and the idea of home in general. 

As a young person navigating the world behind them, along with the one ahead of them, Bhajan raves offer what feels like the perfect balance of tradition and modernity. You get a night out that your parents approve of – socially acceptable with a sprinkle of moral legitimacy. And yet, it's contemporary, allowing the inherited religious identity to sit comfortably inside a modern self-image.

But "What’s wrong with that?" you may find yourself asking? In film studies, Indian scholar M. Madahva Prasad writes in his book ‘Ideology of the Hindi Film’ on what he calls the ‘feudal family romance’ — the dominant structure of symbolic authority in Hindi cinema from the 1950s and 60s. Prasad explains that even when films featured modern elements such as romantic love, city life, Western clothing, education, or individual desire, the story almost always ended by restoring the authority of the patriarchal family. The hero might fall in love with an ‘outsider’, rebel, or wander, but by the end, the family would always regain power; it would always win, by what Prasad called the ‘formal subsumption’ (borrowed from Marx’s formal subsumption of labour under capital). Meaning that something new is ‘subsumed’ into an older structure without changing its basic function; the form looks updated, but the underlying power stays where it was. This structure allowed Hindi cinema to absorb the modern aspirations of the time without destabilising older hierarchies. The audience could enjoy songs about romance and freedom while still watching the family infallibly reassert itself as the moral centre. The new did not overthrow the old; it was incorporated into it. In fact, the appearance of change even helped the older structure survive and resonate with a newer generation. 

Bhajan raves are an example of the same code — religious indoctrination of modern subcultures like raves that, by the way, are already community-driven, and a source of belonging. The club-culture rooted yassification of religion, which has a long and complicated history in India, including its deep entanglement with caste hierarchy, subjugation of women, and social exclusion, is designed to divorce it from its orthodox ideologies that have caused a lot of pain to humanity. The Bhajan Rave, under all its benevolent charm of being an equaliser that lets nice, god-fearing kids have let it loose, is a rebranding and aestheticisation of religion, so it can slip past the critical eye of a discerning young individual trying to find his place in the world.

Because how can religion be oppressive when it’s in the clurb; where we all fam?

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