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ARTICLE : Sects and the new Indian

Title : Sects and the new Indian
Author : Narendra Panjwani and Rashme Sehgal
Publication : The Sunday Times of India
Date : November 10, 1996

Title : Sects and the new Indian
Author : Narendra Panjwani and Rashme Sehgal
Publication : The Sunday Times of India
Date : November 10, 1996

The  tonga drivers who taxi between Beas railway  station 
and  the  dera accept only a low, fixed price  for  their 
service,  and not a rupee more.  In  downtown  Ahmedabad, 
Navin Shah. owner of a grocery store, has stopped selling 
cigarettes,   He makes a loss of Rs 1,500 per month.  but 
is undeterred.

The  tonga  drivers have been  scrupulously  honest  ever 
since  they became members of the Radhasoami  Satsang  in 
this small town near Amritsar As for Shah, he looks  upon 
the  sadhus  of the Swaminarayan  Sanstha  in   Ahmedabad 
which  he  has recently been drawn into, with  awe.   "If 
those sadhus can ow up all the pleasures of life in  this 
day  and age, and that too in their youth, then surely  I 
can stand a small loss and do some good,' he says.  

Yuppies  too  have jumped onto the bandwagon.   In  Beas. 
financial whizkids, engineers and IAF righter pilots  rub 
shoulders  with hatta-katta sons-  and  daughters-of-the-
soil who, as part of their seva, can be seen helping  run 
the  vast estate of the Radhasoamis, from  ploughing  the 
soil, to doing construction work, to spending long  hours 
cooking in the langar.

"Mere  idol worship did not appeal to me."  explains  Raj 
Lavani,  an  Air India pilot.  "A  philosophy  where  the 
disciple is in close communion with a Satguru, who  shows 
the  way, and is the embodiment of the divine spirit  was 
more  appealing."  His wife Vibha and daughter  are  also 
converts  and  believe their life has  changed  radically 
after they joined.

Lavani's disenchantment with 'mere idol worship' reflects 
a disenchantment with religion and its functionaries - be 
it the pandit, the mullah or the Sikh sant - that many of 
the members of these sects share.

The best way to manage people is to manage them from  the 
heart.   People  resist change when they  feel  they  are 
being  changed.   But if everyone  starts  changing  from 
within, team spirit. co-operation, and commitment to work 
comes  automatically." says E J Kalwachia,  president  of 
Godrej's locks division in Mumbai, whose company  experi-
mented with the meditation-based Self Managing Leadership 
(SML) programme of the Mt Abu-based celibate  sisterhood, 
the Bramhakumaris.

SML's simple philosophy, says Brian Bacon, an  Australian 
business consultant who devised the programme along  with 
the  Bramhakumaris, "is that to be able to  lead  others, 
you must first learn to manage yourself."

Several other Indian industries have adopted the program-
me, but it first took off in the US at General  Electric, 
followed by Ford, Sony and others.  A new kind of manage-
ment  guru is here, it appears, and his guru dakshina  is 
not money but meditation.

A  relatively  new set of  reformist  movements.  broadly 
based  on Hindu principles, that cut  across  communities 
and  established  religions  and focus  on  morality,  as  

ceticism  and self-renewal. have been quietly  attracting 
tens  of  thou  sands of followers from  both  the  urban 
middle  classes  and the NRIs.  Amongst the  biggest  and 
oldest  of these groups are the Radhasoami Satsang in  UP 
and Punjab. the Akshardham Swaminarayan Sanstha in Gujar-
at,  and  the Bramhakumaris headquartered in  Mount  Abu, 
Rajasthan.  Each of these organisations now has  branches 
all over the country and abroad.  Their combined  follow-
ing, at a conservative estimate, has grown by 1.5 million 
over  the last decade, to reach a figure estimated to  be 
over 2 million.

What  people find most appealing about the  movements  is 
the  way  they combine hi-tech,  eco-friendly  management 
skills and social work with the revival of the  celibate, 
ascetic Guru as priest, psycho-therapist and counsellor.

The  celibacy of the Swaminarayan sadhus,  for  instance, 
evokes  awe amongst their followers. "They are  not  just 
ordinary celibates. They have broken all links with their 
families.  including their parents, and can  never  again 
meet, speak to or even listen to a woman including  their 
mother,"  says  52-year-old Paresh Mehta,  an  Ahmedabad-
based devotee and garment exporter.

What  distinguishes these gurus from other one-man  cults 
is also their greater accessibility, their  decentralised 
functioning  and  their willingness to meet  devotees  at 
their convenience. The Bramhakumaris, for instance,  have 
3,500  branches  world-wide.  The other  two  groups  are 
similarly accessible.

Set  up in the 1830s and 1840s, when the founder  of  the 
Swaminarayan  Sampradaya,  Lord Swaminarayan,  as  he  is 
called, began his campaign against superstition and blind 
faith, the Swaminarayan movement gathered momentum in the 
1970s and '80s.  Now, a constant stream of believers come 
every day to Pramukh Swami, head of the Swaminarayans, in 
Ahmedabad for advice. And he gives it-be it the naming of 
children, marriage and divorce, career decisions, and  so 
on. He travels constantly to visit followers in India and 
abroad. His schedule is regularly published and announced 
at weekly meetings. The sanstha's 530 celibate sadhus all 
attend to similar tasks in the various centres.

Similarly,  believes throng to the Radhasoami centres  in 
lakhs.  The numbers are rising so rapidly that the  three 
Radhasoami  centres  of Dayalbagh, Soami Nagar  and  Beas 
find it difficult to cope.

Dayalbagh is a religious-cum-educational centre  spanning 
1200  acres.   The ashram has 10.000 inmates  who  run  a 
dairy, a farm, a hospital and several small-scale  indus-
tries.

"Everything we produce is sold at cost price, and we  pay 
a  nominal rent of Rs 75 for spacious quarters,"  says  a 
retired  educationist. "But everything is  rationed,  in-
cluding electricity. The idea is to learn to lead simple, 
ascetic lives."

The  Radhasoami  sect goes back to the 1860s  when  Swami 
Shiv  Dayal Singh or Soamiji established an  organisation 
by that name in the outskirt of Agra.

Author  and  corporate consultant Gurcharan Das,  who  is 

associated  with  the Radhasoamis, explains  its  growing 
appeal:  "In  Punjab during the terrorist period  of  the 
'80s,  a lot of Sikhs turned to Radhasoami as a  reaction 
to  the politicisation of organised religion.  The  ordi-
nary  Indian has become very wary of religious  fundamen-
talism, and of most traditional priests for the way  they 
buckled under it.

"The Radhasoamis, in contrast, have very few rituals,  no 
prophet,  no books, no temples or priests.  All you  need 
do is practise the basic values of honesty, austerity and 
self-discipline, and meditate wherever you are ...  There 
is  also  a universalism here: when the  Radhasoami  guru 
talks  of God he will quote from Nanak, from Kabir,  from 
the Bible, the Gita.  You can join the group whether  you 
are a Muslim, Christian or Hindu."

Mumbai-based industrialist Pranlal Bhogilal, who is close 
to the Swaminarayan movement says, "This movement is  re-
estabhshing the process of virtue across Boundaries  like 
Hindu,  Muslim etc, which is a real need today.   In  the 
old  days the brahmin's job was to promote virtue,  which 
required  him to set an example.  He was admired for  his 
self-discipline, his intellectual breadth and detachment.  
But today, you become a brahmin by birth,  automatically, 
and  religion  has become a set of  rituals.  This  won't 
work. The old-style guru has to be brought back - if only 
to make people believe in virtue."

The guru, however, is not the focus of the Bramhakumaris, 
who  stress  on self-help through  meditation  and  yoga.  
Predominantly  a celibate sisterhood - both  its  leading 
figures  and its staff are women. with men,  the  'broth-
ers', in a small, subordinate minority - the movement was 
founded  by Dada Lekhraj Kripalani, a  prosperous  Sindhi 
jeweller  born in Hyderabad, Sind, in 1876.  He  gave  up 
all his property to start the Bramhakumari trust in 1937, 
placing  his hope on women from both his family  and  the 
neighbourhood.  not  only  because they  were  the  prime 
victims  of  Hindu  society, 'but also  its  fountain  of 
strength'.  In 1951, after Partition, they moved to Mount 
Abu.

Bramha Dada, as he came to be known, passed away in 1969, 
but by then the movement had taken root under the leader-
ship  of the Bramhakumaris groomed by him.   After  1983, 
their membership began to take oil, as did the  financial 
donations.

But  there is a growing suspicion among local  people  in 
Mount  Abu at the speed with which the Bramhakumaris  are 
acquiring  prime  property  in  the  small  hill-station.  
"Where do they get so much money from, these women?  From 
spirituality?"  remarks Sumer Singh, a cynical old  resi-
dent.  Several observers refuse to believe that the funds 
of both the Swaminarayans and the Bramhakumaris come from 
their predominantly middle and upper class  constituency, 
both here and abroad.  For their part, the  spokespersons 
of  the two groups say that they submit audited  accounts 
to the charity commissioner every year.

Of  course, while membership is growing,  believers  also 
opt  out of the movements for various reasons.   But  the 
gap  caused  by these dropouts continues  to  be  filled.  
There  seems to be no dearth of young people  willing  to 
'dedicate' themselves to these sects.


The  growing popularity of these sects stems from  a  new 
national  mood. writes American historian Mark  Juergens-
meyer, who has researched the Radhasoami movement: "These 
characteristics of Radhasoami thought - an  appropriation 
of  a  truth that transcends science, a  therapeutic  ap-
proach to the self. and the re-establishment of  personal 
authority  in the social realm - appeal to those who  for 
various  reasons  have tired of the modem world  but  are 
unsatisfied with what the more traditional forms of faith 
offer as alternatives."
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