“After 10 years of working, a school teacher would be able to save Rs. 2 lakhs, a police officer is able to save Rs. 10 lakhs, a software engineer is able to save Rs. 50 lakhs, a big businessman is able to save Rs. 1 crore, a house builder is able to save Rs. 10 crores, a corrupt politian is able to save Rs. 50 crores and a godman is able to save Rs. 1000 crores. Choose your career carefully. Chodo ghar baar, chalo Haridwar.” This is a joke which is making rounds in the social media. But to me it looks like more of a reality than a joke.
Once, I happened to participate in a three-day workshop on entrepreneurship at a reputed college in Bangalore. At the end of the second day we were given the task of investing Rs. 50 and making some profit out of it. My team purchased 25 pens @ Rs. 2 each and sold them for Rs. 4 each; thus we landed up earning a profit of Rs. 50. Many other teams also did some business and earned profit. But one team earned Rs. 300 in less than 30 minutes and with zero investment, and ultimately emerged as the winner. The question is: what did they do? They came to the college in the morning, made chits of paper and wrote down good things which would happen to people. For example, “You will get good news”, “You will get money”, “You will become happy”, etc. Then the students were asked to pay Rs. 10 if they wanted to pick up the chit and take part in the activity and the students actively took part therein. This also helped me learn that it is very easy to fool Indians, especially the youth, and that the above joke is not a mere joke but a reality.
Globalisation has also played a significant role in converting religion into a business venture. In the year 1995 WTO (World Trade Organisation) came up with an agreement with India that if a service sector company wants to come to India to start its business, it should not be stopped. What we should remember is that, everything other than production comes under service sector and the temples come under the service sector. America came to India and opened temples as they know they will get a lot of donations. And the best part is that there is no Income Tax on these temples as well and they get 100% profit.
For example, ISKCON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) was founded in 1966 in New York City by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada. It was formed to spread the practice of bhakti yoga, in which those involved dedicated their thoughts and actions towards pleasing what they called the Supreme Lord, Krishna. They came to India and opened many branches, and one of them in Bangalore. According to statistics, the amount of money the Bangalore ISKCON sends to America is more than what Colgate earns and sends to America. Delhi has a bigger ISKCON Temple when compared to Bangalore and Mumbai has much bigger ISKCON Temple when compared to the one in Delhi and a much bigger ISKCON Temple is in Mathura.
The godmen of India have walked onto the path of spirituality and have reportedly become rich enough to rival a king. According to India Today, Sathya Sai Baba at his ashram in Puttaparthi has led to the discovery of a veritable treasure trove – it includes 98 kg of gold, 307 kg of silver and Rs.11.56 crore in cash. The total value of all goods added together is over Rs. 38 crore. Baba Ramdev, born in a poor farmer’s family in Haryana, used his knowledge of yoga to build an enviable Rs 1,100 crore empire. His empire today consists of over three dozen companies.
Sri Sri Ravi Shankar allegedly built an empire in three decades that is said to be worth several thousand crores today. His ashram, on the Bangalore-Dindigul national highway, has come under its fair share of controversies; one of them accusing Ravi Shankar’s trust of grabbed the land.
Sant Sri Asaram Bapu is probably the most controversial godman. His assets also said to have run in crores. Besides several allegations of land-grabbing, there have also been whispers of “sinister activities” at his ashrams. In 2009, the Narendra Modi government admitted in the assembly that Asaram had encroached upon 67,000 square metres of land near Motera.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi founded the Transcendental Meditation – Sidhi programme, which claimed to offer practitioners the ability to levitate and to “create” world peace. When he died, his businesses were estimated to be valued at $2 billion to $5 billion. The real estate was valued at another $5 billion. Mata Amritanandamayi, Kerala’s ‘Hugging Amma’, is the richest god-woman in the country. Even by modest estimates, the Amritanandamayi Trust, which presides over, is said to have assets worth over Rs 1,000 crore. Today, her ashram at her native Vallikavu, a small island off Kollam, is a posh five-storey building. After learning all this, I have realised that the above joke is not a joke but a reality.
The recently released film ‘PK’ was an effort to highlight how people are using religion to earn money. But many people have objected to the film, stating that it hurts the religious sentiments of the Hindus. Most of the people who were against the movie are those who sell religion. Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati is the one who demanded a ban on ‘PK’ for having hurt the sentiments of Hindus. Apparently, he asked for a meeting to be fixed with the CEO of the Censor Board to put forward his objections on certain scenes and dialogues in the film ‘PK’, failing to which he wrote down a letter to the CEO, expressing his objections. However, his objections went unnoticed and the scenes were not deleted.
The yoga guru Baba Ramdev also called for a social boycott of those involved in the making of the film, as it has criticised Hindu gods and goddesses. Ramdev slammed those making such movies that according to him ‘denigrated’ the Hindu ‘culture and religion’. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) has said that ‘PK’ has several scenes that hurt religious sentiments of Hindus. Reportedly VHP has written to the Information and Broadcasting Ministry demanding a curb on such movies and changing the character of the Censor Board.
The secretary of Hindu Legal Cell, Prashant Patel, has apparently lodged an FIR against director Rajkumar Hirani, Aamir Khan, producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra and Sidharth Roy Kapur. Reportedly, he thinks that Lord Shiva has been portrayed in a bad light in ‘PK’. Further allegations include comments on Hindu rituals, which hurt the sentiments of believers.
Questioning the financing of PK, Subramanian Swamy has apparently said that “a complaint will go soon to initiate action under PMLA on Aamir Khan & Co. for laundering terrorist finance”. Swamy had tweeted, “Who financed the ‘PK’ film? According to my sources it is traceable to Dubai and ISI. DRI must investigate.”
On the other hand, one should also remember that, various attempts have been made in the past to expose the godmen who are making money in the name of religion. BBC had made a documentary called The Secret Swami; it was telecasted on 24 September 2004 on BBC World. The documentary mainly focused on exposing India’s bigger godman ‘Sri Satya Sai Baba’. Later BBC telecasted a programme called ‘False Indian Godman’. The programme mainly focused on exposing the tricks adopted by godmen to fool people living in rural areas. News 9 has come up with a news session which exposed various aspects of ISKCON. India TV had come up with news sessions exposing the tricks of the godman named ‘Bala Sai Baba’, who was trying to imitate ‘Sri Satya Sai Baba’ in all aspects. All these were serious attempts to expose the truth.
The godmen have become so popular in the last 10 years, their movement is now known as the ‘Neo-Spiritualism Movement’. It is a movement which has made spirituality submissive to materialism. It is a movement which is constantly trapping the youth and the old in the name of peace, art of living, stress buster, etc. It is a movement which is in the news for its loopholes in its philosophy and methodology since its inception.