Authority, Lineage & Schism. Spalding Symposium, King’s College London

Abstract: In the past several years, the phrase “self-styled God man” has proliferated in Indian media and popular discourse. The phrase is usually used in conjunction with breaking news of the alleged or convicted criminal actions of a prominent guru. The frequency with which the phrase circulates suggests that the Indian public is becoming increasingly frustrated with the number of gurus who are believed to be manipulating their followers and using religion as a cover for criminal activity. This paper questions whether this signifies a rise in secularism in India (the dethroning of gurus in general), or merely the Indian public’s attempt to separate true gurus from frauds. In recent years, the phrase has been applied mostly to indicted – and largely convicted – gurus such as Nithyananda, Asaram Bapu, Daati Maharaj, Ram Rahim Singh, Shiva Shankar Baba, and Rampal, among others. This paper analyzes the media circulation of this phrase: “self-styled God man” in efforts to reveal the ways in which it signifies a presumed correlation between lineage and authenticity, and inverted, an equivalency of non-lineage and fraud, or even criminality.

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