The Hindu : Karnataka News : Holier than us Home thoughts, from home

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Nov 06, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka

Holier than us Home thoughts, from home

Now virtually every caste group has its own pontiff

Is it my imagination, or has there been an exponential growth of holy men and their institutions, and their intervention and influence in public affairs, in our fair land?

Curiously, these are often referred to as ‘pontiffs’, a word originally meant to describe a member of the principal college of priests in ancient Rome, and which in contemporary English too means matters relating to the Roman church. But then, so eclectic is the practice of Hindu holy men (and women) across caste and other divides that they seem quite happy to be described as pontiffs. At least in one respect the description is accurate; they certainly know how to pontificate.

Forty-one such individuals, at a rough count that I have kept over the past four months, most of them apparently quite well off, have featured in newspapers. There should certainly be many more of them. Their regular appearance in newspapers, along with their photographs in their colourful accoutrement, is perhaps influenced by the frequency with which their blessings and advice, along with that of astrologers, are sought by political leaders. In the last few months, for reasons that are obvious, there has hardly been a day when this or that pontiff has not featured with our political leaders. Clearly, the holy persons of our times are very much in the public domain unlike the sages of old, who apparently simply disappeared into remote retreats in the hills and forests to meditate. Not so, their modern counterparts, who are deeply engaged in matters both temporal and spiritual.

This engagement, even where the pontiffs are demonstrably of a clear political persuasion, as is the case with most of the major figures, is across the political spectrum. For instance, one such pontiff, prominent in the movement for cow protection, who has pleaded for the establishment of a dairy and research centre to investigate the medicinal properties of gomutra as part of the dairy industry, has featured with leaders seemingly so diverse as Margaret Alva and Sadhvi Ritambara. No wonder, therefore, that an astrologer solemnly warned of dire consequences for the nation in the context of the eclipse of the moon and sun in succession on August 28 and September 11, between which two dates Krishna Janmashtami intervened, and advised people to refrain from eating meat during this period.

This is a welcome development. Indeed, such a development only reflects the growing democratisation of our culture and polity, whatever may be their perceived distortions, real or imagined. For instance, unlike in earlier times when only the dominant castes had their holy men and monasteries, now virtually every caste group has its own pontiff, with elaborate infrastructural support. Land, as always, has been the principal resource; the infrastructure built on this land, like the educational institutions and residential halls, has been another money-spinner, even while making available moral and material resources that were once monopolised by the few. These, happily, are now no more the exclusive provenance of the monasteries of the higher castes.

Money, more than ever aplenty since the early 1990s, has played the crucial role. As in so many earlier instances, as for example in the building of the empire in India, these have been the midwives of history without being conscious of the role they are playing. This, the linkages between liberalisation, globalisation and the profusion of individuals and structures holier than us, is a rich field that is awaiting study.

M.S. Prabhakara

kamaroopi@gmail.com

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