Prakash Shetty on Baba Ramdev

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Baba Ramdev and hunger for publicity : Ramachandra Guha

A hunger for publicity is the hallmark of some of the best-known spiritual leaders of contemporary India. They spend as much time on making themselves known, and praised, as on seeking the truth. Consider a guru in my home town, Bangalore, who, like Ramana, is a Tamil, indeed from the same Iyer sub-caste. In other ways he is emphatically different; in his careful attention to his dress and appearance, for example, or in his not-so-careful cultivation of the rich, the powerful, and the influential.

Or consider the holy man who, these past days and weeks, has been much in the news. Those who heard, in part or in full, Baba Ramdev’s recent day-long discourse at the Ramlila Maidan in Delhi, would have heard the words ‘kala dhanda’ and ‘bhrashtachaar’ (black money and corruption) as well as the words ‘dharm’ and ‘imandaari’ (morality and honesty). I heard them too, but I also heard words that were more telling. These were ‘mein apne media ke bhaiyyon se kehna chahta hoon’, a phrase that recurred often, perhaps half-a-dozen times an hour. It was characteristic that Ramdev sought to address the media above all (and characteristic also that his social imagination excluded the possibility of women reporters).

Solitude and spirituality — the link between them is intimate and indissoluble. In between satyagrahas, Gandhi spent months at a stretch in Sabarmati or Sevagram, thinking, searching, spinning. Ramana and Aurobindo did not leave their ashrams for decades on end. Yet our contemporary gurus can’t be by themselves for a single day. When the police forced him out of Delhi, Ramdev said he would resume his ‘satyagraha’ (sic) at his ashram in Haridwar. But within 24 hours he left Haridwar, in search of closer proximity to his brothers in the media. Externed from Delhi, Ramdev knew that many television channels were headquartered in Noida. So he would go to them, since he knew that, despite their national pretensions, these channels would not send their reporters, still less their anchors, to the benighted state of Uttarakhand. He set off for Noida but was stopped en route at Muzaffarnagar on the orders of the UP chief minister.

The desire to leave his ashram for the arc lights was entirely in character. For Ramdev occupies an important place in the history of publicity, rather than in the history of spirituality. To be fair, this can also be said of the other babas and gurus whom one meets nowadays in newspapers or on television, the Dalai Lama only excepted.

Ramachandra Guha in Hindustan Times. Here

The rise and fall of Baba Ramdev

If Baba Ramdev's followers are dwindling, post Ramlila grounds, blame it on Hinduism. Hindus have problems gathering around a religious leader, as a religious leader. They quickly transform the person, saffron robes, notwithstanding, to a specialist healer, magician and personal good luck charm. Hindus, therefore, make bad devotees but good clients.

As tradition tells us, Hindus are not given to collective sentiments in their religious observances. The concept of a church or congregation is foreign to them. This is why one can be a pious Hindu yet never set foot in a temple. To be able to host an at- home with your own customised guru is the ultimate Hindu fantasy. This would not work for Muslims, Sikhs or Christians. The idea of a ' communion' is essential in these religions.

Amongst all the pop yogis, Baba Ramdev is probably the best known because he comes on television and, in full view, contorts his body convincingly. Most people in saffron are overweight, and cannot pull in their diaphragms and expose their ribs the way the Baba can. As yoga trooping Indians tend to be potbellied, they look at him with awe.

But, at the end of the day, Baba Ramdev remains a yoga expert. What does this make those who attend his yoga sessions? Clients or devotees? Clients, decidedly. None of them want to be beaten up by the police or have an income tax raid on their humble businesses. At the first sight of pain, they will boot the camp and go home.

If only politicians were to acknowledge the fact that Hindus are not saffron driven outside of the saffron domain our public life would have been less opaque. Hindus may flock to Kumbh Melas in large numbers, even go hysterical when Lord Jagannath gets an annual day out. But for every 100 Hindus in such carnivals a million and more stay back home. This is not because they are irreligious or against superstition, far from it. It is simply because it is too much effort; besides there is the store to run.

The low turnout at Baba's Haridwar ashram these days is because his clients are horrified at the prospect of pain without gain. This is exactly the opposite of what attracted them to the man in the first place. But, as the issue has now become political, they would rather stay home and watch Ramdev's re-runs on TV. For most of them, Baba Ramdev is the Bruce Lee of yoga, and that is how they would want him to be.

Dipankar Gupta in India Today. More Here

What is wrong with Baba Ramdev? : Bhanu Pratap Mehta

It is an unseemly sight. First, the government loses all moral authority by its complicity with corruption. The political class abdicates its role. Civil society steps in to fill the vacuum. Hunger strikes begin. And the government of an aspiring superpower, instead of behaving like a government, succumbs to blackmail after blackmail. There is something medieval about the image. The “Baba” arrives. Practically all of government that matters shows up in attendance. God forbid if the Baba curses them. You have to sympathise with these artful ministers.

They are valiantly trying to make up for the fact that the Queen Mother, her Dewan and the little Prince run away from the most ordinary governance that matters. They have outsourced all leadership and thinking. A few ministers are left to pick up the pieces. 

Then there is the gloss on this bizarre spectacle. First, abdicate. Then, cravenly submit. Then call it responsiveness. Such corruption of language signals a deeper corruption. A responsive government is one that in its routine functioning discharges its responsibilities: enforces the rule of law, dispenses justice, provides good management of the economy and so forth. Submitting to every whim of self-appointed civil society advocates is not responsiveness. A responsive government would govern, not sleepwalk to airports. 

The fifth element of authoritarianism is endless confusion of roles. Baba Ramdev has solid achievements to his credit in raising consciousness about yoga. It is heartening that citizens take more interest in public affairs. But there is a presumption that accomplished individuals, by virtue of their achievements in one sphere, can leverage that authority everywhere. This confusion of roles is almost everywhere. Parts of the media cannot decide whether they want to be trustworthy institutions of record or tools of partisan, rabble-rousing demagoguery, with editors donning the mantle of revolutionaries. But the short-term gains of this activism will come at the price of long-term credibility. True change will not come from this confusion of roles; it will come from each profession discharging its responsibilities to the best. 

A morally insidious vacuum in government. A self-proclaimed civil society displaying its own will to power. A media age where being off-balance gets you visibility. A public whose mood is punitive. An intellectual climate that peddles the politics of illusion. And all this in a context where government paralysis is enhancing the two biggest risks to the well-being of the poor — entrenched inflation and slowdown in growth. Instead of clamouring for visibility, we should follow old Baba Ramdev’s advice: take a deep breath.

Bhanu Pratap Mehta in Indian Express. Here