How did ‘Bhole Baba’ gather such a massive crowd, one that any politician would have died for? https://thewire.in/rights/hathras-stampede-and-the-growing-shadow-of-irrationality
Much like Big Tobacco when markets decline seeks to lure women and children to try its wares, ‘Bhole Baba’ gravitated towards the woman devotee. Having had to reinvent himself following his arrest in the year 2000 for nabbing the body of a dead girl after claiming that he would bring it back to life, he seems to have taken the business decision to prey on softer targets. His modus operandi, going by the observations a former schoolmate made to The Hindu, was to have women agents share tales of his magical prowess among local communities. It would follow that the people these agents were most likely to interact with were other women – invariably those who were poor, less lettered, and from castes subjected daily to a myriad forms of discrimination. These are the precise subjects who find themselves most vulnerable to false information and spurious spiritualists.
The unspeakably appalling stampede also provides a prism to view the shrinking of rationality in contemporary India.
Today, we have seen a complete reversal of even the intent to push back against superstition and irrationality, even as the “baba-rocracy” has grown in multifold ways with ashrams dotting the landscape across the country. Bogus products, especially those related to health, have gained a firm foothold on media content. The pre-programming space in satellite television provider, DISH TV, for instance, is a mélange of fakery, featuring cads of every description from tarot card readers and astrologers to drug manufacturers offering all manner of cures. They are presented as authentic thanks to fervent certifications from “ordinary” people, or actors pretending to be so. On its part, DISH TV takes care to prominently state that it does not endorse any of the claims made or products promoted.
08/07/2024