By Christiane Brosius
This chapter is based on the proposition that by considering the production by Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Swaminarayan Sanstha (hereafter BAPS) of a range of media and media spaces since the new millennium, we can better understand their global network and success in heralding a highly aesthetic notion of brotherhood and cultural heritage. Why this focus on media? Media are an expression of and shape social relations. They generate information, practice and localities of performative, aesthetic or cognitive kinds and allow us, as Birgit Meyer (2009: 1) has argued, ‘to take a fresh look at the salient appeal and public presence of diverse forms of religious expressivity’ and ‘to explore the rearticulation of religion in specific contemporary settings’. In whatever technical form, images and media generate and change social relations and their sites of manifestation/circuits of dissemination. In a globalised world, they do this in particular by means of a heightened speed and transnational networking as well as their alleged ubiquity/availability through mass reproduction. But I would argue, they also do so by offering a special opportunity to their beholders to imagine and experience belonging, both to a closely tied community and in the context of a home away from home, by means of aesthetic experience and media consumption. Through the production, circulation and use of media—old and new—BAPS followers perceive themselves as a moral community that, despite its huge dissemination across the globe, nurtures firm social ties and values. This image of a stable yet flexible brotherhood is also projected for the consumption of non-satsangis. But I argue that while in principle being open to, and desirable for members of any creed, caste and/or class, there are several mechanisms according to which different qualities of exclusion, and even social discrimination, are being exercised. Criteria of exclusion are often based on the notion of an external threat, legitimising the imposition of surveillance (such as rigid security controls of visitors to their public sites, CCTV). The rhetoric of exclusion is a feature of what Caldeira (2000) calls the ‘aesthetics of fear’. All this, then, culminates in a cult of security-as-salvation, a kind of religio-spiritual panopticon through which participation in such a regime of control becomes part of a global capitalist spectacle and urban sensories.
This global mediality, then, shapes identities, experience and locality in a new way, as part of a new public–private, real–virtual ‘third space’ of media worlds and practices. I propose that BAPS is, despite its conservative ideology and idealisation of a face-to-face community, the social and ideological product (in statu procedenti) of such developments. Here, locality, that is, the relevance of geophysical sites and space for social life, is not rendered obsolete (as de-territorialisation) because spatialisation is always a specificity of social practice. What happens in the case study presented here is that with the new media, BAPS can avail itself of different ‘homing strategies’ (Brah, 1996) for a highly professional diasporic community of Gujaratis and present itself as stakeholder or custodian of India as a utopian homeland of an ancient civilisation at multiple sites and for diverse audiences. Broadly put, there are two levels of audience. The first one is the sampradaya (even though the term is rarely referred to by BAPS informants and media texts), a staunch transnational in-group that keeps to itself and erects a variety of barriers against the outside world. The second is the larger audience of people visiting BAPS cultural sites and temples in India and abroad. For both audiences, BAPS uses media and media events (and this includes the physical cultural sites) to stage itself as an aesthetic spectacle, a sensory delight and a space and community catering towards a growing desire for security. In the latter instance, it is remarkable that international terrorism has become a key narrative triggering spatial and media rhetoric.
Thus, if I approach BAPS’s use of media and mediated events in a transnational context in the course of this chapter, I am particularly interested in the ways in which in their carefully and professionally mediatised spaces, personal experiences and public events—new identities and life designs—become possible. The case study goes beyond the particular instance of BAPS media and addresses concerns relating to India’s remarkable neo-liberal economic growth and diaspora.
My main point is that without new media technologies, BAPS would not exist the way it does. Seemingly paradoxical, digital media serve as a subclass of ‘indigenous media’, what I term ‘globalised ethno-media’, a process through which the local and the global are so closely entangled that it is hard to draw the boundaries between them. Moreover, the term points us to the emergence of ethnic identities as currencies in globalised circulation economies (see Comaroff and Comaroff, 2009), further complicating the notion of the ‘indigenous’ as something allegedly essential and deeply rooted in a particular and isolated locality. In our case study, globalised media and aesthetics enable BAPS representatives to become globally visible and close/approachable as a group with ‘Ethnicity’ and ‘Cultural Heritage’, as what I would define as a flagship heralding a new cosmopolitan, cultural and national self-definition. I further suggest that their notion of Indian cultural heritage, a Western concept, is neither foreign nor indigenous, but rather transcultural. As a discourse of representation, and supported by the new media, it rests upon and provides strategies of social access and cultural superiority, legitimising relatively rigid rhetorics of inclusion and exclusion. While most studies on diaspora communities have focused on one particular place of dwelling, this chapter engages with a globalised imaginary instead of exploring British or American Hinduism (see Vertovec, 2000). What emerges here is a globalised network that moves along nodal points of media production and metropolitan centres across continents, connecting diasporic networks of Indians overseas, in this case, particularly from London, New Jersey and New Delhi.1 Examples have been chosen from sanskruti (Sanskrit term for well culturedness, cultural sophistication), presented as a massive festival of Indian culture, and staged by BAPS in New Jersey, USA, in 2004, and the Akshardham Cultural Complex, opened in New Delhi in November 2005.
The study is based on ethnographic fieldwork (participatory observation, interviews) conducted at Akshardham Cultural Complex between 2004 and 2008, and singular visits have been paid to the BAPS temple and centre in Neasden, London; the BAPS centre at Dadar in Mumbai and the Akshardham site at Gandhinagar in Gujarat, West India. Over the years, I have moreover collected journals, postcards, booklets, audio cassettes, DVDs, stickers, watches and other paraphernalia, besides studying in detail the diorama exhibitions at New Delhi.
The BAPS is just one example of many such communities that use new media technologies quite extensively and innovatively;2 others would be televangelists such as the Pentecostals (Meyer, 2004) or the transnational Indian spiritual movement The Art of Living Foundation.3 During my fieldwork, I could not find any statistics about numbers of followers (satsangis) within this massive transnational and wealthy network, and even inquiring at the headquarters in Ahmedabad resulted only in a vague reference to ‘a million or more’.4 But one thing is clear: BAPS is highly influential both in the Indian diaspora as well as in India in matters of politics of citizenship, cultural identity and social welfare. I argue that this is partly because of its sophisticated use of media, a particular aesthetic of mainstream media (drawing on tourism, commercial film) and the language of a ‘brand’ corporate identity that can be understood by an English-speaking transnational audience with a middle class background. I am not a scholar of religious studies, of politics or history. What I am concerned with as an anthropologist of visuality and media, and as someone who has a strong interest in national identity, urbanisation processes and the fabric of the aspirational and affluent middle classes in the age of neo-liberal ‘Wirtschaftswunder’, or ‘India Shining’, is the ways in which BAPS can be seen as heralding national cosmopolitanism (Brosius, 2010) with a strong leaning towards Indian-ness as Hindu-ness. The media and use of spectacular sites underscore this with their highly sophisticated aesthetic rhetoric and technologies. BAPS can, thus, be both local (even micro-local by enforcing Gujarati and village identities) and global (a new class of people). It integrates well into mainstream societies in the diaspora, even to the extent that it spearheads ideals of civil society and volontée génerale of the host community.5 The picture painted of the BAPS sampradaya is one of being at once confident global citizenry and an intimate, yet selfless moral brotherhood, based on a certain notion of civilisational superiority (cast as Vedic culture, and in particular its capacity for scientific and academic development). What is heralded is a kind of flexible citizenship (Ong, 1999) where mobility is fetishised by the need of transnational communities to move and yet retain a sense of space, belonging and intimacy, ‘through which the “disorderliness” of transnationalism is negotiated … [and where] religion as a discourse may be deployed by different agents in order to mediate the development of notions of belonging associated with citizenship in the dynamic, shifting context of late modern state-subject relations’ (Zavos, 2012: 213–216).6 In this, there are many parallels to other global religio-spiritual movements such as The Art of Living Foundation, Satya Sai Baba, Amma or Swami Ramdev, to name only a few. Yet, none of these has shown such a strong and professional emphasis on media use and media events as well as rigid use of morality and spatiality as BAPS.
Originating from Gujarat in West India, BAPS has expanded its economic basis from petty farmer to contract workers in the British colonies to a globalised audience of wealthy professionals and traders, contributing to the enormous riches of the organisation (see Williams, 2001). Branches of BAPS can be found across the world, in 3,300 centres and more than 800 temples7 with head offices in metropolitan centres such as Nairobi, Atlanta, Sydney, London—and more recently also in New Delhi. The new initiative of BAPS in the Indian capital—manifest in the Akshardham Cultural Centre that opened in 2005, after only five years of construction work—results less from a national move from Gujarat to Delhi and more from transnational flows; it speaks of a general trend of re-migration to the new oasis in the land of milk and honey: ‘India Shining’.
The BAPS community and depiction of its culture and values looks typically Indian and draws upon a repertoire of Indian past and culture shared by other Hindu (Right) movements. But I argue that the media rhetoric also draws upon televangelism or the idea of the American Dream, while a lot of aesthetics in terms of urban planning and architecture have a strong leaning towards the themed environments found in Hollywood, Disneyland or Dubai, particularly with respect to the emphasis on sound and light shows, exhibition halls and IMAX cinemas, all of which revolve around Lord Swaminarayan’s life and teachings, and BAPS activities and philosophy more generally. BAPS is efficient in organising public media events such as the ‘Culture of India’ festivals in large stadiums and parks, centenary celebrations, public welfare activities evolving around environment, health, social harmony and care. At all these occasions, BAPS presents itself as an ideal community that is capable of healing modern society from its ills and wrong desires. BAPS activities abroad reach out into the larger realm of civil society and public service. In fact, BAPS receives a lot of recognition for its social service programme (seva) both in India and overseas from all kinds of mainstream organisations—for example, the London branch received the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service in June 2009, recognising BAPS initiatives in areas such as environmental responsibility and work for the elderly; the national education service has also applauded the private BAPS school at Neasden as an exceptionally high-class institution.8
Interestingly, the Swaminarayans officially proclaim that their temples are open to members of all religions, guarding personal development with the aim of salvation and securing the authority of the family or respect for the ageing. Time and again, articles on various BAPS homepages, in the exhibition halls at London or Delhi or in testimonies staged at one of the festivals-turned-into-film underline the threats of modernity attacking the ideal sampradaya lifestyle of BAPS satsangis. The majority of threats relate to consumption of drugs, meat and media programmes associated with ‘Western’ lifestyles.9 Thus, many of the rituals performed and places constructed (especially mandirs/temples) seem to be sources of security and protection, of salvation and healing. Instead of rendering rituals ‘old-fashioned’ and static, BAPS manages to design old and new forms of ritual that respond to the desires and needs of different social groups, including catering for the hectic and flexible lifestyle of modern urban professionals. This way, many of the rituals which actually happen in the third space of new media technologies are recorded on DVDs and shortened or hyped to the taste of modern lifestyle (what Willford, 1998, quoted in Vertovec, 2000, coined ‘disco-ization’ of Hindu ritual). One may even get the impression that in the era of the World Wide Web each and everyone can become a Hindu or member of BAPS by a mouse-click, thus, rendering traditional rules of status by birth impotent. But this impression is misleading; access to and movement in the media spaces of BAPS are strictly regulated.
The current public and media presence of BAPS results from interesting transnational and transcultural asymmetries of flows that have, since economic liberalisation in India, led to converging forms of integration and exclusion, such as the rapidly expanding religio-spiritual market from East to West and back again; a strong desire of the Indian diaspora to be visible, recognised and connect globally and a transformation of governance, civil society and public sphere in the light of economic liberalisation in India. Besides religion, ethnicity is traded too (Vertovec, 2000).
As I argued above, a lot of BAPS’s presence and circulation in transnational publics depends on an effective use of different media technologies emphasising ‘edutainment’, that is, a mixture of spectacle and education. Two reasons can be briefly mentioned: first, because through media and events Swaminarayan members—and newcomers or outsiders—gain knowledge of the transnational network and activities as if they were face-to-face neighbours and distance and time did not matter; second, because media technologies and circulation help Swaminarayan think tanks to create a shared cultural identity and stage the group as custodians of Indian cultural heritage and morale in a way that makes it look naturally legitimate. It aims at creating the viewers’ desire to partake in something of great global and historical importance.
The community shows signs of conservative tendencies. Until the establishment of the Neasden temple in the 1990s, swamis were not allowed to live abroad on a permanent basis. The organisational structures are strictly hierarchical and follow an orthodox guru cult with the founder of the sect, Swami Narayan (1781–1839) and the current spiritual leader, Pramukh Swami Maharaj, with an adaptation of the hierarchical system of mathas and intimate religiosity. Most rituals follow a classical pattern of devotional worship and service: puja, arti and seva. This pattern is promoted in many media forms, for instance, on the homepages, in DVDs documenting large events abroad and in the BAPS journal Bliss.10 At first sight, it seems paradoxical that the orthodox nature of the organisational and ideological structure allows for a remarkably progressive and highly professional use of media and other modern technologies (for mega events as well as individual use). By using the skills of devotees with a higher education background and experience in the transnational business service and IT sector, the Sanstha is able to attract many young people seeking fulfilment in their professional and personal lives. Thus, BAPS front men (rarely women) are swamis and top-ranking, confident and cosmopolitan satsangis, some of whom I shall introduce shortly.
BAPS also shows innovation by using rituals and new media to address new audiences, thus, allowing new social relations to develop on the basis of a cosmopolitan identity in a globalised, networked world. Thus, the Swaminarayans shape a highly flexible, transcultural and transnational network of social relations that employs new media technologies to allow different kinds of people to associate with them, both old-time insiders and newcomers, even from other religions. Besides religious aims—asceticism, salvation, bhakti—they promote national values and pride, individual leadership and social service. Much emphasis is put on the intimate communitas of satsangis, in particular when opposed to challenges of modernity, often formulated as threats. An example is the speech of a young satsangi in the presence of Pramukh Swami Maharaj on the large stage of the BAPS’s Sanskruti Megacultural Event in a large arena in New Jersey in 2004. Educated and living in the USA, he reveals the healing experience of being part of BAPS in an ocean of vices and misled values:
I just graduated from a university that is well-known for its academics, great life and unfortunately, excessive drinking. I can clearly think back to the first time in freshman year when I went to one of these grad-houses. People who never drank in their lives were taken shot upon shot on alcohol and getting really drunk. It felt like everyone was drinking, everyone was having a good time [he looks disgusted]. But I knew that I wanted to be strong [puts hand on his heart]. This became even more difficult when I started applying for medical schools. Interviewers would take me out to dinner, order wine and offer it to me. How could I say no? I didn’t want to offend them. It was a question of my career. But I found that strength. In our dining halls, friends of mine who had been strict vegetarians, all throughout high school, throughout their lives, all of them suddenly started eating chicken, tasting beef. Everything was changing. Even through the birthday parties of my closest friends, when I had to refuse to have a piece of cake because I knew it was made of eggs, I knew that it was very awkward for me, I felt awkward, felt out of place. Even now, in graduate school, when we have departmental luncheons and there is only a non-vegetarian menu, again, I feel awkward. But inside I know that what I am doing is right. I know that I must be strong. What helps is that I know that I’m not alone. There are hundreds of youth, hundreds of my friends in the mandir who have remained staunch in following these values.11
Many DVDs available for sale documenting mega events in the USA or the UK over the last decade have a strong testimony rhetoric, reminding me of Christian missionary films of former European colonies in Africa or Oceania (Brosius, 2006) or Pentecostal media shows on TV in the USA and elsewhere (Meyer, 2004). They show cultural programmes (dances, films, staged scenes), speeches and sometimes also feature large rituals (for instance, annakut celebrations, initiations). Women rarely feature as key protagonists—if at all, then generally girls would be shown on stage. This is also due to the fact that there is a strict gender separation, in particular in the presence of swamis. Ironically, the classic civilising narrative is reversed in this quote: ‘native’ white Americans are depicted as uncivilised, forcing young students to practise ‘excessive drinking’ and meat-eating. The withdrawal into the temple and the sampradaya then stands for the declaration of civilised distinction within the boundaries of a closely knit, ethnic moral community.
The temples (mandirs) are traditional sites of pilgrimage on the one hand, influenced by Hindu mythology and ancient codes of architecture (shilpa shastras) manifest in countless sculptures of deities, in narrative diorama exhibition halls and spectacular cinematic films. They are also a kind of ‘spiritual hospital’ that enables the BAPS sampradaya to gather, pray, worship the deities and experience purification of the soul. Thus, we can read on the homepage of the BAPS temple in London: ‘Mandir is a Sanskrit word for where the mind becomes still and the soul floats freely to seek the source of life, peace, joy and comfort.’12 Another testimony from a mega event in New Jersey in 2004 defines the temple as an island of identity preservation. Another young man, dressed in white kurta pyjama, enters the stage and addresses the audience:
When I was younger, I never really cared about religion. There were so many other things to do … things that were much more fun. When there was time to do arti or thal, there would always be that TV program that I had to watch.… In the morning, I would sleep as much as possible and then go straight to school without even showering. So forget about doing puja. My parents did all that religious stuff. But it wasn’t for me. It just wasn’t important to me. But then, when I got to junior high school, things changed. A friend of mine convinced me to go to the BAPS children’s convention. And I was so amazed, because there were so many kids there of my age but every single one of them knew all the words in the arti and thar. What’s more, I got the chance to hear Pramukh Swami Maharaj to talk about the importance of doing puja every day. And going to Bal Sabha every week. So, I decided to give puja a shot. And little by little I started coming to mandir. I went to bal sabha. Later on, I went to kishore sabha.13 And the more I came to mandir, the more I realized that there are so many people out there, just like me [touches his heart with the hand]. In the beginning, none of us were interested in religion. Because we didn’t know what it meant. But mandir changed all of us. When we come to mandir, we get together and discuss all our concerns, our beliefs with other people our age. We ask questions and get them answered by saints. And when we feel lost, we turn to our guru Pramukh Swami Maharaj and we feel inspired. We feel spiritual. I can proudly say that even though we were the same kids growing up, not caring about religion, today, we do not drink a sip of water without doing puja every morning. We do arti every day, and we have even learnt Gujarati so that we can understand our scriptures even better. Thank you, Pramukh Swami Maharaj, for bringing about such a big change in our lives. [He forms his hand to Namaste gesture and bends towards where Pramukh Swami Maharaj sits on the same stage.]
This speech refers to a common experience of diaspora Indians in the USA, that of shunning one’s Indian-ness in order to become an integrated modern—and secular—American (see Brosius and Yazgi, 2007). In the course of giving up and ridiculing the ‘religious stuff’ of the parents, the speech suggests that the soul is at a loss, too. Withdrawing from the world of sinful threats, and into the peaceful and strengthening gated communities of the BAPS children and youth clubs, seems to be an enlightening resolution for this young man who recognised this danger of self-stigmatisation.
BAPS temples act as social institutions with charity activities that reach beyond the boundaries of the spiritual brotherhood and followers in the countryside, and successfully address non-Gujarati devotees living abroad and in metropolitan centres. In addition, they have become eventful hi-tech sites using multimedia strategies to attract and educate visitors, offering them spectacular experiences such as themed exhibition halls with large dioramas, robot-shows or boat rides filled with narratives of historical, cultural and religious value. In drawing upon strategies that can be traced back to the world exhibitions of the 19th century or theme park settings of the 20th century, BAPS have turned the Akshardham Complex into a site of ‘Indian’ cultural heritage and multimedia spectacle.14 BAPS’s overseas mandirs, with an impressive architecture15 and highly aestheticised and mediatised rituals such as the annual annakut festival,16 appeal to the deep religiosity of its members while incorporating elements and aspirations of an urbanised subjectivity.
Members of the Indian middle classes in particular, with a desire to display affluence in what they perceive as a ‘suitable’ frame, respond enthusiastically to the spectacular multimedia presence and the sensory experiences provided by the organisation. They can engage in daily murti darshan (worship of Lord Swaminarayan) online, watch DVDs of the mega events and a commercial film such as the IMAX Mystic India on the life of Lord Swaminarayan (2005) and of course they can visit the Akshardham Cultural Complex, one of the few generously wide and clean spaces in a dense city like New Delhi. BAPS picks up the latest trends of taste and fashion without losing credibility among older satsangis, exploiting modern technological equipment and educational management strategies yet not falling short of conservative and even orthodox ideology. Such media complexity and efficiency underline the importance of looking at multiple mediality as a densely woven, eloquently produced set of entangled discourses appealing to different sets of people, moving at different speeds and on different levels. I want to now highlight three examples of this tendency: heritage production, online devotion and the Akshardham Cultural Complex as a spectacular and yet rigid zone of control.
As a consequence of Gujarati overseas migration to Africa, the USA, Canada or Europe, BAPS has established centres and gathers large followings in metropolitan centres worldwide. They have also adapted new media technologies and learnt to produce and circulate them prominently. Instead of proposing a dilution of cultural values and traditions through new media, as often happens in the case of communities bound by intense face-to-face practices, BAPS invests in new technologies, suggesting that this even helps to further strengthen the solidarity, intensifying religious practice and the notion of Gujaratiness. A key concept in this context is that of cultural heritage and the ideal of being ‘well cultured’ (sanskruti).17 This way, they present themselves as custodians of Indian (that is, Hindu) heritage, and have actually managed to gain global recognition as such, in particular among prominent non-Indian individuals and institutions. The most recent postcolonial gentrification has taken place through visits to the Neasden temple by Prince Charles and his wife Camilla in 2007 and Tony Blair in 2006. In November 2007, the committee of the Guinness Book of World Records, itself a highly transcultural, though asymmetrical venture, declared the Akshardham Cultural Complex that opened in Delhi in 2005, with a massive dedication ceremony with eminent speakers such as the Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh, the Indian President Abdul Kalam and Leader of the Opposition and Hindu nationalist L. K. Advani, as the largest Hindu temple structure in the world. This is particularly interesting since in the beginning, the enormous monument at the centre of the Complex was not referred to as a temple, and the proper temple was situated outside the walls of the Cultural Complex, a site known only to the devotees in Delhi. In the course of time, the monument became the temple, hosting large bronze statues of Lord Swaminarayan and the pramukh swamis representing his teachings, as well as memorabilia and shrines for the four key couples of the Hindu pantheon.
The official opening act was a professional mega show of a quality unlikely to have been staged in India before; thousands of satsangis witnessed the dancing, musical performances, sound and light show and speeches of prominent political and religious leaders. Abdul Kalam’s speech at the dedication ceremony reveals that BAPS Akshardham should be understood as ‘India’s civilizational heritage in dynamic form’ and ends with the appeal for post-1992 nationalism:
Akshardham has happened at the dawn of 21st century with the commitment and dedication of one million volunteers. What has happened today at Akshardham inspires me and gives me the confidence that we can do it! The realization of developed India is certainly possible before 2020 with the millions of ignited minds like you.18
This ties BAPS concepts of voluntary service to selfless nationhood and re-established (Hindu) Indian identity or ecumenical Hinduism (Vertovec, 2000) as a motor of economic progress and international confidence— what Zavos has coined as a ‘confluence of civilisational, spiritual and welfare discourses’ that feeds into the heralded flexible citizenship model of transnational communities (Zavos, 2012: 238). But it also shows an inclination to resolve the relationship of individual and larger societal units by emphasising individual responsibility for one’s own life and simultaneously a strengthening of community as ultimate source of values and meaning. We can find elements of neo-liberalism, the American Dream of making the impossible possible by means of one’s own dedication and a complete, yet voluntary, surrender to the guru and the sampradaya.
Both in the film productions and the themed exhibitions or joy rides at the cultural complexes in London and New Delhi, BAPS’s history is declared as rooted in ancient Vedic texts and authentic temple architecture from all over India, built by members of the best craftsmen in temple construction, the Sompuras from Gujarat. The cultural complexes reach beyond what can be experienced in temples: they are a site of national pride and glamour, a pilgrimage site for devotees, for national citizens and consumers as well as for international tourists. The borders between religious, cultural and national pilgrimage, between shopping mall or hotel lounge, theme park and temple are consciously and constantly blurred, challenging us to revise our concept of religious ‘authenticity’ and secular public spheres (see Brosius, 2010).
A short introductory film on the Akshardham Cultural Complex focuses on the fine sculptures inside and outside the monument. There are camera-drives up to the magnificent ceiling, the camera moves across the marble and sandstone, opens up vistas of stunning width and depth, accompanied by festive, light music and chanting. In the last scene, the camera eye displays the monument as it is lit up in the evenings, glowing like a festive palace, inviting the beholder to accompany the camera into the sanctum sanctorum (literally referred to as garbhagraha, or womb). From this short film we can see that several media plus certain globalised coffee-table aesthetics are merged. This film addresses a ‘Westernised’, ‘cultured’ or ‘cosmopolitan’ beholder, familiar with Western media aesthetics and concepts of cultural heritage. This brings in another level of transculturality: an iconography of spirituality and ‘foreign’ heritage that has been generated by ‘outsiders’ (overseas Indians), as a means of distinction. Whereas the dams of post-Independent India were called the new temples of India by the first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, today’s mega malls, and even monuments-cum-temple are the new sites of post-liberalisation India’s topography. After decades of Nehruvian Five Year Plans and in particular, after an intense period of ethno-political communal violence in India in the late 1980s and early 1990s, it seems as if religion and national identity can be used once again, without being stigmatised as triggering communalist fervour and violence. It is in particular the growing and highly transnational middle class that welcomes this revivalism of such a stunningly beautiful, professionally presented and mediated religion, a religion that can be both inwardly focused and rigid as well as part of a globalised rhetoric of morally approved spirituality and selfless social welfare. Many members of this class refrain from attaching themselves to complicated rules of one particular sect or religious practice and prefer to associate with a community that appears less rigid, with easy-to-follow rituals, and a global and aestheticised presence which emphasises cultural heritage.
Swaminarayan’s use of media and monumental cultural sites appeals not only to members of the new middle classes in India but also to overseas Indians who fear that away from home, their children lose touch with ‘real India’, with the homeland. A post in the online guest book of Akshardham Cultural Complex at New Delhi reads:
The website and the monument are very important for us and our children because they prove that India is not just about filth and slums and poverty! It is about richness of our heritage! It is about people who show that together we can make it.19
The quote underlines the asymmetry of winners and losers as the ‘Indian Dream’ of economic growth and progress has developed since the 1990s. Moreover, it suggests a certain standardisation of the ‘richness of our heritage’, flattening out and marginalising other, less dominant traditions. The visibility of the one, thus, produces the invisibility of the other.
In the context of the case study, heritage—like media—is part of an indigenised global imaginary, a strategy to gain recognition and access to cultural resources and property that has gained relevance from colonial rule through to economic liberalisation. No longer part of a Western ‘modernity package’, it offers itself for appropriation and alteration in and through new media technologies: the ‘media packaging’ creates an aura of evidence and indigeneity by means of authenticity and aesthetic appeal. Distinction, belonging and participation are harmoniously fused in the age of ‘Ethnicity Inc.’ (Comaroff and Comaroff, 2009). Media and events connect communities across the world, in a network that provides confidence, even a notion of ethnic superiority through the idea of a golden Hindu past.20
Coined as a Western concept, cultural heritage has become increasingly relevant in its affinity to new media technologies and the experience of globalisation where identities are generated that complement regional and national ones without rendering them obsolete, and from where the state, the previous stakeholder, has largely withdrawn. But what is celebrated? Is it really authentic cultural diversity, is it really ‘indigenous’? I argue that especially the new media are instrumentalised for an ‘authentic’ simulation of ‘the past’. They play with the foreign gaze and transform it into an indigenous gaze. The overseas Indians gaze upon India like a distant planet on which they have landed, like a photomontage of Dubai’s or Abu Dhabi’s breathtaking skylines, the exotic–romantic Taj Mahal and educational Amar Chitra Katha comics. The media oscillate between these, rendering slippages invisible by providing an ‘authentic’, unique aesthetic experience, so the beholder is made to believe. Nostalgia without memory is the global currency, a tourist item, reworking India into a theme park. BAPS is not the sole player of this tune: the Internet is full of sites where ‘indigenous’ communities or online tribes venture into transcultural ethnicity-marketing. And we must surely see an initiative like the Akshardham Cultural Complex as part and parcel of a larger agenda of global flows where the virtual enforces the real and vice versa; for instance, in the case of the Akshardham Cultural Complex’s entanglement with the rapidly expanding real estate market and mega events of a ‘world class’ city like New Delhi in the case of the Commonwealth Games village 2010, built next to the Complex (Brosius, 2010).
It is a crucial element of mediality to enable participation and interactivity via a range of access forms and platforms to bind as many people as possible to an idea such as cultural heritage and an intimate moral community. The idea of cultural heritage, its preservation and sensuous revitalisation on a transnational level is a key function of BAPS-produced audiovisual media. Even though larger audiences are addressed through the many photo galleries, exhibitions and films of mega events and rituals, insiders also feel that this gives them another reason to be proud of their work, to ‘feel’ the width and depth of their activities within the wider realms of society—be this in India or in the diaspora.
Additionally, and quite complementarily, the Internet is used as a virtual space to enhance local knowledge and community feeling—quite opposite to what the Internet is often associated with otherwise, that is, the creation of large and anonymous ‘imagined communities’. The image management of commercial film aesthetics and narratives of the American Dream now step back in favour of a suggested active participation in the virtual happenings and actual activities of the glocal sampradaya. An online ecumene is made in such a way that is appears intimate and close, where worship can take place and where the local language Gujarati is promoted. Everyone can click on religious songs, download speeches of Pramukh Swami Maharaj, listen to traditional and regional hymns such as thal, doon and arti or upload personal prayers to be recited, ‘live’ by priests at a proper ritual elsewhere (see Hanna Kim, Chapter 30 in this volume). In the 1990s, as also indicated in Raymond Williams’ work on the Swaminarayan movement (2001), this would have been rejected as illegitimate and inadequate, quite like watching television, or eating outside, for instance, is seen as ‘polluting’. What develops here though is highly interesting: it is a new form of sanctity and orality. Some of these devotional tools are still in the regional language Gujarati. However, even the sacred texts are now translated into English and Hindi where beforehand they used to be circulated in printed and oral form only in Gujarati. The growth of the movement demands such an expansion into other languages. Online satsang exams are advertised for young devotees of Lord Swaminarayan in the three languages. No immediate text literacy is required for the daily murti darshan (ritual of glancing at the deity), hosted from the homepage of the BAPS congregation in London. It allows the visitor to worship Lord Swaminarayan as he is presented for online murti darshan with reference to his murtis’ placement in any of the seven hundred temples worldwide. This way, the importance of darshan for Hindus is given credit and the network of the devotional community is affirmed and revitalised. Moreover, the highly personal and intimate ritual gets more visibility as a ‘public’ event, through which a community of devotees is constituted in the act of worship. An imagined sacred topography of global presence and success is, thus, established, heightening the concept of Benedict Anderson’s imagined yet highly mobile transnational community or what Meyer refers to as ‘aesthetic formation’ (2009). Some members of the virtual ecumene even ask for the provision of an online marriage portal so that ‘their’ youth ‘could easily find Boys and Girls through this site’.21 Here, the flexibility and mobility of globalisation sets new limits to pluralist networking. It also underlines the desires of a growing middle class to ‘keep to themselves’ in private while opening up to cosmopolitanism in public. In the case of marriage, caste frequently appears as significant to satsangis. This underlines that the alleged opening of the media landscape is restricted, with concepts of flexibility and mobility limited by the strengthening of established social structures and loyalties.
The last example I want to explore is the New Delhi Akshardham Cultural Complex itself, which has enabled BAPS to present itself as a transnationally successful and flexible religious movement, an aesthetically appeal-ing and confident brotherhood. It offers much to BAPS satsangis as well as non-BAPS members. The wider appeal, beyond its own Sanstha, relates to the branding of the site as a symbol of ‘world class’ urbanism and consumption, responding to the aspirations of cosmopolitan and yet distinctly ‘Indian’ middle classness and aesthetics. This is manifest in the ways in which the Akshardham becomes a site of remarkable cleanliness and control. The spatial and aesthetic rhetoric of hygiene and cleanliness displayed at Akshardham is reminiscent of other globalised world class spaces, such as international airports, shopping malls or the lobbies of five star hotels. The contrast with other public places and religious sites, such as ‘traditional’ Hindu temple complexes, can be stark and has been underlined in interviews with visitors of different background. In such arenas, beggars might sit en route to the shrine, waiting for a donation. Secular and ritual garbage may be scattered, and the smell of food and incense may at times become one.22 There may also be loudspeakers blaring devotional songs, real singing of hymns and bells.
Compared to this, Akshardham Cultural Complex is quite different. The difference starts with the choreography of arrival. The first security check of bags takes place after the first gate. Everything but water (sealed) and wallet must be left behind—in the car or at the counter. Signboards welcome the visitor in English, and one can read that no knives, guns, alcohol, chewing gum or burqas must be brought in. One links the latter automatically to the fear of Islamic terrorism. And there is such a fear. Several informants told me that Akshardham ranges among the top terrorist targets in the city. Inside, people can be found polishing sculptures and emptying the many garbage bins, machines are driven around, polishing the marble floors, the lawn is perfectly cut and green, sprinkled by the latest state-of-the-art underground watering system. Dozens of different signs alert visitors to the fact that they must not touch the monument’s figurines or come too close to the murtis and relics shrine or talk too loud or spit. Guards ensure the disciplined behaviour of visitors and rarely have I observed scenes where visitors seem to be embarrassed about being ‘caught’ misbehaving while others were looking on. This way, ordinary crowds may easily be turned into uneducated uncultured ‘mobs’.
I propose that these regulative aesthetics of visitors’ behaviour contribute to the Akshardham’s success. People may feel as if they are part of something structured and dedicated, culturally important and grand as they succumb to apparently draconian security measures without protest.23 Such tendencies are rooted in familiarity with the paternalist attitudes of the colonial state, as well as the Nehruvian nation state vis-à-vis its citizens, as much as it is part of a more recent, neo-liberalist discourse of world-class sterility and gated spaces. The desire for both hygiene and security are genuinely ‘bourgeois’ middle-class desires and rooted in colonial stereotypes of the colonies as exotic and yet backward, dangerously other. The security measurements are justified by referring to the fear of international terrorism, the actual experience of having fallen victim to such violent attack at one of the theme halls of the Akshardham Complex in Gandhinagar in 2002, and Delhi’s experience of terrorist attacks of different kinds, in particular linked to a globalised Islamic fundamentalism since 2001. The restriction on burqas was referred to by several visitors I spoke to, including Muslims, who felt that this was a discrimination against people of Muslim background. Akshardham is filled with cameras (but not those of visitors). They are at the deposit counter, looking down at the visitor while s/he is asked to ‘look up’, much like at many immigration controls at airports today. There are dozens of CCTV cameras built into corners and ceilings. More visible to the visitor’s eye are the watchtowers next to the high wall surrounding the compound and the concrete belt of several metres width. The guards inside the compound are private security personnel, some of whom I witnessed carrying guns in the compound itself in October 2010. Outside the Complex, security measures are provided by means of a mobile Police Control Room (PCR) van, commandos of Delhi police, Nagaland Police and First Battalion.24 Private security guards are clad in baseball caps, beige polo shirts (that bear the embroidered logo of BAPS), baggy khaki army trousers and black polished, high army boots. The sight of these officers ranges from impressive to intimidating. At several visits in 2010, they could be seen at the parking lot and in particular for the sound and light show in the evening, when hundreds of visitors gather around the monumental step well, with their popcorn, crisps and coke bottles, to enjoy the 40-minute spectacle. The intention is to discipline the crowds, but the presence of these guards, some of them also accompanied by German shepherd dogs, also contributes to the constellation of symbols and practices which produce what Caldeira refers to as a globalised ‘aesthetics of fear’ (2000). Even though CCTV and other signs of surveillance technologies and measurements for security reasons are present at secular public and semi-public sites elsewhere, the symbols described above seem counterproductive to the idea of the Akshardham as a site of peaceful contemplation and meditation.25
Urbanisation theory has produced the idea that gated communities in neo-liberal countries rely substantially on an aesthetic of fear and belonging (Caledeira, 2000; Zukin, 2005 [1995]). There is, in the first instance, the desire to gate oneself off from the disorderly, insecure and unhygienic outside world in cities with high rates of criminality and illegal housing.26 Second, gated communities have emerged in the context of economic liberalisation in the Global South and the Arabian Emirates, where the politics of real estate speculation has set off the inflationary growth of gated communities for all kinds of affluent groups. India, Delhi in particular, has certainly witnessed this booming market. Third, an aesthetic of fear and a desire for protection through gates was triggered by the security alarm and fears of 9/11. Since this time, it has developed into a transnational desire for protection and security measures, addressing diverse fears and the aspirations of audiences in a globalised world. In the context of such commentary, I propose that the heightened rituals of security witnessed at the Akshardham site are not only part of the aesthetics but also part of the success of this event space. This certainly appears as something of a logical consequence from the testimony speeches cited earlier, which demonstrated that the world out there must be carefully secured and gated in order to prevent ‘false’ thoughts and people from entering. The underlying ‘chaotic world’ outside is beautified and covered up by the spectacular aesthetics and ideological utopias presented in and through the media products of which I have discussed only a few in the course of this chapter. But this desire for gates is not only a phenomenon distinct to BAPS but shared and understood by larger, mainly upper-middle-class and elite sections of the globalised world.
Let us conclude: media help BAPS to construct cultural identity and transnational locality—and to create a presence in a multitude of places and among diverse audiences. The key link that binds almost all media representations and actual activities, besides that of devotion to Lord Swaminarayan, is the notion of cultural heritage. With it, BAPS representatives communicate and generate national pride (if not, at some moments, national/cultural chauvinism), attract attention, suggest and motivate participation in ‘something larger for the common good’ and project ‘Indian’ culture or ‘the Indian way’ as the solution to today’s problems in the world. BAPS sampradaya is presented as a beautiful, selfless, happy and safe brotherhood. The media, in particular the filmic documenting of rituals as aesthetic events, help BAPS representatives to present the community in a way that may evoke the desire in non-satsangis to become part of the community.
The focus on different media productions, their circulation and aesthetic within BAPS’s ecology allows us to gain a new access to the idea of sampradaya as a transnational ecumenical community within the context of a globalised imaginary and topography of sacred sites. This approach allows us to consider multiple systems of reference, simultaneous practices and embeddedness in sites and scapes. It mirrors the recognition that ‘culture’ and ‘community’ or ‘cultural identity’ and ‘communal identity’ can no longer be confined to one site, imbued with fixed characteristics. Part of the media produced by BAPS aims at making its global presence and solidarity visible, quasi-tactile and ‘real’, for various audiences at various places in time. Media and mediality as well as spatial programmes generate both educational and spectacular effects, authoritarian and entertaining, through a heightened sense of threat to be encountered by rhetorics of cleanliness and control.
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1 This chapter focuses on the metropolitan centres and mega events. It is, however, important to underline that BAPS’s activities go beyond the cities and large events, for there are many temples in small cities and rural areas of India and abroad. Thanks to Kishan Devani, Head of Religious Studies at The Swaminarayan School, opposite the BAPS mandir in London, for pointing this and other relevant issues out to me.
2 BAPS is also present on Facebook (see http://www.facebook.com/pages/Baps-Swaminarayan-Sanstha/30959636123, accessed 4 February 2012). New media are but one means of several used to communicate and stay in touch with followers, the most important being the weekly sabha sermons (gatherings, also for boys and girls).
3 See www.artofliving.org (accessed 4 February 2012).
4 While I could get no numbers from BAPS, other sources name 5–20 million (see, for instance, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swaminarayan, accessed 4 February 2012).
5 For instance, in the UK, BAPS has been recognised as an important civil movement taking responsibilities beyond its own community boundaries, for the elderly, the ill and the environment.
6 Zavos refers to BAPS’s activities regarding ‘ethnic citizenship’ in the context of Great Britain.
7 See http://www.swaminarayan.org/globalnetwork/index.htm (accessed 30 April 2012).
8 The website for children is particularly interesting in this instant, for example, Pramukh Swami Maharaj’s teachings on various topics such as eating outside food as source of ‘degeneration’: http://kids.baps.org/withswamishri/246.htm (accessed 30 April 2012). In 2010, the Swaminarayan School was awarded the Second Position in the Independent Schools League Table, after having been recognised in 2008 and 2009 too. See http://www.mandir.org/news&events/2010/01/tss/index.htm (accessed 5 December 2010).
9 See also the quote of a former student from a BAPS mega event in New Jersey quoted in this chapter.
10 Many of the professionally made DVDs can be bought in the large souvenir shops of the cultural centres, for example, in Gandhinagar, Delhi or London. Most of them are in English, some are in Gujarati or Hindi and only recently have some initiatives of subtitling been started. Bliss can be subscribed to or bought in the above-mentioned shops. BAPS also sends out online newsletters.
11 Sanskruti—Swaminarayan Satsang Darshan—Part 46, Inspirer: His Divine Holiness Pramukh Swami Maharaj. A Mega Cultural Event—Continental Airlines Arena, NJ, USA, Saturday, 5 June 2004. Transcription, emphases and comments in brackets by the author.
12 See http://mandir.org/mandir/concepts.htm (accessed 30 April 2012).
13 Bal and kishore sabhas are weekly or even daily gatherings of youth (separated by gender) of the BAPS to play, learn and discuss religious topics.
14 There are temples in India that attract pilgrims and tourists alike through their media-savy approach in using sound and light technologies, robots, dioramas and the like (see Brosius, 2010). But BAPS certainly leads in terms of investing massively in state-of-the-art technology.
15 The BAPS invests much attention and expertise towards its public visibility as well as towards servicing its followers.
16 Symbolic offerings of food to Lord Swaminarayan during the Diwali celebrations.
17 Thanks again to Kishan Dewani for alerting me to this (see also Note 1).
18 ‘The Akshardham Experience’, 7 November 2005, Available online at http://hinduism.about.com/od/akshardhamtemple/a/akshardhamdelhi.htm (accessed 20 June 2009).
19 See http://www.akshardham.com/guestbook (accessed 30 April 2008).
20 The boat ride through India’s ancient past at Akshardham Complex in New Delhi, for instance, underlines India as an international centre of Vedic wisdom and knowledge, with Takshashila, ‘the world’s first university’, and other sources of scientific findings, discoveries and advanced technologies (such as rocket construction in the Vedic Age).
21 See http://www.swaminarayan.org/GuestBook/2008/april.htm (accessed 5 December 2010).
22 I should underline here that these are not my personal views but observations shared with me by many visitors I spoke to in the course of my fieldwork. There was consensus about the fact that the Akshardham Complex was remarkably hygienic and clean compared to possibly smaller and local temples of other sects and communities, as well as other public places (with the exception of sites such as shopping malls or hotels). Indian informants from different classes, castes and religious background articulated a strong discomfort, if not embarrassment, about the state of cleanliness of religious and public spaces in India and criticised the ignorance of many Indian citizens towards public hygiene.
23 These measurements are part of everyday life in Indian cities, with attacks on public sites particularly since 2002, see Note 25.
24 This information was given to my research assistant by the in charge of Police of Delhi at Akshardham on 4 January 2011 and by one private guard (no name given for the protection of informants anonymity). A guard inside the compound provided the information that a retired brigadier heads the internal security team.
25 To a certain extent, the security measurements are a reaction to the attacks on the Akshardham monument in Gandhinagar in 2002 as well as other attacks on national or private buildings in India since 2001 (for example, Indian Parliament, 2001; Mumbai, 2008).
26 Caldeira has studied this in the context of Sao Paolo, but there are similar studies on Johannesburg and other cities with extreme economic differences and social tensions.