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Abstract
This dissertation studies the role of mass mediation in the transnational growth of one Svāminārāyaṇ Hindu organization, called BAPS (Bochasanwasi Shri Akshar Purushottam Sanstha), through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It argues that the sacred figure of the BAPS guru is now constituted by and dependent upon the institutional media apparatus built around him. The dissertation focuses on sevā (devotional service) in media technologies as a practice of guru worship that manifests the guru’s spiritual presence and powers for his devotees, the Gujarati press, Indian political discourse, and the Hindu diaspora. Chapter 1 contextualizes the life and teaching of Sahajānand Svāmī, the founder of the Svāminārāyaṇ Sampradāy, within his South Asian religious milieu of theistic Vedānta, Gujarati codes of conduct, North Indian Kṛṣṇa bhakti, Sufi-inflected piety, and British interests in reform. Sahajānand’s early Sampradāy was a bricolage of diverse religious sources that gave rise to a variety of sectarian interpretations, and the rest of the dissertation is the story of how one sect claimed and codified his teaching. Chapter 2 argues that BAPS was only able to be recognized as “Svāminārāyaṇ” when it entered a “literary and academic public outside of India” through its Gujarati- and English-language publications for the Gujarati diaspora. Its monthly magazine Svāminārāyaṇ Prakāś and weekly newsletter Satsaṅg Patrikā rendered the guru spiritually omnipresent around his growing transnational network. Chapter 3 examines how BAPS uses publicity work as a form of sevā to popularize the perception that its guru inherited Sahajānand Svāmī’s spiritual authority and to promote him as an international ambassador for Hinduism. Chapter 4 studies BAPS’ “Satsang Exam” program that trains and vets new devotees and it argues that the rigors and stresses of standardized testing give devotees a new experience of the guru’s omniscience as an objective assessment of their devotional merit. Finally, Chapter 5 analyzes the labor of BAPS’ devotee tech workers who foster an ascetic relationship with alluring new media and generate a perception of the guru’s divine foresight as he assigns theological value to future technological power.
The dissertation analyzes BAPS’ history of mass mediation as an example of how transnational Hinduism is now a center of innovation that exerts influence over Indian Hinduism. BAPS increased its mass mediation as transnational instability and fracture created a demand for standardization and stabilization for its devotional institution, first in East Africa, then in the UK, and the US. A centralized BAPS instituted these innovations among Indian devotees as well, normalizing the diaspora’s mass mediated relationship to the guru, with an increased technological presence compensating for his physical absence. The guru’s transnational media institution also engenders widespread support for Hindu Nationalism, both in India and abroad. Devotees regularly mediate and consume an essentialized vision of an eternally Hindu India, and the institution is expanding its role as Hindu ambassadors in the BJP’s informal diplomacy.