Jagat

As a consequence of the latest scandal regarding Rajendra Sharma, formerly known as Bhagwat Acharya and now being portrayed in the media as “Porn Swami,” general damage seems to be being inflicted on all who are connected to religious activities, worship or preaching. Videos Sharma took with his wife of sexual activities with backdrops of Vrindavan’s scenery and mythological themes from Krishna’s life have now made the media tour of all of India, with the most lurid and sensationalistic coverage since last March and April, when Tamil Swami Nithyananda was filmed in flagrante delicto with an actress. . The Indian media has learned the lesson of tabloid journalism enthusiastically, and the obvious lesson is that it sells. Even here on this humble and fledgling website, where we are trying to serve Vrindavan Dham, its residents and lovers from around the world, we have seen a spike in hits and visits since we published articles on the subject. But it is not those articles that are ...

In Patiala and Delhi, I had a TV in my room and so I checked out what was going on in the 24-hour news cycle world. There were two major scandals in the last couple of weeks involving Indian sadhus, gurus and what-have-you, whom they call by the generic name "babas". At least they seem to have given up the term "God-men" which was a longstanding favorite of theirs I particularly hate. (I seem to be wrong about that.) There was even a little juicy video to play over and over again, what to speak of other clips of the babas dancing ecstatically. One TV station even played that up by juxtaposing the dancing guru with a belly dancer to make him look even more idiotic. The anchor man very sincerely said, "We are doing this as a public service as so many people put their faith in babas and they need to know who is genuine and who is not." Then Baba Ramdeva went on record in calling for the death penalty (!) for bogus babas, saying they are giving g...