Drawing room spiritualism

Like insurance, faith has become a matter of drawing room solicitation. Be it saffron robed Swami Ramdev or superstar evangelist Joel Osteen, faith of all hues are on display over the convenience of a television screen in the drawing room. The press of a remote button opens window to the world of emerging telefaith, a marketplace of spirituality of least resistance which is producing ‘consumer worshippers’ rather than worshippers ‘consumed with God’.

McDonaldisation, Masala McGospel and Om Economics looks at globalization from a cultural and religious standpoint. Backed by content analysis of two each of the Christian and the Hindu television channels, research for the book was followed by interviews with middle-level priests in Mumbai and Hyderabad. What emerges is a cutting edge research, providing insightful reading on the development of telefaith within India and around the world.

As mediated religions gain new foothold, faith is finding strange bedfellows in politics and the capitalist market. Not only does control over airwaves connect to the world of marketing and finance, the new links create political economies that support and sustain the religious media enterprises. High-profile televangelist, Ramdev who teaches and demonstrates his breath control techniques, has cashed in on television to build a huge religious enterprise.

But televangelism has reduced faith to a commodity for the calculating consumer. No wonder, the phenomenal following of some of the tele-gurus like Swami Ramdev and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar could be attributed to the medical bills that are impossibly high for the middle class in the event of an illness. It is no coincidence therefore that a large number of those taking part in healing crusades hope to be healed for free.

The growth of telefaith, the author asserts, may imply that the media will simply be a venue for the fragmentation of faiths, where multiple faiths are ‘narrow casted’ to specific interest groups, with various religions in a state of co-existence. However, the crucial question is whether global communication will co-create a world where multiple religions co-exist or will it create a world of homogenized global cultures?

As powerful generators of cultural meanings, religious media and mediatised religion have tremendous potential for generating strong identities that can have powerful implications for either understanding or misunderstanding, peace for conflict. If handled without care, the media could inadvertently become the venue for ‘clash of civilizations’, the book concludes.....Link

McDonalisation, Masala McGospel and Om Economics
by Jonathan D. James
Sage; 232 pages, Rs 595

Bridge those gaps

Epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett have gone under the skin to diagnose the disease that plagues the modern society. Crime is on the rise; mistrust amongst people is increasing; health is deteriorating by the day and self-esteem is at its lowest. Far from curtailing such trends, economic growth is indeed fuelling it further.

Sample this: America, one of the world's richest nations, has the lowest longevity and a high level of violence - murder, in particular. Add to it a growing mistrust amongst people and an increasing number of teenage pregnancies to get a picture of economic growth that belittles health and happiness of its people. Yet, economic growth is pursued as an antidote to social ills.

We know there is something wrong, and this book goes a long way towards explaining what and why. Pulling information from as much as 200 sets of data, the authors conclude that inequality is at the root of social crises. Inequality not only causes shorter, unhealthier and unhappier lives but destroys relationships between individuals born in the same society but into different classes.

The scale of economic inequality which exists today is less an expression of freedom and democracy as of their denial. If the cooperation of the masses was thought to be essential, the State would have reduced inequalities and flattened the pyramid of social stratification. But to persist with it seems deliberate, as it continues to generate illusion of hope in the State.

It is brave to write a book that questions the premise of economic growth. The speculative element in the cycles of economic boom and bust shift attention from environmental and social problems and make us worry about ‘how to get the economy moving again’. Whereas, in reality, reducing inequality would only make the economic system more stable.

Calling for our generation to make one of the biggest transformations in human history, The Spirit Level leaves on a note of optimism: ‘Greater equality will help us rein in consumerism and ease the introduction of policies to tackle global warming’. Unless progressive politics strengthen the concept of an equal society it will rarely provoke more than a yawn.

Anyone who believes that society is the result of what we do, rather than who we are, should read this book. Wilkinson and Pickett have backed their thesis with inarguable battery of evidence that ends with one of the simplest conclusion: we do better when we're equal.....Link

The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Always Do Better
by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett 
Penguin, London, 352 pages, $ 28