The subtle art of differentiating between a theocracy and a secular democracy

Two countries. Two self-styled godmen. Why does the 'theocracy' call out the misogyny and corruption of one while no less than the Supreme Court of the 'secular democracy' stop investigation against the other?

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THIS is a tale of two countries. One calls the other a theocracy, even though the Constitution of the other country says it is a democracy. The other country continues to call the first country a democracy even when those winning mandate after mandate in national elections expressly state that their country is a Hindu rashtra, because the Constitution of the first country still calls it a democracy.

Perhaps that should be our first clue.

In one, a self-styled religious orator, who is also an official State guest, is openly questioned by a woman during a televised speech on governmental premises. Then the orator and the government that invited him are heavily criticised by media outlets and prominent citizens of the country, along with being trolled by its netizens, all seemingly without fear of reprisal.

In the other, the Supreme Court of the land restrains the police from conducting an inquiry by Order of a high court of a state against an organisation run by a self-styled spiritual guru (question, why are spiritual gurus always self-styled, why are they never, ever democratically elected?), merely because a senior advocate, supported by the Solicitor General, orally mentions that the Supreme Court should do so. Neither media outlets nor prominent citizens criticise the Supreme Court or the guru.

Chapter no. 1, Verse no. none: Pakistanis versus Zakir Naik

Zakir Naik has done quite a few things on his recent State-sponsored visit to Pakistan for which a large cross-section of Pakistani citizenry is panning him.

From his complaints against Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) for not allowing him to carry a ton of baggage (the physical one, metaphysical baggage is allowed on PIA) free of charge to his refusing to share the stage with orphan girls because they were described as "daughters", Naik has mobilised all aspects of his world-class identity from entitled brat to committed misogynist.

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Even though Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif officially invited him to deliver a series of lectures over a month in major cities of the country, his trip has turned out to be an unmitigated disaster. One does not need to imagine what glee this has given rise to in India, his country of origin, where is a declared fugitive. There is no need to imagine it because it is already out on full display.

Multiple reports in major media outlets go into the details of Naik's controversies. They have not only quoted the reproaches of noted public personages of Pakistan but have also been kind enough to provide critical tweets of the common citizenry.

The Print, for example, has one article dedicated to explaining a public interaction between a "Pashtun girl from Lakki Marwat" and Zakir Naik, and the social media outrage that followed.

In the first section of this article, The Print reports that this girl asks Zakir Naik why there is rampant drug addiction, adultery and paedophilia in a society that calls itself Islamic and why ulemas (Islamic religious scholars, plural of aalim, one who has knowledge) are doing nothing about it.

Zakir Naik brushes the question off with trademark sophistry by saying that the girl is wrong to call such people Islamic and she should apologise for doing so.

The second section is devoted to critical comments from users on Instagram and X. The Print hosts three articles from Zakir Naik's present visit to Pakistan and all of them criticise Naik for various forms of misogyny and religious fundamentalism, while talking about how Pakistani citizens reacted against him.

I am using The Print as an example but the story is the same in other outlets. These media outlets are so happy seeing the Pakistan government and its guests being dragged through the streets that all of them miss the traffic for the cars.

None of them ever think to ask, how does this young Pashtun woman feel confident and secure enough to ask such a difficult question on the grounds of the Governor's House in Karachi in front of thousands of people who have come to attend the event?

None of them ask how Pakistani media, along with both prominent and common citizens, can openly criticise a religious orator invited by the Prime Minister himself, without fearing a crackdown on their lives, careers or institutions.

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Openly criticising a Muslim leader wanted by India could have been dealt with harshly by the State, or the people could have decided to self-censor in order not to give Islamophobes more ammunition against Islam, but neither of those happened.

The people of Pakistan did not blindly support Zakir Naik just because he is a firebrand Islamic preacher and the State of Pakistan did not crack down on its people for being critical.

In their impatience to criticise Zakir Naik, Indian media forgot to praise Pakistani society for its religiously liberal and non-jingoistic approach to the matter. The hateful person sees the blemishes of the moon without ever being able to see its beauty.

It happens only in India, yes or no?

While the above was happening in Pakistan, India had its tryst with Jagadish 'Jaggi' Vasudev— alias Sadhguru— and his Isha Foundation.

After extensively hearing a case filed by retired professor S. Kamaraj against the Isha Yoga Center in Coimbatore, the Madras High Court had directed the Coimbatore Rural police to file a status report on criminal cases registered against the foundation. Due to this Order, 150 police officers raided the Isha Foundation's ashram in Thondamuthur on October 1, 2024.

On October 3, 2024, senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi made an oral mention on behalf of the organisation in the Supreme Court of India, supported by the Solicitor General of India, Tushar Mehta, who appeared on behalf of the Union government.

In response, a three-judge Bench presided over by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) D.Y. Chandrachud, restrained the Tamil Nadu police from taking any further action against the Isha Foundation and transferred the case to itself.

Oral mentions usually only lead to such quick action from the Supreme Court when the matter is of grave urgency, wherein if the court spends time in extensive hearings and does not act immediately, events would proceed in such a manner that action would become moot.

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For example, if slums are being demolished and an advocate orally mentions that this would impinge on the fundamental rights of the slum-dwellers, the Supreme Court would have to act immediately, because if it waits for days to hear the matter, the demolitions would have already happened by the time the court reaches a judgment and by then it would be impossible to un-demolish the slums.

Similarly, say a 500-year-old mosque is being demolished and an advocate orally mentions that this would be a serious miscarriage of justice, the Supreme Court would pass a stay Order because once demolished, no judgment would be able to re-erect the mosque.

That is the law serving the interest of justice, even though we already know how things have been in the recent past.

In the case of the Tamil Nadu police investigating the activities of the Isha Foundation, no such irreversible action could be discerned. Then what was the serious miscarriage of justice that prompted the Supreme Court to take such an unusual step?

Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi argued that this is a serious case pertaining to the issue of "religious freedom… This is about the Isha Foundation, there is Sadhguru who is very revered and has lakhs of followers".

While passing the stay Order, the CJI orally remarked, "You cannot let an army or police into an establishment like this." At a time like this, when all kinds of institutions are being investigated by investigation agencies under the Union government, such as the Central Bureau of Investigation, the Enforcement Directorate and the National Investigation Agency, why cannot the Isha Foundation be investigated by an Order of the highest judicial body in the state of Tamil Nadu?

Schrodinger's Sadhguru

On the Isha Foundation's website, Sadhguru is referred to as "a spiritual leader and a yogi, mystic and visionary". In various interviews and articles, Sadhguru mentions how he is not religious but spiritual. He does not believe Hinduism is a religion at all, he says it is a way of life— which is incidentally the position taken by the Supreme Court in a landmark and controversial case.

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Echoing Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat, Sadhguru says, "Anyone who is born in the land of Sindhu is a Hindu. It is a cultural and geographic identity."

On its website, the Isha Foundation describes itself as "a not-for-profit volunteer-run public service organisation founded by Sadhguru". In a press release, the foundation says that "Isha, with over 200 centres worldwide, is a non-religious, not-for-profit, public service movement".

Yet, while appearing for Sadhguru's Isha Foundation, their advocate says this is an issue of 'religious freedom'. How can it be an issue of religious freedom if the foundation is explicitly non-religious? Are investigations into all not-for-profits to be covered under religious freedoms or is this a special case?

The matter is not even of mere semantics. Newslaundry did an extensive series on Sadhguru, called On a Godman's Trail, in which it demonstrated how the Isha Foundation takes advantage of Section 80G of the Income Tax Act which provides for a deduction for donations made to certain charitable institutions or funds. One of the conditions for exemption under 80G is that the organisation must not have anything to do with religious or business activities.

So, on one hand, the Isha Foundation forgoes the payment of taxes by loudly claiming it is not a religious organisation. While, on the other hand, the lawyer it has engaged argues in the Supreme Court that the investigation ordered by the Madras High Court pertains to the issue of religious freedom. If the police investigation of the Isha Foundation is indeed a matter of religious freedom, how can the Isha Foundation take advantage of the provisions of 80G?

Either their lawyer lied in the Supreme Court and should be booked for contempt of court or the Isha Foundation should be investigated for evasion of taxes. That Isha Foundation can simultaneously remain a non-religious institution and a religious organisation is seemingly only possible because Sadhguru has mastered the inner engineering of perpetually existing in two existential states at once.

But as the Supreme Court case from 1995 cited above shows, this duality, let us call it constitutional dvaita, is not confined to the Sadhgurus of this world but may be a basic feature of the Indian State itself.

Spiritual Hindu and fundamentalist Muslim

While Indian media outlets refer to Zakir Naik variously as "fugitive Islamic preacher", "controversial Islamic preacher", "fugitive Islamic evangelist", and "Islamist preacher", the same outlets refer to Jaggi Vasudev as Sadhguru, the 'true guru'.

In a conversation between The Print's editor-in-chief Shekhar Gupta and 'Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev', senior associate editor Neelam Pandey refers to him as a "mystic, a yoga guru, a spiritual leader, a man with an uber-cool swagger".

Ubermensch viel?

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While they are correct to call Zakir Naik out on hate speeches and misogyny, why do the proudly secular Indian media and citizenry practise double standards in the case of Sadhguru?

Here is a person who justifies the caste system by saying it was originally merely a division of professions and for thousands of years "it remained a social security system" for the masses. While echoing M.K. Gandhi's justification of the Varnashrama Dharma, he says, "There is really nothing wrong with it if you look at it on one level. It was just a certain arrangement of convenience for the society."

While arguing against the need for a caste census, he blames the Muslim and British conquests for the economic disparity and discrimination that crept into the caste system, saying that "education and economic development is the answer to caste issues today, not labelling people by caste".

He appears in videos with such colourful and loving non-religious and totally spiritual titles as How Islam and British destroyed India, Worse than Holocaust: Sadhguru on 800 years of Muslim rule in India and Why The World Should Become Hindu.

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He says Indian society was perfect before the Muslims arrived on the subcontinent. Everyone in India followed the law and loved each other, and there was no gender or caste oppression. Traditional Indian culture, according to him, had no discrimination against women. That began only as a result of Muslim invasions.

In various articles and videos (Stop Talking About Women's Rights, Women and Freedom and Liberation From Women's Liberation) he explains how people should not fight for women's rights. According to him, if we "lift" all humans to Sanatana Dharma, gender oppression will automatically stop.

In a classic misogynist move, he blames feminists for putting too much emphasis on gender, thus keeping the oppression of women alive. If women do not identify as women, he opines, oppression will end. According to him, it is the self-identification of women as women and Dalits as Dalits that is the biggest impediment to ending gender and caste oppression in India today.

Yes, the solution to patriarchy and the caste system is en masse coming out as transmen and transBrahmins. Sadh vachan!

Indian media does not see this gaslighting and victim blaming, this misogyny and religious fundamentalism— Sadhguru literally wants to go back to the fundamentals of Hinduism or Sanatan Dharma. It only sees Zakir Naik's misogyny and fundamentalism.

If Zakir Naik incites communal hatred through his speeches maligning Hindus, how does Sadhguru, who blames Muslims for India's woes, not do the same? Who can listen to Sadhguru saying Muslim invaders destroyed a perfect Indian society and go away with warm feelings in their hearts for Muslims?

While Indian media and society seem to harbour and celebrate Sadhguru despite his hate-mongering, Pakistani media and society are openly criticising Zakir Naik. Which country is more theocratic? India or Pakistan?