This faculty seminar will feature a presentation by Dr. Parashar Kulkarni, Associate Professor, Centre for the Study of Social Inclusion (CSSI), on ‘Decline of Democracy and the Rise of the Superhero Saint: Popular Culture and the Legitimation of Religious Authority.’

Abstract

Religious leaders mediate political life across the globe, yet we know less about how their political authority is legitimized. This article examines the four superhero films of Gurmeet Ram Rahim, head of a large residential religious community in North India, to show how popular culture can construct such legitimacy. The films begin with a dystopia: democratic institutions are unaccountable, political and economic elites are corrupt, and criminality threatens social order. The superhero saint—ascetic, patriotic, omnipotent, of mythical lineage, and bound to the community through familial ties—intervenes and restores order. The resulting utopia is not democratic rule but a moral community of devotees under a divine Guru. By demonstrating an affinity between this political imaginary and the Guru’s actual exercise of religio-political authority, this article shows how religious leaders can rely on popular culture to legitimize personalized religious authority as a solution to democratic failure.