Panel: RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY ON THE FRONTIER OF EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES



31_2.1 - BABA MILAN AND 'MEDIATED RITUALITY' AMONG THE BRAHMA KUMARIS OF INDIA: HYBRID RELIGIOSITY, SPATIAL SIGNIFICANCE AND DIGITAL MEDIA

AUTHORS:
Sinha P. (Indian Institute of Technology Indore ~ Indore ~ India)
Text:
This study critically examines the incorporation of digital media into institutionalised ritual practices at the pilgrimage site of a women-led new religious movement (NRM) called the Brahma Kumaris during their largest religious gathering, Baba Milan (meeting the God), highlighting aspects of 'hybridised' religiosity. The group believes that God came yearly in the body of one of the late women religious leaders, to impart Godly knowledge during Baba Milan, but after her death in 2021, the group continued this yearly gathering by incorporating digital platforms to play recorded videos from previous years. In this ceremony, religious leaders and devotees from across the globe physically visit the Brahma Kumaris pilgrimage site to participate in a ceremony performed through recorded videos. Although God meets the followers through recorded videos, individuals are not passive recipients; rather, they actively engage during the progression, assuming the physicality of God through them. Although these videos are available on the BK's YouTube channel, and followers actively engage with digital platforms to perform everyday rituals from home rather than in the BK sacred space, the centrality of the sacred in this ritual, which is institutionally organised through digital space, warrants examination. This opens up an interesting field of inquiry in the study of digital religion, where the institutional ritual ceremony is performed through the incorporation of a digital platform, yet the spatial significance of the sacred remains central to the ceremony. Such a form of institutionalised ritual structure has largely remained understudied in the field of digital religion, and under this study, it is formulated as 'mediated rituality'. This study draws ideas from traditional and digital ethnographic approaches, using participant observation and in-depth interviews in the city of Mount Abu, India, and participant observation and content analysis of social media platforms.