New Age Gurus and the Construct of the “Saffron FMCG Space”: From Maharishi to Baba Ramdev in an Increasingly Conformist Hindu Consumer Base

India for the centuries has remained a social space where the divinity is invoked at most of the social engagements, most notably in the economic activities with the symbols of Ganesh and Lakshmi adorning the cobblers shoe mending shops to the Dalal street( the stock exchange in Mumbai). This paper tries to examine the necessary pre-conditions and the triggers in the post- liberalized Indian economic space and the changing social and normative space where the devout followers have remained glued with their unwavering loyalties to their spiritual Master’s sermons but also eager consumer and promoters of shampoos to syrups and from the margins of social engagement they became the necessary actors in the political space. With the withdrawal of the state from the public goods and dismantling of the license –quota raj post 1990, there is a considerable increase in the number of actors with this heady mix of savvy marketing duly administered with the spiritual schools where the gains of the samsara and Nirvanas are both sold in tandem. what has gone in parallel is their unabashed support to the nationalist and populist political parties who have worked in tandem thus nibbling away the middle class space of cohabitation, cultural diversity and argumentative and non conformist Indian cultural tradition. This paper tries to examine the causal connection of this conveyor belt of new age religious movements facilitating the creeping growth of the far right politics and its increasing acceptance in India where the agenda of the social and poltical inclusiveness has been threatened as never before and thus transforming the mediated political space substantially.