Digital Hindu Influencers and Contemporary Spiritual Discourse
Article Sidebar
Main Article Content
Abstract
With the proliferation of cheap internet, smartphones, and government-funded digital initiatives, social media platforms have emerged as powerful areas for disseminating ideological as well as religious content. Hindu spiritual leaders, like Sadhguru, Devdutt Pattanaik, and Gaur Gopal Das, have capitalized on these platforms to propagate the Hindu philosophy in a renewed form, which intertwines self-help narratives and spiritual discourse. These “Hindu” influencers claim to democratize spiritual knowledge and offer accessible wisdom, but their digital presence simultaneously raises critical concerns regarding the commercialization of faith, algorithmic amplification of ideology, and the erasure of caste, gender, and class inequalities. This paper examines how these digital religious figures utilize social media to cultivate charismatic authority, build unidirectional relationships, and monetize spiritual content. It debriefs the implications of such trends for pluralism, religious identity, and public discourse in India. Furthermore, the study draws parallels with digital influencers in Christianity and Islam to locate Hindu digital spirituality within a global paradigm of online religious transformation. The paper also examines how digital Hinduism marginalizes embodied and erotic ways of knowing, especially those rooted in Bhakti and female devotion, in favour of sanitized spiritual performances.
Downloads
Article Details
Section
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
You are free to:
Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.
The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.
Under the following terms:
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
Notices:
You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the material in the public domain or where your use is permitted by an applicable exception or limitation.
No warranties are given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material.
References
[1] H. Pallathadka, “Digital Hinduism: The Transformation of Ritual and Community in Virtual Sacred Spaces,” International Research Journal of Education and Technology, vol. 6, no. 11, pp. 496–507, Nov. 2024, doi: 10.70127/irjedt.vol.8.issue05.507.
[2] R. P. Singh, “From Sermon to Screen: Transformation of Religious Communication in Digital India,” International Journal of Arts, Humanities and Social Studies, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 597–600, Jul. 2025, doi: 10.33545/26648652.2025.v7.i2h.356.
[3] V. Nema and Prof. M. Sharma, “Dissemination of The Bhagavad Gita Through Digital Storytelling: A Thematic Analysis of Short Videos of Spiritual Leaders,” Journal of Communication and Management, vol. 4, no. 03, pp. 29–34, Sep. 2025, doi: 10.58966/JCM2025433.
[4] I. A. M. R. P. Dewi, “The Transformation of Communication Medium among Sulinggih in the Development of Technology,” Bali Tourism Journal, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 51–55, Dec. 2024, doi: 10.36675/btj.v8i3.115.
[5] V. N. Patel, “Emergence of Self-help Literature in Indian Writing in English: An Inclusive Study of its Rise and Development, its Social Impact and its Future Research Prospects,” International Journal Of English and Studies (IJOES ), vol. 7, no. 5, pp. 444–450, May 2025, doi: 10.47311/IJOES.2025.7.05.450.
[6] V. Tewari, A. Mishra, and R. Choudary, “The Digital Hindu Spirit of Capitalism: The Justification Strategies of Sadhguru and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar,” Stan Rzeczy, no. 2(27), pp. 195–226, Dec. 2025, doi: 10.51196/srz.27.9.
[7] H. Bhatia, “Social Media and Rise of Spirituality in India: A Mcluhan’s Approach,” ShodhKosh: Journal of Visual and Performing Arts, vol. 5, no. 2, Jul. 2024, doi: 10.29121/shodhkosh.v5.i2.2024.2863.
[8] I. W. Dana, I. G. A. K. Y. Masriastri, and N. Nurlensi, “Pendekatan Edukatif Komunikasi Keagamaan Hindu di Era Digital Tinjauan Literatur Sistematis,” Dharma Duta, vol. 23, no. 02, pp. 74–84, Oct. 2025, doi: 10.33363/dd.v23i02.1791.
[9] N. Nicoli, K. Henriksen, M. Komodromos, and D. Tsagalas, “Investigating digital storytelling for the creation of positively engaging digital content,” EuroMed Journal of Business, vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 157–173, May 2022, doi: 10.1108/EMJB-03-2021-0036.
[10] B. Zaid, J. Fedtke, D. D. Shin, A. El Kadoussi, and M. Ibahrine, “Digital Islam and Muslim Millennials: How Social Media Influencers Reimagine Religious Authority and Islamic Practices,” Religions (Basel)., vol. 13, no. 4, p. 335, Apr. 2022, doi: 10.3390/rel13040335.
[11] M. A’lan Tabaika and R. Roibin, “Digital Dawah and The Reconstruction of Islamic Authority,” al-Balagh : Jurnal Dakwah dan Komunikasi, vol. 10, no. 2, Sep. 2025, doi: 10.22515/albalagh.v10i2.12116.
[12] J. L. Gittinger, Hinduism and Hindu Nationalism Online. Routledge, 2018. doi: 10.4324/9781351103657.
[13] J. Huang, “The Digital Fabric of Nationalism: How Social Media Weaves Banal Nationalism into Everyday Life,” Advances in Social Behavior Research, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 60–65, Jun. 2024, doi: 10.54254/2753-7102/8/2024074.
[14] M. Lim, “Many Clicks but Little Sticks: Social Media Activism in Indonesia,” J. Contemp. Asia, vol. 43, no. 4, pp. 636–657, Nov. 2013, doi: 10.1080/00472336.2013.769386.
[15] R. & D. and D. (CARDD) The Center for Analytics, “The Religiously ‘Unaffiliated’ in an Age of Bespoke Realities on Social Media,” Vital Signs and Statistics. Accessed: Jun. 27, 2026. [Online]. Available: https://carducc.wordpress.com/2024/02/05/the-religiously-unaffiliated-in-an-age-of-bespoke-realities-on-social-media/
[16] V. Tewari, A. Mishra, and R. Choudary, “The Digital Hindu Spirit of Capitalism: The Justification Strategies of Sadhguru and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar,” Stan Rzeczy, no. 2(27), pp. 195–226, Dec. 2025, doi: 10.51196/srz.27.9.
[17] M. T. Ryzhik, “Devdutt Pattanaik’s Interpretation of Hindu Philosophy: Tradition Continuation or Spiritual Crisis?,” Perspectives. Socio-political journal, no. 1, pp. 109–117, 2024, doi: 10.24195/spj1561-1264.2024.1.15.
[18] P. K. Nayar, “Authors, self-fashioning and online cultural production in the age of Hindu celevision,” in Digital Hinduism, Routledge, 2019, pp. 91–106.
[19] S. Paul and D. O. Dowling, “Digital Archiving as Social Protest,” Digital Journalism, vol. 6, no. 9, pp. 1239–1254, Oct. 2018, doi: 10.1080/21670811.2018.1493938.
[20] A. K. Thakur, “New Media and the Dalit Counter-public Sphere,” Television & New Media, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 360–375, May 2020, doi: 10.1177/1527476419872133.
[21] P. Oza, “Dalit Activism in the Digital Age- Social Media as a Platform for Change,” SSRN Electronic Journal, 2024, doi: 10.2139/ssrn.4807043.
[22] H. A. Campbell, Digital Creatives and the Rethinking of Religious Authority. Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2020. | Series: Media, religion and culture: Routledge, 2020. doi: 10.4324/9781003045625.
[23] A. Saha, “Digital authoritarianism and the persistence of caste: Technology, resistance, and structural inequality in India,” Dialogues on Digital Society, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 397–401, Dec. 2025, doi: 10.1177/29768640251379547.