Mumbai-based Dr Aniruddha Dhairyadhar Joshi, famously known as Aniruddha Bapu leads a mass industrial religious movement in Maharashtra spanning varied merchandise, a newspaper, NGOs and even a video-on-demand TV in his name. A medical doctor by profession, he turned on the spiritual path in the 1980s and began delivering religious discourses in 1996. Bapu claims to be an avatar of Shirdi’s Sai Baba.
Sporting a thick handlebar moustache and dressed in simple pants and shirt, he models himself as a modern-day Sadguru. His primary followers are Marathi speakers. However, in recent years his base has expanded since he began to deliver discourses in the Hindi language. His wife Swapnagandha is also worshipped as goddess Nanda Mata.
He practised medicine until 1997 and ran a clinic treating patients across the state. His discourses held in Dadar at his home and later on public grounds on Hindu scriptures like the Vishnu Sahasranama, Ramraksha Stotra and the Shree Sai Satcharita, were extremely popular. As his followers grew from hundreds to thousands, so did the cult of Bapu. With his blessings, the followers began to publish a newspaper called Dainik Pratyaksh, musical audios of devotional songs and religious stationery like the Ram Naam book wherein devotees repeatedly scrawl lord Ram’s name as a chant. The movement has developed into a circular economy wherein a handful of closed devotees have commercialised Bapu’s persona to produce and sell custom-made paraphernalia in the form of books, clothing, phone Apps for darshan, pravachan etc. for the masses. The Shree Aniruddha Upasna Foundation undertakes charity activities in the social, medical and educational field and Aniruddha’s Academy of Disaster Management trains volunteers to be first aid respondents in times of natural calamities or man-made tragedies.
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Bapu is associated with the RSS and his spiritual movement takes heavy inspiration from Sangh’s religious nationalism. His movement propagates the virtues of Bharatiya culture and has built a grassroots movement on the lines of Sangh’s shakhas. These local units hold religious gatherings that also help widen the follower base
His religious sermons also began to feature his views on the state of current affairs, politics, nationalism and foreign policy. He predicted a third world war involving India and Pakistan and even authored a book on the subject in 2006. As a caution against the impending doom, he advised his followers to prepare themselves physically as fighters. The movement runs a self-defence training program similar to Rashtriya Swayamseva Sangh focussed on physical strength, organisational work and nationalism for both male and female followers.
