New Religious Movements: A Populist Twist

The scholarship on New Religious Movements (henceforth NRM) is vast. An important aspect of this scholarship is that in the South Asian context the term is collapsed with the Hindu faith and gurus (Srinivas, T, Critical Themes in Indian Sociology. Sage, New Delhi, 2019). Gurus, especially those in and of India, who are important to this literature on contemporary spirituality in India as against older religious forms have two interrelated themes; its commodification (Nanda, M, The God Market: How globalization is making India more Hindu. Random House India, New Delhi, 2009) and its subjective turn inward away from older collective institutionalized forms of religion (see Jacobs, S, The Art of Living Foundation: Spirituality and Wellbeing in the Global Context. Routledge, London/New York, 2015). The focus of this entry is around these broad themes and the debates that characterize the study of NRMs in India.