Listen to this article:

The spectacle of former Chief Justice of India B.R. Gavai meeting a self-styled godman, Dhirendra Shastri – known by the alias ‘Baba Bageshwar Dham’ – should not be dismissed as yet another instance of a prominent national figure being drawn into the Hindutva vortex. It carries a larger implication, and a far more troubling message for India’s social justice movement.

Much of the immediate discussion in the public sphere has focused on the possible motivations behind Justice Gavai’s gesture. Why would a former CJI – moreover, one with a professed familial background in Ambedkarite politics – extend such public deference to a godman known for spewing venom against minorities? Is Justice Gavai seeking some material reward, perhaps through the godman’s perceived proximity to the Modi government, as some people on social media have uncharitably commented? Or could it be that he genuinely admires such a deeply divisive figure?

Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.

These questions, while tempting, miss the larger point.

To dwell on individual motives is to miss the broader – and more disturbing – context in which this visit must be situated. What matters is not why Justice Gavai did this, but what this moment represents in the trajectory of India’s socio-political evolution.

At a more immediate level, the development especially curious given that the judge had recently drawn attention during a hearing on a plea to restore an idol of Lord Vishnu in a Khajuraho temple. Dismissing the petition, he remarked: “This is a publicity interest litigation. Go and ask the deity himself to do something about it.” The comment – which reflected both judicial impatience with the manner in which the court’s time was being wasted and Justice Gavai’s own rationalist outlook – drew sharp criticism from self-styled Sanatani groups, with one lawyer even going so far as to hurl a shoe at him in court.

Seen against this backdrop – and given Gavai’s Buddhist and Ambedkarite orientation – it is unlikely that he has suddenly developed a religious affinity for Sanatanist Hinduism. More so since his gesture is not one of devotion to a deity, but of proximity to a controversial godman.

Nor does the visit sit easily with Justice Gavai’s stated position of declining post-retirement assignments, making it improbable that this is an attempt to secure a place within the corridors of power.

Clearly, there is more at play than meets the eye.

One plausible reading is that this reflects pressure – subtle or otherwise – from the Hindutva ecosystem to draw him into its fold. There is precedent to support such a view. Last year, the Hindu ecosystem crowed about how the judge’s mother, Kamaltai Gavai, was being invited as chief guest to the RSS’s Vijayadashami programme in Amravati, Maharashtra. The announcement triggered criticism from Ambedkarite circles, and soon a handwritten letter in her name was issued in which she said she was a ‘staunch Ambedkarite’ and would never attend such an event under any circumstances. Against that disclaimer, it would seem the ‘invitation’ was either an attempt at symbolic appropriation or the exertion of pressure to project the RSS as aligned with Dalit interests.

But even these strands do not fully capture the significance of the Justice Gavai-Baba Bageshwar meeting.

To focus only on such proximate explanations is to miss the woods for the trees. This episode must be located within the broader transformation underway in India’s social justice landscape.

From Rohith Vemula’s institutional killing to the Hathras rape and murder; from the flogging of Dalits in Una to caste Hindu protests over UGC regulations, there is a discernible pattern. The social justice movement has been systematically weakened through a combination of co-option and exclusion: inducements of power and patronage for sections of Dalits and OBCs on the one hand, and their displacement from institutional structures on the other, including through mechanisms such as lateral entry that privilege upper-caste dominance in higher echelons of governance.

The result has been a profound silencing of the movement. Dalit politics, once animated by powerful voices from Jotiba Phule and B.R. Ambedkar to Periyar, Kanshi Ram and Mayawati now appears enfeebled. Leaders have either acquiesced, willingly or under pressure, to the BJP’s assertive political machinery.

That Justice Gavai has chosen to be photographed with Dhirendra Shasti at a time when the revival of the old Brahminical order is being fast-forwarded is symptomatic of how the social justice movement is caving in meekly before that old order when it actually needs to resist it the most.

Mayawati’s own trajectory is instructive. Once a formidable force who led the Bahujan Samaj Party to power in Uttar Pradesh, she now occupies a diminished political space. Her silence on atrocities against Dalits, contrasts with her swift condemnation of a television serial titled Ghuskhor Pandit as “anti-Brahmin,” underscores the extent to which the Hindutva ecosystem has reshaped political priorities and responses.

For long, the judiciary appeared to be the last institutional bulwark against this erosion. But Justice Gavai’s overture to the Bageshwar Dham godman suggests that even this final bastion may no longer be immune to the pressures of the current political moment.

The episode thus stands as a potent symbol, not merely of individual compromise but of a broader surrender.

The judge’s rise to the office of Chief Justice of India stands as a defining marker of the social justice movement’s achievements and his act of appeasing a figure emblematic of lumpen Hindutva is symptomatic of a drift back toward the same medieval, dehumanising subjugation that the pioneers of the Dalit movement sought to dismantle. The image of his meeting with the godman will remain etched as a deeply unsettling symbol of this regression.

At the same time, it also points to another, parallel shift that is reshaping India’s public life. To understand this, the focus must shift from Gavai to the godman himself. What does Baba Bageshwar Dham represent?

The answer lies in developments such as last year’s incident in Prayagraj during Mouni Amavasya, when Shankaracharya Swami Avimukteshwaranand and his followers were roughed up while proceeding for a ritual bath. As has been argued before, such episodes indicate an emerging pattern: the rise of a new class of religious figures aligned closely with the Sangh parivar, operating as a parallel religious authority.

Having leveraged religion to consolidate political power, the RSS now appears intent on sidelining traditional religious hierarchies that might exercise independent influence. In their place, it has fostered a network of compliant godmen – figures who remain politically useful and ideologically aligned.

The Baba Bageshwar Dham is emblematic of this new order.

In this light, Justice Gavai’s gesture acquires a dual significance. It signals, on one hand, the weakening of India’s social justice movement under sustained ideological and political pressure. On the other, it reflects the ascendance of a parallel religious elite that is displacing traditional (and sometimes politically inconvenient) centres of spiritual authority.

Together, these developments convey a chilling message about the direction of India’s socio-political trajectory – one that deserves far more attention than the motivations of any single individual.

Vivek Deshpande, formerly with The Indian Express, is now a freelance journalist based in Nagpur.

© The Wire