namahatta.org - Congregational Development Ministry

Watch this space for my movie review (Mike Myers is hilarious in my book).

ISKCON's North American Communications gurus have released official statements (here and here) on the engineered controversy surrounding Mike Myer's new film "The Love Guru".

However, I wonder if ISKCON's media mavens (like Vyenkata Bhatta) are watching the other hand here...

The so-called "Hindu backlash" to the movie is being whipped up by (self-)"acclaimed Hindu-American leader" Rajan Zed [wikipedia entry], and it's the next step in his platform building as the voice of Hinduism in America.

He has gone from officially opening Congress and some state Senates to emailing the New Zealand parliament to get them to have a "Hindu prayer". The next bandwagon opportunity to create controversy and publicity has been the windfall of this movie. It's all part of a wider pattern of raising his profile, Hinduism's profile, and promoting his particular agenda. He sends press releases to everyone all the time that end with "Hinduism, oldest and third largest religion of the world, has about one billion followers. Moksha (liberation) is the ultimate goal of Hinduism."

I've watched his press releases and he is doing a good job of building himself into a prominent public position as the voice of Hinduism. This campaign is not (purely) about "defending Hindu religious sentiments", it's about uniting people around his agenda, and raising his profile and reputation in the process.

Keep an eye on this guy, because he is rapidly rising to a position of prominence, and this response of ours contributes to that. The strategic agenda of identifying ourselves with Hinduism (some ISKCON resolution in 1996) is no good if we are not in a prominent position of leadership.

Choosing a moderate voice in the Love Guru issue responds to the "movie issue" appropriately, but it plays into Rajan Zed's hand. We're responding to his agenda, which increases its value. At the same time, he has the leadership position - he's number one, we're number two.

We need to find another angle where we can be number one, and he is number two. Or in the language of Medal of Honor: Airborne: "Find a position of vertical superiority on your enemies and engage them from above".

Instead, or additionally, to moderating the hysteria around The Love Guru, we should attack his characterization of Hinduism as aimed at moksha (liberation), using this as an opportunity. People love a fistfight, and that's potentially a human interest-angle that the media might carry - "the story behind the story".

Note that Rajan Zed has an MBA from University of Nevada-Reno, an M.Sc. in Mass Communications from San Jose State University, California, and a journalism degree from Panjab University, India.

Interesting combination, no? A guy as smart as this should know that Mel Gibson prescreened his Passion of the Christ movie to pastors as a means of engaging them in marketing it to their congregations, not to get their approval of the content. However, in press releases he issued to pressure Paramount to show him the film before everyone else Mr Zed reminded readers that Gibson showed Passion to Christian pastors. The parallel is that Paramount should show the movie to him (because, you know, he is Hinduism).

Cynical exploitation? Hey man, mass communication is not about rigorous logic, it's about moving the masses to action according to your agenda.

And Hinduism squarely on the map with moksha as the goal is his agenda.

Know your enemy.