Brahma Kumaris

The Brahma Kumaris are commonly used for Prajapita Brahma Kumaris Ishwariya Vishwavidyalaya, a new religious movement founded by Lekhraj Kripalani in 1937, following visions he had in his dreams of the destruction of the world and the world cycle. The group moved to India from Pakistan in 1950, where it gained broader public visibility and underwent restructuring. This group essentially reinterprets Hindu doctrines, rituals, and understanding of Gods and Goddesses. The group positions itself as a spiritual educational institution to teach people about the reality of the world and the true form of religion, which, for them, is Sanātana Dharma. The group broadly has two types of membership, surrendered (samarpit) and non-surrendered. Surrendered members are those who leave their homes to live at a BK's monastic centres called Raja Yoga centres. These are the religious leaders who form the group's administration. In contrast, non-surrendered members are devotees living in their homes while adhering to the group's religious principles. These include occasional visitors to the group, as well as those who have been with the group for years and follow most of the religious norms. In this entry, surrendered members are in focus. For non-surrendered members, the life and rules under the Brahma Kumaris are very different. I am Priyanka Sinha, a PhD candidate at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences (Sociology) at the Indian Institute of Technology. I am not personally attached to the group, but have maintained close contact with it for almost 2 years for my PhD research. I have performed seven months of ethnography fieldwork on the Brahma Kumaris in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, and Mount Abu, Rajasthan, India. The data collected are based on participant observation, in-depth interviews, and group discussions. A total of thirty interviews were conducted by me. I am also currently employing digital ethnography to collect data from the Brahma Kumaris' websites, YouTube, Facebook, and WhatsApp channels.