ABSTRACT
This chapter explores a controversy consequent on an alleged act of imitation by one guru of another guru, which occurred in 2007. The guru presiding over the Haryana-based devotional order the Dera Sacha Sauda (DSS) stood accused of publicly copying, in the manner of his dress but also ritually, Guru Gobind Singh, the final living Sikh guru according to orthodox Sikhs. The intimacies and distances that characterise the relationship between Hinduism and Sikhism are significant in seeking to account for Sikh sensitivity about the use of its imagery and teaching. The chapter describes four key mimetic pressure points of the DSS copy, namely lifting, distortion, elision and correction/usurpation. It considers the responses of DSS devotees to the accusations made against their devotional order, which are important for disclosing the DSS project of redefining the devotional real. The attacks on the DSS guru lead not to critical self-scrutiny but instead provide further critical proof of the guru's saintliness.
