ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the ways in which the guru tradition has refashioned and re-situated itself within a neo-liberal economic and political agenda of the Indian state and other international organisations by looking at very 'localised' guru institutions called mathas in Kannada and their various welfare activities. The use of a common language and symbols in public rituals among kings, powerful big-men, and gurus has characterised the political culture of South India. It is something that people can immediately recognise and which enables them to participate in public debate. The activities of the gurus or swamijis of Karnataka clearly fit with the definition of ‘institutional big-men’ developed by Mines and Gourishankar. While gurus and matha supporters claim that the mathas and gurus are 'public property' or 'ours', legally speaking the mathas have ceased to be public institutions. By enlarging traditional functions, education, conflict resolution, and healing, the matha has finally appropriated the 'logic and languages of stateness'.
