From Faith to Spectacle: Gender, Digital Religion, and the Commodification of Belief in Contemporary India

Abstract

Religion has historically played a pivotal role in shaping societal norms, collective identities, and moral frameworks.  Copland, Ian, et al. (2012), provide a comprehensive analysis of the state and religion by examining six key areas: cow worship and sacrifice, control of temples and shrines, religious festivals and processions, proselytizing and conversion, communal riots, etc.  However, religion in contemporary India is undergoing a profound transformation, shaped by digital culture, consumerism, and shifting socio-political landscapes. This paper argues that religion is increasingly reconstituted as a spectacular and commodified cultural form, where faith is performed, circulated, and contested across digital and physical spaces. Drawing on ethnographic observations and informal interviews conducted in Kolkata, the study examines three interrelated processes: the rise of digital religious satire, the commodification of religious practices, and the gendered reconfiguration of religious participation. This study explores how religion is commodified and reinterpreted through satire, social media, and gendered participation, revealing the evolving relationship between faith and modernity.  Satire functions as both a challenge to religious orthodoxy and a tool for democratization, allowing feminist and LGBTQ+ activists to reimagine religious symbols and disrupt exclusionary traditions. Meanwhile, the commercialization of festivals turns sacred rituals into entertainment, blurring devotion with spectacle, highlighting faith’s transformation into a commodified, neoliberal experience. This is qualitative research, relying on ethnographic data by combining ethnographic observations with informal interviews, this study highlights religion’s evolving role as both a cultural commodity and a contested site of identity negotiation. Engaging with theories of spectacle (Debord 1967), lived religion (McGuire 2008), and affective circulation (Ahmed 2004), the paper demonstrates that these transformations do not signal the decline of religion but rather its rearticulation within neoliberal and mediatized frameworks.