‘Godman’ Gadge and his YouTube miracles

This story is part of a series by Parth M. N. supported by the Pulitzer Center.

A mere link to a YouTube channel from his cousin cost Amol Khandekar more than twice his monthly income. And it wasn’t even phishing.

The 35-year-old labourer, barely making ends meet, watched the link and boarded an early morning bus. With him was his 11-year-old son diagnosed with a cyst in his head and an ailing mother struggling with weak joints. The nine-hour journey in a broken state transport bus stiffened her knees further but it was going to be worth it. Amol’s cousin had assured him that the answers to their health concerns lay in that YouTube channel.

The channel hosted a series of videos involving a bearded 'godman' with white chalk smeared across his forehead, addressing a smitten audience of thousands. From family troubles to alcoholism, from professional hiccups to cancer, from mental health issues to love life, Rajendra Gadge ‘Maharaj’ had a remedy for everything.

According to his channel, Gadge completed a 12-year spiritual course of Datta, a mythological monk venerated as an avatar of Lord Vishnu. “As a result of his dedicated spiritualism, Dattaguru blessed Gadge Maharaj,” the ‘about’ section adds. Ever since then, “he has been solving the problems of his pilgrims with the help of medicine and prayer.”

With 183,000 subscribers to the YouTube channel, officially named Dattadham Sarkar Sangamner, and cheerleading comments under each of the videos, Amol thought: “He must be doing something right.”

Belonging to a small village near the town of Pandharpur, Amol had dropped out of school and started working odd jobs to help his parents. “I currently work as a driver for a trader,” he said. “My job is to carry harvest from different farmers in the region and transport it to the mandis.”

It is a two-person job: one drives the tempo, the other loads the gunny bags in the boot. But Amol doubles up and does both for extra income. For this unforgiving, backbreaking work, he gets Rs. 10,000 per month – his only source of income. His ten-acre farmland is fertile but barren – being mired in a family land dispute.

Amol’s income barely sustains his five-member household. His mother, Ranjana, in her late 60s, put off going to the doctor to treat her increasingly throbbing joint pain for the very same reason. But when his son Rohan developed a lump over his right eye, Amol nervously rushed him to a doctor, who asked him to do a CT scan.

The results weren’t alarming. Rohan had a benign cyst which would recede with a regular course of medicines, the doctor said. However, a neighbour in the village suggested that the lump in his head could be the reason behind Rohan’s low grades in school. At which point, Amol’s cousin sent him the YouTube link, advising him to visit ‘Gadge Maharaj.’

“Since we were going in any case, my mother decided to join us too for her joint pain,” Amol explained.

After a nine-hour bus ride, the three of them crammed themselves in a shared rickshaw to reach their final destination. Arriving at the sprawling complex of Rajendra Gadge’s ashram in the village of Wadgaon Pan in Ahilyanagar district (formerly Ahmadnagar), Amol couldn’t believe his eyes. He expected a rush but not a sea of people from across caste and class groups lining up to listen to Gadge. Among them was a man with a catheter, who could barely stand straight or hold his head upright.

The hustle and bustle to get a glimpse of the 'godman' reassured and worried Amol at the same time. The rush validated his decision to come all the way to Sangamner – the taluka in which the ashram is located. But it also made him wonder how in the world he would be able to get a one-on-one audience with Gadge.

“I asked one of the staff members for help,” Amol said. “He told me I would have to pay 11,000 rupees for a personal examination.”

That was a thousand more than what he earned in a month. He thought about it. The vulnerable eyes of his mother and son looked at him in anticipation. A minute later, he decided. He had come this far – may as well go a bit further. Amol had borrowed Rs. 20,000 from a friend for this visit. He expected to spend about one-fourth of it and return the rest. But that ship had sailed.

“After I paid 11,000 rupees, the man gave me a receipt, saying our turn would come tomorrow,” Amol said. There are dormitory rooms in the complex where the three of them stayed over.

The next afternoon, when the ‘Maharaj’ finally met with Rohan and Ranjana, the inspection lasted less than 15 minutes. He prescribed some Ayurvedic medicines Amol could buy from within the Ashram premises, on which he spent another Rs. 8,000.

“My son works harder than anyone else to take care of us,” Ranjana said. “He toils even when unwell. I don’t want to waste his money.”

But Amol was down to the last thousand he had borrowed from his friend. A loan he wouldn’t be able to repay for a very long time.

Even though Gadge claims to be solving people’s problems for the past 30 years, he wasn’t always this popular nor always this expensive. In fact, his rise coincided with the outbreak of Covid-19, said advocate Ranjana Gavande, an anti-superstition activist based in Sangamner town, about 45 minutes from Gadge’s ashram. His YouTube channel, launched in 2017, took off around the same time.

“People suddenly had to face their mortality during the pandemic,” Gavande said. “Hospitals were inundated and helpless families turned to pseudo-science for emotional support in an extremely vulnerable state. Gadge ‘Maharaj’ cleverly exploited that vulnerability.”

Gavande is an office bearer of the Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti (ANIS), an organization fighting superstition whose founder Narendra Dabholkar was murdered by Hindu radicals in 2013. Her activists have visited Rajendra Gadge’s ashram as dummy patients.

“About 10 years ago, the waiting time to see Gadge would hardly be an hour,” said Prashant Pansare, 34, who has visited the ashram a couple of times. “Today, it is a minimum of six-seven hours if you are lucky. The fees also were just 300 rupees then.”

But even a 3,500 per cent jump in his consultation fees has not deterred the public. On the contrary, his popularity has soared thanks to his carefully cultivated YouTube channel. There are hour-long videos of ‘Gadge Maharaj’s’ sermon from the mount, as well as short videos that go up on his Instagram page, which has just under 2,20,000 followers.

In one video, Gadge addresses unmarried viewers in their 30s and 40s. He speaks in a rhythm with a mild, pleasant music in the background. “Prepare a cotton wick as long as your height,” he says. “Light it in the temple of Datta Prabhu for three consecutive Thursdays. You will soon get married.”

In another one, he offers a solution to any problem that refuses to go away even after several efforts. “Keep a bowl next to the water container in your house,” he says. “Pour a bit of Gangajal in it. Take a coin of any currency in your palm and say ‘Dattadham Sarkar Ki Jai.’ Press your palm against the forehead and drop the coin in the bowl. Sprinkle some of that Gangajal on your eyes. This will sort out your problem.”

To back up several videos like these are testimonies of devotees on his channel, thanking the 'godman' for curing a range of illnesses.

Anita (name changed on request), 30, came across one such video and rushed to Gadge’s ashram with her mother-in-law, who suffers from severe tissue damage on her left foot. “The doctors declared her leg would have to be amputated,” she said, sitting under a shed in the complex. “We didn’t do that so we thought this might help.”

Anita, a small farmer with one acre of land in western Maharashtra’s Satara district, cultivates food crops for sustenance. There was no way she could afford Gadge’s consultation fees or his medicines. For such people, there is an option of simply offering a prayer.

However, she had to rent a car because there was no way her mother-in-law could take the bus. “It cost me 8,000 rupees,” she said. “My sister sent me the YouTube link to a video where Gadge Maharaj cured a woman’s deteriorating foot. I scanned through more videos and decided to bring her here.”

Internet penetration in India reached 58 percent in 2024 with 886 million active users. And they’re no longer just concentrated in urban areas. Roughly 488 million of them reside in rural India, significantly outnumbering those in cities.

Internet growth across multiple strata of society has greatly helped godmen rise to unprecedented levels of fame and influence. The climate of religious nationalism now embedded in India further elevates them. All this legitimises ‘godmen’ figures and boosts their impunity.

The afternoon I visited the ashram, the ‘Maharaj’ was scheduled to see 20 people in an hour and a half, who had paid Rs. 11,000 for a one-on-one consultation. In other words, he made Rs. 2,20,000 in about 90 minutes from gullible people – many of whom were uneducated and not sure where their next meal would come from. There are thousands visiting his ashram every day. The amount of money he makes from them is anybody’s guess.

However, the locals with the easiest access barely make their way into the ashram. When Amol returned to Gadge with his son and mother a month after his first visit, the auto driver told him he was wasting his time. “He said the man is a fraud,” Amol recalls. “But I thought I shouldn’t rush to conclusion after just one visit.”

This time he didn’t have the money to push for a one-on-one with the 'godman'. Amol directly went to the counter and repeated their medicines. “We bought them in smaller quantities, so it came up to Rs. 4,000,” his mother Ranjana said. That’s still nearly half of Amol’s monthly salary.

Gavande had been pursuing a complaint against Rajendra Gadge for a while, which was finally registered this April, resulting in the arrest of the 'godman' and four associates. He has been booked under the Anti-Superstition Act, 2013, IT Act, Drugs and Remedies Act and Medical Practitioner Act.

Gadge didn’t seem too worried by his arrest. As he told the media while being led away, he was an “enlightened man” possessed of “divine powers.”

“He made an AI generated video claiming ANIS was trying to extort money from him,” Gavande said. “Before that, he tried to pressure me as well.”

Wadgaon Pan village, where Gadge’s empire is located, initially had reservations about him. But the traffic he attracts started bringing business to tea vendors, eateries and grocery shops in the area.

Even Amol, with limited liquidity, stopped by for a cup of tea and a snack before heading back to Pandharpur. He was unlikely to return a third time, having spent over Rs. 23,000 – with no noticeable results.

The three of them walked past a white Mercedes on their way out. The ‘Maharaj’ had just entered the premises of his ashram in that opulent vehicle. The base price of this model in India is Rs. 65 lakh. Meanwhile, Amol, Ranjana and Rohan crammed themselves in an auto rickshaw at Rs. 10 per seat and began their laborious nine-hour journey back home.