On media judgment, selective skepticism, and the uneasy line between belief, knowing, and discomfortNirmal Baba’s name began circulating widely in 2017.
That was the year the Akhil Bhartiya Akhara Parishad released its “Fake Babas of India” list—and his name was on it. Once the list became public, print and television media quickly picked it up. Nirmal Baba, along with several other gurus and godmen, soon became a regular subject of sharp commentary.
But the public verdict didn’t really begin with that list. Long before any official declaration, the conclusion had already taken shape—on television panels, in studio debates, and in the confident tone of exposés that seemed more interested in closure than curiosity.
I remember watching one such broadcast years earlier. The anchor was animated, almost breathless, raising his voice as if urgency itself could stand in for understanding.
Is Nirmal Baba a fake guru or a genuine spiritual master?
How did Nirmaljit Singh Narula become a baba so suddenly?
His devotees say his third eye can reveal the past, present, and future. Is that even possible?
And why does he charge money? Shouldn’t spiritual remedies be offered free of cost?
The episode promised to reveal the truth—the complete truth. By the end of it, the conclusion felt settled: this was nothing more than a scam. The phrase “Nirmal Baba scam” was repeated often enough to sound less like an investigation and more like a verdict.
And that, it turned out, was only the beginning.
How the Verdict Took Shape
The channel then explained why Nirmal Baba shouldn’t be taken seriously. Interestingly, very little of this had to do with evidence. Most of it had to do with how he looked and behaved.
He smiled too much.
He laughed too easily.
Viewers were told that a real godman is supposed to be serious, distant, almost stern. Nirmal Baba, it seemed, didn’t fit that picture.
To back this up, the program cut to short clips of people introduced as saints. They spoke with confidence and certainty. According to them, Nirmal Baba was not a saint at all, but a fraud—someone misleading innocent people.
Watching this unfold, something felt quietly off.
Spiritual authority, as presented here, seemed to run in a tight circle. One group of people, calling themselves saints, was asked to decide that another spiritual figure wasn’t one. Their judgment was treated as final.
In simple terms, a set of self-declared saints was brought in to certify that another self-declared spiritual figure was fake—and that was supposed to settle the matter.
The verdict was delivered firmly.
The reasoning behind it, not so much.
What appeared to be under scrutiny wasn’t proof or harm, but conformity—how closely someone matched a familiar idea of what a spiritual figure is supposed to look and sound like.
Why People Still Go
This question keeps coming up.
If Nirmal Baba is really a fraud, why do so many people still go to him?
The answer isn’t mysterious. It’s actually very ordinary.
A retired father hoping his son will finally get a job.
A widow worried about her daughter’s marriage.
A middle-aged professional, worn down by years of pressure, looking for a bit of peace of mind.
People don’t walk into these gatherings out of idle curiosity. They come because something in their life feels stuck, heavy, unresolved. In that sense, yes—they come with expectations. You could even call them vested interests. But they also come vulnerable.
What’s worth noticing is this: many of them say the advice helps.
To an outsider, the remedies might sound odd, symbolic, or even a little amusing. But those who follow them often describe some kind of shift—feeling calmer, more hopeful, more confident, or simply less alone.
Where that change comes from is open to debate. Faith. Suggestion. Psychology. Something else entirely.
But for the people experiencing it, the effect feels real enough to return.
Which brings up a quieter, more uncomfortable question.
If people are seeking solutions, and they feel those solutions help, what exactly is the problem? Why does this arrangement make so many onlookers uneasy—especially those who aren’t directly involved?
After a point, it becomes clear that the discomfort isn’t really about laughter, symbolism, or even belief.
It’s about money.
Money, and the Unease Around it
For many people, charging money for spiritual guidance crosses an invisible line. It just feels wrong.
And yet, in most other areas of life, paying for advice doesn’t raise an eyebrow.
We visit doctors without any guarantee of a cure. We consult lawyers hoping things go our way. We talk to therapists looking for clarity or relief. In all these cases, the fee isn’t a promise—it’s simply payment for someone’s time, attention, and effort.
Spiritual guidance, though, is treated differently—especially in India. There’s a long-held expectation that anything connected to the inner life should be offered freely.
That idea comes from tradition, and it deserves respect. But it also lives alongside a quiet contradiction.
We don’t hesitate to seek help for success, stability, or peace of mind. We only start feeling uncomfortable when that help carries a spiritual label—and a price tag.
So maybe the unease isn’t only about the person charging the fee.
Maybe it also says something about our own mixed feelings around spirituality—what we expect from it, and what we think it should cost.
Who Gets to Decide
There’s a question that keeps surfacing through all of this.
Who, exactly, gets to decide that someone is a fraud?
In theory, the role of the news media is clear enough. Journalists are meant to investigate facts, check claims, and place information in front of the public so people can make up their own minds.
In practice, though, much of today’s coverage works differently. The same clips are played again and again. The same phrases are repeated. The tone does a lot of the talking. Long before all the details are examined, a mood is set—and a conclusion begins to feel inevitable.
That doesn’t mean criticism is wrong. Public figures should be questioned. Scrutiny is healthy.
But there’s a difference between examining something and passing sentence.
And that’s where a little caution helps. Because when judgments are delivered with certainty rather than curiosity, journalism quietly shifts roles.
It stops asking questions—and starts handing down verdicts.
The Unevenness of Skepticism
One pattern becomes hard to ignore after a while.
Certain Hindu spiritual figures are examined relentlessly. Their words are replayed. Their gestures are decoded. Their followers are portrayed as naïve, emotional, or manipulated. Skepticism arrives fast—and with confidence.
This is often framed as “rational thinking.”
In principle, that’s a good thing. Questioning claims and resisting blind belief matters. But the trouble begins when rationality isn’t applied evenly.
Similar claims made elsewhere—miracles, divine intervention, supernatural healing—are often described in gentler language. They are called faith, grace, or mystery. The tone shifts. The sharpness softens. The skepticism retreats.
The difference, it seems, is not always in the claim itself, but in who is making it.
When scrutiny consistently lands harder on familiar cultural targets, rational inquiry starts to feel less like a tool for clarity and more like a habit of suspicion. Over time, the word superstition stops explaining anything. It simply signals dismissal.
And once that dismissal becomes selective, it tells us less about truth—and more about comfort.
Belief, Superstition, Knowing
There’s a line from the promotion of Ram Gopal Varma’s film Phoonk that’s hard to forget:
“Everything is superstition until it happens to you.”
It’s clever—and uncomfortably accurate.
We’re quick to label some experiences as irrational. Spirits, karma, miracles—these are brushed aside as superstition. Yet many everyday habits pass without comment. People say “touch wood,” avoid certain numbers, wear rings for luck. These gestures are treated as harmless quirks.
What changes is not belief itself, but context.
This confusion often comes from treating belief as the end point. In reality, belief exists where certainty doesn’t. It fills the gap left by not knowing.
There is, however, another category—knowing.
Sadhguru once put it simply:
“Do you believe you have two hands, or do you know you have two hands?”
You don’t believe it. You know it.
In Hindu philosophical traditions, this distinction matters. The aim isn’t belief for its own sake, but direct experience—knowing rather than assuming. From that view, dismissing an experience simply because it lies outside one’s framework isn’t clarity. It’s limitation.
Sometimes, what we call superstition is just unfamiliar knowing.
Influence and Attention
Once influence grows, scrutiny rarely remains neutral.
Criticism of figures like Nirmal Baba often carries an emotional charge that goes beyond disagreement with ideas or practices. Part of that intensity may have less to do with doctrine—and more to do with visibility.
An ordinary individual becomes widely influential.
Large crowds gather.
Attention follows—sometimes financial attention—at remarkable speed.
That shift alone can be unsettling.
Access changes.
Proximity changes.
What was once informal becomes structured.
What was once easily available becomes selective.
Influence, especially when it emerges outside established institutions, tends to provoke discomfort. And discomfort often looks for a moral language through which to express itself.
This does not mean all criticism is insincere. Scrutiny matters, particularly when power and money enter the picture. But it does suggest that reactions are not always driven purely by questions of truth or falsehood. Sometimes they are shaped by relevance, authority, and a quieter anxiety—about who gets to occupy the center of attention, and who no longer does.
Over time, another pattern becomes hard to ignore.
Some critiques don’t pass. They return. Again and again. The same names, the same footage, the same tone—until criticism begins to look less like inquiry and more like preoccupation.
Not everyone is treated this way. Plenty of people hold influence in other spheres and move through public life with far less sustained attention. Political corruption, institutional abuse, and long-standing power structures—forces that shape millions of lives—often receive a burst of outrage and then fade from view.
So a quiet question begins to form.
Why do certain individuals attract constant moral scrutiny, while others are met with near silence? Why does outrage circle endlessly around some spiritual figures, but rarely linger elsewhere?
The unevenness doesn’t automatically point to intent. Media ecosystems are messy. Attention follows patterns more than principles.
Still, selectivity matters.
And once it becomes visible, skepticism shifts. The lens slowly turns away from the accused—and back toward the critic.
What Gets Questioned—and What Doesn’t
When the same cultural or religious expressions are questioned over and over, while similar dynamics elsewhere are framed as service, tradition, or simply “how things are,” something quietly shifts.
The discussion stops being about ethics alone.
It becomes about framing.
Not whether something deserves scrutiny—but why some things are questioned loudly and relentlessly, while others are examined gently, or not at all.
Seen this way, the issue may not be Nirmal Baba alone.
It may be the discomfort that arises when influence operates outside familiar moral, cultural, or institutional boundaries—when it doesn’t fit neatly into categories people already know how to judge.
That unease might also explain why conversations around him rarely settle into calm inquiry. Instead, they keep circling back, repeating themselves, never quite coming to rest.
Is Nirmal Baba a Fraud—or a Convenient Target?
At the most basic level, the situation isn’t all that complicated.
Nirmal Baba has the right to charge for his time and advice, as long as he stays within the law. That part is non-negotiable. Ethics, on the other hand, are rarely shared so neatly. What feels exploitative to one person can feel perfectly reasonable to another.
Beyond that, everyone is free to hold their own view.
Saints may disapprove.
Rational thinkers may remain unconvinced.
Critics may continue to use the word fraud.
None of this, by itself, really settles the matter.
What remains worth asking is a quieter—and perhaps more uncomfortable—question.
Would the scrutiny look the same if Nirmal Baba belonged to a different religious tradition? If the symbols were different, the language unfamiliar, the cultural cues shifted—would the tone of judgment stay exactly as it is?
There’s no clear way to answer that. But the question itself is revealing.
Because when some figures are examined relentlessly while others are granted patience and interpretive generosity, the issue may no longer be belief, money, or miracles. It may be familiarity. It may be comfort. It may come down to whose expressions of faith feel acceptable—and whose do not.
Seen this way, the debate around Nirmal Baba may tell us less about him, and much more about the lenses through which we choose to look.