Chandigarh: Videos circulating on social media, showing Indian Army soldiers in uniform attending a religious ceremony in Kota presided over by self-styled Hindu godman Dhirendra Krishna Shastri – popularly known as Baba Bageshwar – just before Republic Day are causing widespread disquiet within military circles.Clips of the event that have gone near-viral online, yet drawn no official acknowledgment, show soldiers of the 14 Sikh unit stationed at Kota – identified by local news reports – amongst a scrum of the holy man’s devotees.The soldiers first offered obeisance to Shastri, head priest of the Bageshwar Dham temple in Madhya Pradesh, who claims to possess divine mind-reading powers, presenting him an array of offerings before sitting down reverentially at his feet, many hands folded, to hear his sermon. Local news sources reported that the unit’s commanding officer also felicitated Shastri in public on behalf of the army and posted a video clip of the event.The Indian Army spokesman in New Delhi, however, said he was unaware of the Kota event and clarified that it had not been ‘officially organised’ by the army. He added, however, that for military personnel, visiting places of worship in uniform was not proscribed. He also did not differentiate between an entire unit in uniform and an individual visiting a godman.Meanwhile, addressing the large congregation dominated by army personnel, Shastri urged all Indians to salute the force on Republic Day, invoking the familiar trope of their sacrifices along India’s borders and in the Himalayas. “We sleep comfortably at night because soldiers remain alert, risking their lives for our safety,” he said. “Do not see them as servants, but salute them as veer – the brave – who guarantee our security,” he added.What, however, has unsettled veterans is not the praise of soldiers – a notion no one disputes – but the context in which it is delivered and received. Many said that by praising the army while soldiers sat at his feet in uniform, Shastri positioned himself, visually and symbolically, as an intermediary between faith, nation and the military.Also read: Questions Swirl Around Propriety of Preacher Dhirendra Shastri Using Government AircraftDescribing the event in Kota as “blatantly performative and highly avoidable” Major General A.P. Singh (retd) said it placed the soldier within a religious narrative, further shaped and controlled by a self-declared Hindu godman. “Such activity runs entirely counter to the ethos of a secular army, in which even the wearing of tilaks and other overt religious symbols was actively discouraged,” he said. The former two-star Armoured Corps officer warned that such displays ‘blurred’ the carefully maintained separation between personal faith and professional identity of the Indian soldier.A wide cross-section of other senior veterans, who preferred anonymity, said that when army soldiers, including the officers, were shown as unselfconsciously offering obeisance to a questionable religious figure in public view, particularly one known for ideological mobilisation, it risked recasting the force – not as a constitutionally grounded institution, but as an adjunct to a cultural or religious project. They warned that such blatant religiosity, which had exponentially proliferated in recent years, severely undermined the army’s secular foundations and its internal cohesion.Besides, the fact that the event unfolded on a public stage close on the heels of Republic Day – and was widely disseminated on social media – only sharpened these concerns. More fundamentally, they argued, appreciation for the Indian Army and its soldiers requires no religious mediation, just as national gratitude does not demand ritualised reverence before godmen.“The Indian Army draws its legitimacy from the constitution, not from religious sanction,” said a retired three-star officer. When that distinction is obscured –whether deliberately or through thoughtless spectacle – the implications extend far beyond a single event or a few viral videos. It strikes at the foundational principle of a professional military answerable only to the republic it serves, he said, refusing to be named for fear of repercussions.A retired one-star army officer in Chandigarh lamented that uniformed army personnel engaging in such craven public display of religious obeisance was ‘deplorable’. But, he declared, requesting privacy, the situation becomes even graver in light of the questionable credentials of the godman involved.देश के प्रति अपना जीवन समर्पित करने वाले वीर सैनिकों का पूज्य सरकार के प्रति अपार श्रद्धा pic.twitter.com/PLesCRvLLQ— Bageshwar Dham Sarkar (Official) (@bageshwardham) January 24, 2026Online research has revealed that Dhirendra Krishna Shastri – better known as Bageshwar Dham Sarkar – is a religious figure whose prominence rests less on recognised spiritual authority than on spectacle and controversy. He has cultivated a mass following through claims of “divine” mind-reading and miracle cures, practices widely criticised for fostering superstition, rather than propagating genuine Hindu faith.Also read: Sanatan Ekta Padyatra: Unmasking the March of MajoritarianismHis influence is believed to extend far beyond religion into overt political advocacy, including calls for India to be declared a “Hindu rashtra” and participation in religious conversion campaigns, alongside a carefully nurtured proximity to political power. The godman faced scrutiny in January 2023 after avoiding a challenge from a rationalist to vindicate his divine claims, and has also been critiqued for making controversial statements, including opposing the Bollywood film Pathaan.Shastri routinely frames Hindu religiosity as inseparable from nationalism, casts faith as a marker of cultural loyalty, and presents “Sanatan awakening” as a civilisational duty. In many of his earlier speeches and interviews, he has dismissed his critics as ‘anti-national’, urged cultural conformity and blurred distinctions between religious belief and civic belonging.“That uniformed soldiers were publicly associated with such a figure, not only compounds the impropriety of the shabby episode, but also raises deeply troubling questions about institutional judgment and the boundaries of the military’s role in firmly proscribing such activity,” said a former colonel. Permitting it simply clouds the boundaries between personal faith and devotion, national politics and the uniform, he added, asking not to be named.The event’s timing too heightened the veterans’ disquiet.Many argued that Republic Day is meant to commemorate constitutional values, not religious mobilisation, and that soldiers appearing in such ‘questionable’ settings eroded the decades-long boundary carefully maintained between spiritual authority and military duty. Even more gravely, it risked alienating the army’s minority personnel, fracturing internal cohesion, and feeding perceptions of the military’s overt politicisation.Equally troubling is the apparent absence of immediate corrective action or visible command accountability in allowing army participation in such overt displays of religiosity. ‘Army regulations and long-standing norms exist precisely to prevent such episodes,’ said the aforementioned colonel. Their apparent erosion raises uncomfortable questions about institutional drift and the normalization of behaviour long considered unacceptable – yet increasingly tolerated in recent times, he added.Also read: Violent Anti-Minority Speeches in Delhi, But Police Takes Action on Twitter Account, Not SpeakersAs retired Lieutenant General D.S. Hooda noted in The Tribune last December, senior officers may visit religious institutions in private, but there was no reason to officially post pictures of such activity on social media – a trend that had become increasingly common.He also warned that, for a force whose members are expected to subsume personal identity in the service of the nation, even the appearance of endorsing a single faith risked fraying the quiet trust that binds a diverse military together. In his analysis, General Hooda lamented the blurring of the line between private belief and institutional endorsement – a distinction whose erosion could undermine the army’s secular and professional character.General Hooda’s observations condemning the circulation of such religious activity on social media by senior officers paralleled footage of Army Chief General Upendra Dwivedi who, adorned in saffron attire, prayed at the Mahakaleshwar Jyotirlinga temple in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh last December, alongside defence minister Rajnath Singh.While the event drew criticism from several Opposition leaders and commentators, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) defended it vociferously. “Nobody should have a problem with the Raksha Mantri or the Army Chief, or anybody celebrating their own faith,” former BJP Member of Parliament and Union minister Rajeev Chandrashekhar told Times Now television. Anyone who has a problem with that should look for a hole and bury themselves in it, he contemptuously added.A few months later, shortly after Operation Sindoor in late May, General Dwivedi visited the spiritual leader Jagadguru Rambhadracharya at his ashram in Chitrakoot – also in Madhya Pradesh and just 130 kilometres north of Rewa, the Army Chief’s hometown – once again publicising it and prompting questions about undertaking a personal religious visit in uniform.Also read: When Cohesion Becomes Coercion: The Indian Army’s Case Against ConscienceFollowing the meeting, Rambhadracharya told PTI that he had initiated the Army Chief into the Ram Mantra – “the same mantra Hanuman received from Sita before his victory over Lanka”.“When the matter of dakshina arose,” the priest said, “I told him I would ask for a dakshina no teacher has ever sought. I said I want PoK – Pakistan-occupied Kashmir – as dakshina.” The Army Chief, he said, accepted his request, saying that India was prepared to give Pakistan an ‘appropriate response’.Consequently, for many veterans, this recent Kota episode was not an isolated lapse, but a symptom of a deeper malaise – where majoritarianism is indulged, rules are bent and the army’s apolitical ethos is flagrantly flouted. Some were of the view that if left unchecked, such moments may not trigger immediate crises, but ‘quietly and effectively corrode’ the moral and professional foundations of a force that has, for decades, drawn its legitimacy from standing above religion, politics and ideology.Importantly, many veterans emphasised that the armed forces operated on a different moral and professional plane, where restraint is not a denial of belief, but a duty owed to the institution and the nation. “The strength of the Indian Army has always lain in its ability to subsume individual identities into a larger, shared national purpose,” cautioned Major General Singh. Left unaddressed, such incidents risk normalising behaviour that chips away, slowly but surely, at the apolitical and inclusive foundations on which the Indian Army has stood since independence.