Yes, the original inner circle Om Mandlites came from extremely wealthy business caste. There is a story of one of the great "charities" a Senior Sister did ... she never wore a dress twice and so her "charity" was giving away her once-worn dresses to "the poor". In another story, there was a marriage contract for one of the girls and it stated that she must "never walk on uncarpeted ground" in a house. They had cars and drivers even back in the later 1920s and early 30s.
How many Europeans had automobiles, never mind Indians?
Janki Kirpalani's psychology is an important one to study, however, I do not know how important she is within the Brahma Kumaris in India where there are other BK Emperors.
Her empire was the Western world which is relatively small in number ... however, it does bring in a lot of money for the BKs and it has been useful tool for impressing Indians about the power of the BKs (white people were generally seen as being rich and powerful in India, "look, we even have white people following us!").
Janki is still portrayed as being "One of the 8" top souls in the world ...
what a joke ... and it is said she will become one of the 8 future emperors of the heavenly Golden Age on Earth, but who knows how she is really seen by the other BK leaders.
I would also be interested to know, specifically, how she is seen by Hindi speaking Indians. How she comes across to them, her manners and intelligence, what they see as her powers or gifts.
Back in my time, when she was in her prime, she could be really stupid, rigid and unstable. She did not come across as being a natural intellectually. Indeed, I found her to be pretty disappointing when it came to understanding and answering more in depth questions.
She could understand more English than she let on ... and, more importantly, with the amount of time, free servants and devotees she had she had time to learn to speak English properly ... but I think she used her translators, especially Jayanti Kirpalani, 'artfully' to project a different, more refined impression of herself and to buy time to think up answers. She was a good entertainer, even a comedian. She played on her looks and became 'everyone's favourite grandmother' type character.
However, I found if you asked her a question she could not answer she would never admit it but turn it back on you, become irritated, ignore it etc ... and increasingly, as she got older and the audience got larger, the BKs started screening any questions which were given beforehand. Therefore she would only answered the ones she could or wanted to.
She was a good actress and even a charismatic entertainer who played with and on audience.
From what she said, I think she had deep seated insecurities in comparison to the other Om Mandlite and was, perhaps, driven by them. Her parents were Om Mandli followers but she married and had a child which later died. I find that a little suspiciously convenient. Therefore she was late to return to the Om Mandli and no longer a pure and perfect virgin like the others. Her copy book was "blotted". There is no way she could have come out of such a traumatic event as an infant child dying ...
or even being neglected until it died ... without serious mental scars, and she often spoken about how she would make extra efforts to try and catch up with them.
I have no idea how and why she was married if her family followed Lekhraj Kirpalani. Perhaps she wanted to ... which she would later see as a fault or weakness?
At the time she returned to her lover boy Lekhraj, there was still no God Shiva and God Lekhraj Kirpalani was her saviour for taking her back and in. She was obviously devoted him and would often speak of him, like an immature lover she was at that time, "My Baba". However, within the Om Mandli/early Madhuban set up, I think she had a low status and was not special at all. Other Sisters like Om Radhe, Prakashmani and Manmohini rose to the fore. I suppose being 'impure' she never had roles such as being a medium. She seems to have been in the background.
The BKs, as ever, have whitewashed and exaggerated her past. They claimed she was a "nurse" who tended to "the sick", as if she was some kind of Mother Teresa figure. bullsh**. She was neither ever. She had no training but, yes, one of her task was to work in the sick room of Madhuban when there were only 70 or 80 BKs ... how sick did anyone get for how long, so what did she do with the rest of her time?
Honestly?
Her money grabbing tendencies must have arise out of her cultural heritage and their desperation during the Beggary Period when Lekhraj Kirpalani's money ran out, allegedly, their income was very little, and they needed to bring in donations to feed Lekhraj Kirpalani and the inner circle. She went out on such service and started to bring the money in. She got better at it ... practise makes perfect ... and it became her sanskar.
I was there the day she was laughing in class, whilst sitting on the throne, when a group of visitors came and she was joking how, "we tell them everything is free ... and then we take everything". Of course, at the time, we - the class - laughed with her too about it.
"Wah Baba ... what a big joke!!! Yes, first we tell newcomers "everything is free", and then we make them surrender everything; their body, their wealthy, their property, their life ... they end up becoming our or Dadi's - [i]sorry, Baba's]/i] - servants".
Not even 'unpaid servants', they have to pay us to serve us!!!