Everyone by now knows Radhe Maa. There is less clarity, though, on why she has been in the news for the last few weeks.

Here is how it began: In July a newly-married 32-year-old woman called Nikki Gupta in Mumbai filed a dowry harassment case at Borivali Police Station charging, among others, her chartered accountant husband Nakul Gupta, in-laws and Radhe Maa – whose real name is Sukhwinder Kaur – of demanding dowry.

The Guptas own a chain of sweet shops in Mumbai. According to an Indian Express report, they have been Kaur’s devotees ever since a family member attended one of her satsangs in Delhi many years ago. Kaur has been living with the Gupta family since she moved to Mumbai 12 years ago. (While the Guptas have denied Kaur’s role in the dowry harassment case, calling the police case just another case of marital discord, Nikki Gupta said Kaur “asked her in-laws to put pressure on her [parents] for more dowry.”)

The rags-to-riches story

Sukhwinder Kaur’s story is unique even for her line of work: Born into a lower-middle class family in Hoshiarpur, Punjab, Kaur was married off at 17. Her husband worked in a sweetshop, and Kaur stitched clothes to supplement the husband’s income.

Kaur took to spiritualism after her husband went to the Middle East in search of employment: a Mumbai Mirror report from Kaur’s hometown says she joined the local Paramhans Dera to keep herself occupied. But soon Kaur became influenced by Dera’s head Ram Deen Das and started travelling with him for satsangs. Around the same time, Das rechristened Kaur as “Radhe Maa”.

With time Kaur’s popularity grew. After many years of struggle as a preacher in multiple cities in Punjab and elsewhere, she found her feet in Mumbai where she found a loyal following in small-time businessmen and struggling actors. (The Mirror report says Kaur’s immediate reason for shifting base from Punjab to Mumbai was her hounding by a Hindu organisation in Phagwara in 2003-04, who objected to her portraying herself as the reincarnation of goddess Durga.)

The bungalow in Mumbai owned by the Guptas where Kaur has been living all these years is known as “Radhe Maa Bhawan”. This is where she conducts her gatherings, which have come under the scanner for her unique methods of blessing the devotees – kissing and dancing with them, letting them carry her in their arms, and so on.

A family member called Sanjeev Gupta owns a company called Global Advertiser that controls many prime-location hoardings in the city: he promotes Radhe Maa’s “divyadarshans” on Mumbai’s billboards. Sanjeev Gupta is also a member of Mamtamai Shree Radhe Guru Maa Charitable Trust, which, an RTI application recently showed, is yet to be registered. Clearly for the Guptas, Radhe Maa means both spiritualism and business.

Why she became popular on social media?

In early August, Kaur’s images started trending on social media, though this had no direct relation to the dowry harassment police case against her. Among the first one was a tweet by TV actor Rahul Mahajan on 5 August: captioned “Guess who ????”, the tweet had three photos of the godwoman posing for camera in a red mini skirt. (Mahajan was interviewed by Rediff the next day, in which he proudly said he was “against the whole system of the selling of religion”, and that the tweet was to “expose such people”.)

Since then Kaur has been attacked and defended by celebrities on social media in equal measure: Actor Rishi Kapoor called the tribe of godmen and godwomen deceivers. On the other hand filmmaker Subhash Ghai, who is Kaur’s devotee, defended her saintly credibility. Sonu Nigam struck a feminist note when he wrote a Facebook essay calling the Twitterati hypocrites for mocking Kaur for her freedom to wear a dress of her choice.

Meanwhile, on19 August, she was questioned for the second time by the police on the dowry case. A Mumbai-based lawyer called Falguni Brahmbhatt also recently filed a Public Interest Litigation in Bombay High Court, charging Kaur for obscenity in her gatherings: the first hearing is scheduled for 25 August.

Kaur’s troubles are far from over. This could only be good news for TV channels, though. They will continue to have a TRP-enhancing recipe in Radhe Maa for the next few weeks.