Kavitha Thakur: the Indian subcontinent was a place of tragedy in the dying days of Earth. From the Twelve Minute War to the India Border Conflict, war followed by the horrors of atomic war stretched from west to east. The Himalayas themselves were touched by human conflict, followed by mass suffering. And thus in this milieu of heroism in the face of suffering came many holy men and mystic sages, among them Raj Thakur, a guru from the north. Preaching yet another strain of syncretic faith that was not uncommon to the region, Thakur brought with him almost preternatural charisma and powerful vision that went beyond past revelations. But at the prime of his popularity, Raj Thakur was struck down as another martyr in a Khalistan terror attack.
His daughter became the new shepherd of the flock. Kavitha Thakur was already a folk hero, perhaps destined to outshine her late father. Throughout South Asia it was said that she had survived one of the nuclear bombings of the Twelve Minute War. In fact, there was public footage of a figure who looked uncannily like her ministering at a frontier village moments before the region was vaporized by a twenty kiloton weapon. When asked of this account, she merely smiles and changes the subject. Kavitha's mission work aiding the worst victimized by the war, personally treating pariahs suffering from radiation poisoning that only medical workers dared to care for, made her a legend. She quickly became a prototype for the 'Prophet Phenomenon' associated with post-nuclear madness. Unlike others, she welcomed apotheosis. She was known to go into trance states in front of massive crowds, dispensing visions, wisdom, and tenets of a new scripture.
Hoping to profit from the prophet, the U.N. reached out to Kavitha shortly after her completion of the Hindu Kush pilgrimage in honor of her father. Viewing the growing Thakurist cult as a potential means to expedite societal consolidation and reconstruction efforts in South Asia, they directly cooperated with the new religious movement, a unprecedented public-private partnership. Aid agencies and NGOs were ordered to directly work with Thakurists, peacekeepers were assigned as her personal security detail, and media agencies were directed to provide ample coverage of the religion. Fervor accelerated. Within half a decade, unity of a sort came under Thakurist banner as problematic extremists from Hindutva supremacists to Muslim separatists to Kavitha's personal enemies, Sikh militants, were swept aside by her mobs. Somewhere in Geneva, officials of the United Nations Global Defense Agency clinked glasses at the success of Operation Sepoy.
Whatever the cost it took to bring peace and cooperation to the U.N. South Asian Protectorate, the subsequent humanitarian efforts there went well. And so Kavitha turned her attention from survival and salvation towards space. Perhaps to the relief of the Protectorate government, leery of her vast influence, she began speaking of a grand exodus, of the imperative for humanity to leave for better worlds in the stars. Earth was too fallen, Kali Yuga imminent. As reconstruction efforts stabilized, Kavitha directed her followers to wholeheartedly support global government initiatives towards space colonization. And so when the Unity project was unveiled, her application was fast-tracked.
Kavitha was appointed Morale Counselor with a rank of Special Advisor on Unity. While Captain Garland and other mission commanders viewed the introduction of a religious figurehead into the crew with outright dismay, their concerns were somewhat allayed by her professional and nonsectarian conduct, offering non-clinical psychological care to the distressed. (Subsequent reports revealed that Garland, Executive Officer Sheng-Ji Yang, and Psych Chaplain Miriam Godwinson all independently dispatched personnel to surveil the celebrity Counselor. All of these agents were later absorbed into the Kavithan following or otherwise lost with the ship.) Thakurism being an universalist faith did help smooth some concerns with the mostly-secular command staff.
During Planetfall, Kavitha was instrumental in negotiations between the Spartan Coalition and Psych Chaplain Miriam Godwinson's team, employing sophisticated tactics both psychological and seemingly mystical to convince lower-ranking unit leaders to relinquish sections of the ship to permit safe passage for the Unity crew. However, Colonel Corazon Santiago saw past the Counselor's designs, and ordered her elite Wolf unit to halt it. It was during the attempted kidnapping at negotiations in the aft secondary command lounge that an unforeseen Thakurist following among the Unity passengers manifested itself in defense of their deity. Scores of crew and colonists, both armed and bare-knuckled, South Asian and not, ferociously attacked the Spartan extraction team, leaving only the few survivors to retreat to the Colonel with tails between their legs. The Thakurites received immense casualties, yet the prophet remained unscathed. Experiencing another visionary episode, she bade her followers towards an escape pod, and they fled to the surface.
Her wanderings were not over on Chiron. While the Kavithan Dharmic Ikhwan was not a nomadic society, the prophet directed her people to build bases a good distance apart from each other, following the great natural landmarks, and not towards isolation in the wastes but towards the other survivors' factions. Kavitha herself led pilgrimages to the other societies, preaching the faith she had from Earth, seeking a great unity of the peoples of Planet. She found a kindred spirit in Lady Deidre Skye, both viewing this virgin world as one to be safeguarded in peace, and left her with a smattering of Thakurist converts who would over time cause friction with the various sub-factions of orthodox Gaians, biological rationalists, Greens, and neopagans. Even to the Spartan Federation she paid a brief visit, conducting a ceremonial mourning of those lost in Planetfall that was received stiffly by Corazon Santiago and the Wolf survivors. The Human Hive, an avowed atheistic security state, limited the Ikhwan's embassy to above ground where Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang politely declined her blessings but accepted her gifts of fungal-frankincense and space-myrrh. Curiously, she both requested a tour of the Hive labyrinths and was granted one, and lingered there a while, studying the ascetic practices of the Hiverians with a faint look of approval.
CEO Nwabudike Morgan chuckled at the Thakurist entreaties, and following a Treaty of Friendship, allowed free passage between the two factions. While his gambit was to convert the dour spiritualists to the glories of consumer capitalism it resulted in a Thakurist community of believers in Morganite territory as well, whose loyalty was quickly bought off with a new product line of shiny home devotee products, glossy holofilms depicting the creation myths and epic events of Thakurist lore, and gleaming Morgan-manufactured shrines available for rent. The Academician Prokhor Zakharov greeted Kavitha with a jaundiced eye and flat affect at the pristine campus gardens of the University of Planet, muttering something about how academic inquiry freethinking allowed the study of religious faith as an anthropological curiosity- but more importantly, the debunking of the same with Logic and Reason. Few Thakurists were born there, but interest in the geological and natural sciences spiked as a minor craze among the student body afterwards, while the behavioral sciences and mass communications departments received a surprise grant from Zakharov himself.
The Lord's Believers welcomed the Dharmic Ikhwan with courtesy. Sister Miriam Godwinson hosted Kavitha with a cool respect, both saying a few words about their working relationship during Planetfall and awkwardly reflecting on their very different spiritual societies. The Thakurists who remained were introduced to the Conclave's colloquies and doctrinal debate halls, where the free practice of Believer religion was hammered out in godly detail- and invited them to interfaith discussions. Predictably, this led to nothing of note, as the Believers remained stolid followers of the late Christian States' creed, while the Kavithans' ecumenism like that so many syncretic traditions couldn't really deal with more exclusionary interpretations of divinity. But adherents of both faiths were allowed free worship in both factions, at least for a time, and a Pact was quietly formed that outsiders dubbed the "Christian-Karmic alliance".
Finally, the Peacekeeping Forces quickly signed a Treaty of Friendship with the Ikhwan. Commissioner Pravin Lal lauded them publicly for their commitment to peace, unity, and humanitarianism, shared values between the two societies. But privately, he was glad to keep them at arms' length, as he was troubled to see yet another faction ruled by a charismatic fanatic. While he was unaware of Operation Sepoy, having worked for WHO and not UNGDA, Lal had mixed feelings about Thakurism's effects on his motherland, seeing it as an unholy marriage between state power and a useful post-apocalyptic religious movement. Interestingly, while all religions were freely worshipped among the Peacekeepers, Thakurism didn't get very far. Some said it was because the lofty principles of the U.N. Charter was already enough for Lal's followers; others said it was because bureaucrats were immune to the passions of faith and Kavithan charisma.
The Dharmic Ikhwan, like the Europa Universalis that came later, is dwarfed by the Big Seven. But by freely working with the others when it can, spreading its faith where it can, Kavitha's followers continue to pursue her spiritual vision, finding their own way.
Endnote: I was originally going to write a much shorter bio for Kavitha, but because such an interesting sponsor actually doesn't have a lot of specifics in the Civilopedia bio, I went in different directions. I also tried to justify the whole "all of South Asia becomes dominated by a religious cult" premise by introducing outside actors.