"So if my memory serves me correctly, among those premies, there was a tactic to say that the 70s version of Rawatism was a cult, of course created by the premies and not Rawat himself. And that is why Rawat, in his great wisdom, changed the organisation to get rid of all that cult craziness created by the stupid premies."
Based on my experience and what I've read on this forum, I always thought the revisionism was essentially Rawat's idea, ostensibly for reasons related to, well... relatability. Most western premies welcomed the changes because they were ashamed of the optics, e.g., Arti, foot kissing, mala dancing and so on, and rightfully so. Especially the mala dancing.
What turned those otherwise welcomed changes into something despicable was the big fat lie that premies were responsible for creating those optics and not the one person who was singularly responsible for instilling and promoting them for an entire decade: "And when you sing Arti, mean it!!" Prem Rawat.
In other words, what you said makes perfect sense and it reshapes how I view the history. That makes it something like a cult version of cannibalism... cultists metaphorically eating their own, sacrificing their own to their god by tossing them into volcanos or just throwing them under the bus. This was made crystal clear in the "Passages" video when Joan Apter, probably not unfamiliar with saris herself, decried and denounced the "sari brigades" whom she essentially blamed everything on. All the elites in that video shamelessly denouncing and trying to distance themselves from their own lived history.
(Why wasn't anyone proud and excited to go to work the next day and shout that they'd just kissed the Lord's feet?)
It's not the arguably necessary external changes I object to; it's the shameless lies and backstabbing these premies used to defend their infallible master in the name of dignity, peace, prosperity and all the other budget-brand cosmetics they try to paint the pig with that irks me. Then the very instigators of the tactic you speak of continued to secretly worship their master no different than they did throughout the seventies at every opportunity behind closed doors.
Then they have the duplicitous, hypocritical audacity to lay claim to peace, self-knowledge, consciousness and understanding. Isn't that the kind of crap good parents try to teach their children to avoid at all costs in favor of... honesty, integrity and authenticity, etc.? Oh, I forgot... again. Eons of trusted human values are the first casualties of such cults.
Sheesh, now I forgot the point I wanted to make. It had something to do with the fact that there was always that "cut above" class of premies who thought they were smarter, clearer and more sophisticated - more conscious - than the rest of us... the stuffy types who feigned humility as they looked down on the often far more sincere rag-tag lot with utter contempt. I'm surprised it took them so long to try to pull-off their whitewashing stunt. As is the case in this new alternative facts, post truth era we seem to be living in, they've probably convinced themselves of the "truth" of their own lies. It makes it easier for them to live with themselves.