"playboy". She appointed Satpal as the new head of DLM India, but the Western premies remained loyal to Rawat. The marriage led to a permanent rift between Prem Rawat and his mother, and was also credited with causing a profound disruption in the movement. Many followers left the ashrams to get married, and the base of support inevitably shifted from the ashrams to the wider premie community. Others felt "almost betrayed", in part because he had championed celibacy, one of the requirements of ashram life, before getting married himself. The bad press from the festivals and the rift caused by Prem Rawat's marriage in 1974 marked the end of the movement's growth phase. In 1975, Prem Rawat returned to India in an attempt to gain control of the Indian DLM. A court-ordered settlement resulted in his eldest brother Satpal retaining control of the Indian DLM, while Rawat maintained control of the DLM outside of India. Westernization Following the rift with his mother, Rawat announced that he was replacing the predominantly Indian image with a Western one and began to wear business suits instead of his all-white Indian attire. The Indian mahatmas were replaced with Westerners, and Indian terminology fell from use. Rawat encouraged premies to leave the ashrams. According to one estimate, the worldwide membership had declined from 6 million to 1.2 million by 1976, and in the U.S. the 50,000 claimed initiates had dwindled to 15,000 regular contributors. A spokesman for the Mission explained in 1976 that the higher numbers had been inflated due to poor record-keeping. One estimate had from 500 to 1200 members living in ashrams in the mid-1970s. By the end of the 1970s, the movement had lost an estimated 80% of its followers in the U.S. Bromley and Hammond attribute the decline of groups including the Divine Light Mission to internal factors, but also in part to the news media's "discrediting reports about their activities", accounts which created a "wide-spread public perception of 'mind control' and other 'cult' stereotypes." The Divine Light Mission also attracted the attention of the anti-cult movement. Some members were violently kidnapped and deprogrammed. Some former members became outspoken critics of the organization and attacked the group with what Melton calls "standard anti-cult charges of brainwashing and mind control". In reference to ex-followers, DLM spokesman Joe Anctil said that "A lot of people were just on a trip in the beginning.