BBC Exposed Sai Baba Top Aide’s And Indian Foreign Minister’s Ploy With UNESCO
Posted by Barry Pittard on April 28, 2011
Below – in red highlight – are subheadings in the article: The Case of UNESCO’s Missing Media Advisory. Posted by Barry Pittard on March 15, 2007. This piece is about a watershed event, the involvement of UNESCO, in the history of former devotee exposure of the Sathya Sai Organization operation at the highest government levels.
With the personal assistance of the then Indian foreign minister, the Deputy world chairman of the international Sathya Sai Organization, Dr G. Venkataraman, who is the director of the Sathya Sai international satellite radio station, made a concerted attempt to undo the successful representation to UNESCO of former devotees around the world. For a further glimpse at Venkataraman, see: Sathya Sai Baba’s ‘Minister of Propaganda’ – Dr G. Venkataraman.
The BBC assistant producer of ‘The Secret Swami’, David Saville, was able to expose the Puttaparthi-Indian Foreign Minister-UNESCO Director and Assistant Director nexus to undermine the opportunity for a venue for former Sai Baba devotees from many countries.
The UNESCO Director and Deputy Director rode rough shod over us, but the clout of the BBC was too much for them to resist. Simply, they were in well-oiled cover up mode. The BBC exposure of this aspect came too late for inclusion in the one-hour documentary (2004), ‘The Secret Swami’. As a result of strongest complaint to governments and to UNESCO itself, UNESCO had – embarrassingly to it – to admit that we had acted correctly, and made a written statement in reversal of their improper decision, which flew in the face of some of UNESCO’s foremost case officers. See: BBC Caught UNESCO Head Bowing To Indian Government. Posted by Barry Pittard on June 26, 2007.
In September 2000, after months of extremely taxing work globally, we had succeeding in showing the excellent credentials of many former Sathya Sai Baba followers who made submissions. We had coordinated qualitative documentatary evidence from several countries. Much of this was painful, private and sensitive – from families and survivors of Sathya Sai Baba’s sexual abuse of boys and young men. As a result, UNESCO and its joint sponsor the University of Flinders, South Australia, withdrew sponsorship of a large international education conference on human values under Sathya Sai Baba’s aegis at Puttaparthi.
After the Vice-Chancellor, Professor Ian Chubb, 
appointed a senior Staff member to investigate our (also highly detailed) submissions to him, delegates from Flinders University Institute of International Education were required by the University authorities to cancel. UNESCO’s Media Advisory stated:
“The Organisation is deeply concerned about widely reported allegations of sexual abuse involving youths and children that have been leveled at the leader of the movement in question, Sathya Sai Baba.”
UNESCO had a Number of Concerns. Inter alia, its Advisory said:
“Certain decisions were taken by the Institute of Sathya Sai Education without consultation, such as plans to hold some of the sessions at the Ashram of the Sathya Sai movement in Puttaparthi, and the inclusion of some speakers in the conference programme without their previous consent. Furthermore, the Organization is deeply concerned about widely reported allegations of sexual abuse involving youths and children that have been levelled at the leader of the movement in question, Sathya Sai Baba.””
What do Sathya Sai officials do in such cases? They obfuscate. They use do not answer, as they would assuredly have to answer if they were in a democratic court of law, the questions put to them.
Some of these former Sai devotees involved in the UNESCO submissions were perfectly well-known to Venkataraman and other heads, and a great many rank-and-file devotees, too, as having served the Sathya Sai Organization for many years with the utmost dedication. Some had been high echelon leaders. See: The Sathya Sai Organization: Almost overnight, dissenters treated as demons!
It is by grave untruth and cruel defamation that Venkataraman and others in the Sathya Sai Organization belittle and inveigh against those who, for decades served Sathya Sai Baba with great devotion, and who, in any case, are respected in their wider communities, professions, trades and places of study.
Spiritually, questions of forgiveness are an inner job that each may owe to himself or herself to do – BUT history should not be allowed to forget history. Otherwise, the bullies and all the other unconscienables are allowed to triumph and lay wreckage wherever they wish.
However, internationally networked former devotees have, through their own enormous amount of effort – frequently motivated by the deep human care for the protection of young people – not hesitated to approach their government and political representatives, Interpol, media, and various notable institutions, such as UNESCO.
Fortunately, despite all their grievous failings, western countries are far more responsive to due and diligent processes than India, which is profoundly held back by ills of many sorts – casteism, gerontocracy, elitism, nepotism, graft, kangaroo courts instead of noble and humane justice, and widespread torture by its police and security forces, and so on.
This same India is the land which Sathya Sai Baba said that he would utterly transform before he, in his own lifetime, saved the rest of the world in face its greatest cataclysm.
Subheadings in the article: The Case of UNESCO’s Missing Media Advisory
UNESCO and University of Flinders (South Australia) Withdraw From Big Sai Baba Conference
Sathya Sai Baba’s Officials Simulate UNESCO Involvement
UNESCO Complains to Press Trust of India
UN’s Dr Leonarda Jekantaite. Witting Sai Baba Tool Or a Babe-in-the-woods?
UNESCO Directors Scuttle Own Senior Officials
Indian Government-Puttaparthi Line: Sai Baba’s and India’s Interests are Synonymous
Top Sai Baba Aide Opens Mouth. Cat Jumps Out
UNESCO Directors Capitulate to India and Sai Baba
Will the Internet Wayback Archive Go Missing Too?
BBC Exposes Two Heads of UNESCO and Their Staff
BBC Catches UNESCO Heads and Staff In Falsehood
Sathya Sai Baba’s Officials Simulate UNESCO Involvement
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Further Reading
A detailed analyis of Venkatarman’s mind at work is found in Robert Priddy’s and Barry Pittard’s jointly authored, four-part article ‘The Sathya Sai Organization’s Deception and Propaganda Exposed’ . The reader can see, with graphic clarity, Venkataraman’s machinations in concert with the Vajpayee government and the UNESCO. The BBC’s David Saville, showed conclusively that there the Deputy Director of UNESCO, with the Director’s written acquiescence to favour Sathya Sai Baba at the behest of the then Indian Foreign Minister with whom, in turn, Venkararam had (from a tactical point of view – incautiously) mentioned publicly.
Why Has Sathya Sai Baba Not Faced The Indian Justice System?
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NOTE: Responsible, non-sensationalist media and other serious investigators can contact me at: barrypittard@gmail.com. Or email me at this blogsite from the Comments section below, with a guarantee of privacy. Latest major media story to which my trusted colleague Robert Priddy and I have contributed is: Marie Claire Australia. The article ‘Holy Man Or Hoax? by the prominent British journalist Gethin Chamberlain is referred to here:
‘Marie Claire’ Magazine: April 2011. Sathya Sai Baba Still Further Exposed
Posted by Barry Pittard on March 14, 2011
Further Reading
THE SATHYA SAI ORGANISATION’S DECEPTION AND PROPAGANDA EXPOSED (Part One) – By Robert Priddy and Barry Pittard. And Part Two Three Four.
Call For Media and Government Investigation 
Rank-and-file Sathya Sai Organization Members Are Also Culpable « Call For Media and Government Investigation said
[…] We made extensive, high level representations to the foreign services in various countries, to UNESCO, and to the international […]