Australia Says ‘Sorry’. A Lesson For Sai Baba And Followers

A great day occurred in Australia yesterday, which the global Sathya Sai Organization may do well to note.

There is a strong lesson about admitting mistakes of the past, and responding with heart to the sorrow that one’s actions or one’s group’s actions have caused.

The rest of the Australian nation via its Federal Parliament said a vastly overdue “Sorry” to the first Australians, her indigenous people, for the tragic way in which their families were uprooted down many generations.

The proviso is, of course, that the noble sentiments and concurrence by most in the Federal Parliament and Australia at large are followed up by the appropriate practical actions that lead to true reconciliation between the first Australians and the rest of the nation.

A Genuine ‘Sorry’ Begets A Genuine ‘Thank You’, and Preludes Healing

The ‘Thank You’ message emblazoned on the tee-shirts of some the thousands of indigenous people who came to the national capital Canberra for the profoundly moving ceremonies should not escape notice. When we say sorry, and mean it, there springs a connection of the heart between people who have been at odds with each other. It is the prelude to a healing. It is the first breakage in the walls of sorrowful division.

The standing ovations for the recently elected Prime Minster Kevin Rudd and Jenny Macklin, Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, were accompanied by thunderous applause. There were deep and unconstrained flows of weeping.  For some, it was as members of an afflicted race of a proud and ancient people so long traduced.

Other tears came from those of many other Australian communities who are capable of seeing the all-important connection - but too often missed when a heart connected imagination fails - between benefits long received, and still daily received, that profoundly stem from the defeat of our original inhabitants, leaving many of them, to this day, in appaling conditions that no nation can with any honor sustain.

The Sathya Sai Organization Needs to Learn to ‘Say Sorry’

The Bernie Taupin words to the Elton John song go to the heart of the matter - “sorry seems to be the hardest word”. Those who have tried to “talk it over” with Sai Baba’s key leaders have been everywhere greeted by authoritarian obfuscation and the most shocking psychological states of denial, something of which, caught by hidden camera, was seen by millions who viewed BBC’s The Secret Swami (2004).

 Sai Baba world head, Dr Michael Goldstein of Covina California USA, manifesting sublime love

The Taupin lyrics do great justice to the situation:

Its sad, so sad
Its a sad, sad situation
And its getting more and more absurd
Its sad, so sad
Why cant we talk it over
Oh it seems to me
That sorry seems to be the hardest word

A History Denied Maintains The Wounds Into The Future

The leaders and many in the Sathya Sai Organization know very well that many decent, highly regarded individuals and families around the world have left it because of the seriousness of the allegations, which are far from confined to the serial sexual molestation of boys and young men, but contain many other issues of great substance.

What the core leaders know, above all, is that there have been genuine attempts by former followers to raise their concerns in a responsible way. They know that those in dissent are not - as with great untruthfulness they have told their rank-and-file members - a ‘mere handful of disgruntled followers’. As the head of one of Australia’s leading private schools, Christ Church Grammar School Perth, Garth Wynne, informs me that he told the 2004 Sai National Conference (I rely on my carefully taken notes):  When serious allegations keep coming over years, they need to be dealt with properly. Unlike other major institutions in Australia and elsewhere who have broken off afflialiation with the Sathya Sai Organization, the school did not cancel the Sai Baba national conference booked at its prestigious venue. However, the message to the conference of Garth Wynne, the Principal (who acted in handling the Sai Baba matter on behalf of the then Anglican Archbishop of Australia, Dr Peter Carnley) was this - as he himself told me:  The accusations against your founder have kept on coming year after year. It puts an institution like ours, as well as your own organization, in a difficult position if you do not follow the appropriate procedures of investigation and accountability

Further Reading

For full text of Mr Kevin Rudd’s ’sorry speech’,  National Nine News, Wednesday February 13, 2008.

Quote from recently elected Australian Prime Minister Mr Kevin Rudd:

“We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians. We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country”.

Video Footage of Prime Minister Rudd’s speech

Barry Pittard article, Truth Commission Model May Assist Sai Baba Devotees

UK Law Lords’ Landmark Ruling On Sex Abuse

Breaking 400 years of precedents, Great Britain’s law Lords have ruled that it possible for those alleging sexual abuse to take legal action even years later.

One wonders whether the Manmohan Singh Government in India has the will or the capability of making such major changes in India. Certainly, it has made a beginning with its major study of child abuse in India. See my articles: Child Abuse. Landmark Indian Government Study. Abuse of Indian children ‘common’ and Child Abuse in India. Will Minister Renuka Chowdhury Act? and Dr Naresh Bhatia. Silenced Now In Indian Child Abuse Scourge

Whilst it is true - as activists (see below) make a point of urging - that such legal remedies are far too often the province of those who can afford it, nonetheless the existence of strong laws surrounding sexual abuse can help to influence further social reform. There has to be a strong constellation of responses. It is the case that, for example, many Nazi war criminals escaped the reach of formal justice. But this does not mean the the Nuremburg trials did not send powerful signals and highlight some very great evils.

Those who would attempt to somehow ‘wish’ evil away by averting the gaze and so-called ‘moving on’ help to perpetuate the very evils which they think they have little or no relationship to or responsibility for.

Especially among those who deem themselves ’spiritual’, there is a lot of confusion about the significant differences between forgiving and forgetting. See my articles: Bernie Banton Case. Mega Poor Can Fight Mega Rich and Dalai Lama: Forgiveness does not mean forgetfulness

The following are excepts from the BBC report Wednesday, 30 January 2008, 13:10 GMT 

Lords issue landmark abuse ruling

“Victims of sexual abuse may be able to sue their attackers after many years, following a ruling by the Law Lords. 

(Quote from Baroness Hale):

“A fair trial can be possible long after the event and sometimes the law has no choice”  

Leading child abuse lawyer Tracey Storey, of solicitors Irwin Mitchell, said the decision ended the “bizarre situation” which meant child abuse victims over the age of 24 could not sue their abusers.

David Greenwood of Jordans Solicitors, which also represents victims of child abuse, agreed that the ruling would “empower” people to come forward.

“Victims of sexual and physical abuse in care establishments can now be confident that even after many years they will be treated seriously and sympathetically by lawyers and the courts,” he said.

But Victim Support said that while it welcomed the ruling, it believed it would help only a small number of people.

“It’s very good news for her but the wider significance is questionable because the vast majority of offenders don’t have assets to chase,” said spokesman Paul Fawcett.

See Full Report

Abuse Reportage. A Case for Caution, Not Inaction

From the point of view of those who would defend their guru figure, far better to react and attack than that their idol - on whom they are so powerfully fixated - be exposed to an unfavourable public estimate.

Self-fortifying of Psyches That May Crumble

Better it is to attack than for the psyche of the attacker - in which is held the profoundly attached image of the guru -  to be subject to crumbling.

Determined attackers tend to lack the quality of empathy. They do of course see their opponents as lacking in this, but even strong opponents can respect each other. In some cases, the one greater acceptance that those obsessively attached to a guru or other idol have had in life is with the cult of which they are a part. It is by no chance that many cult members describe themselves a “the family”. (Many Sai Baba devotees refer to each other as “the Sai family). This useage can create an “us” and “them” mentality and promote co-dependence. Their saviour may vouchsafe them a smile, a word or an interview, and the sincere devotees may do their best to put up with difficult people in their midst. But there is a sort of acceptance for the socially maladapted, which may not come too easily in the school or workplace.

When Precept and Practice Conflict 

Some cults, for example, set out, even though they will never achieve that end, to be very loving, kind, softly spoken, not criticize others and so on. These are worthy aims and disciplines in themselves, and far from the exclusive preserve of any one belief system. But when indriven, almost inbred, the high edicts -  sternly interiorized - can invite conflict. 

As diverse schools of psychology are agreed, the authoritarian model too easily degenerates into unhealthy suppression and repression, hypocrisy, fanaticism, and condemnation of others who do not share the cult’s ethos and commands. There can also be harshness of the individuals directed against themselves, which can in its own turn project outwards as well, involving harshness to, and lack of compassion for, others who are perceived not to be living up to the imperatives of the belief system. Not only “us” and “them” but also oneself and all or most others who don’t quite come up to the mark.

Demonization and Depersonalization of Dissenters

Demonization of those considered apostate is common. Sai Baba’s demonizing sermon on Christmas day 2000, had much to angrily condemn. Despite its name, it was not a “Christmas Discourse”. Christ hardly got a look in, and then only in the most glancing, generalizing way. This was consonant with Sai Baba’s habit - which is to affirm how he is bringing people of diverse faith together. If, for example, he has a Muslim theme, he will speak scarcely about the Prophet, and so on. Do Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, Christians, etc., flock to Puttaparthi? They do not. Sai Baba has had decades in which to succeed in his multi-faith mission, which has profoundly failed, as his devotees, were they to be other than blind, would have to concede. Christmas ‘Peace and Goodwill to All Men’ in this discourse Sai Baba certainly did not embrace. For example, in one moment he said:

“Love everyone. No matter who comes and criticizes, you say one namaskar (greet or salute them). Why? Because the Divinity in all is one. The quality of Love in everyone is one. We should not spoil our minds only due to temporary frenzy”

and in the next:

“Betrayal of God is the worst of all betrayals. It will not be atoned for no matter how many births are experienced”

and:

“Can’t even these people with brains understand this? Why are they doing this propaganda? Even this bad propaganda is for money. All these bad thoughts are for money only. Even these bad thoughts are for money only”

But Sai Baba and his leaders around the world, and many in the rank-and-file, knew the facts perfectly well:  that those in many countries who have attempted to raise responsible questions about the various types of allegations against him are free of money or other cynical inducements. His and his leaders’ falsifications here are very great indeed, and in the long term will be - perhaps even far more than the words of his outspoken critics - the undoing of his religious empire among those capable of a probing mind and strong conscience. His ‘house’ is bound to become ever more divided against itself, and collapse under the weight of its own shame.

His discourse flatly contradicted countless instances where he has said, as so many teachers have said - and a few have wonderfully exemplified - to forebear in the face of criticism, no matter how harsh.

Unsilencable Pressures

Sai Baba was at last - after decades of almost entire blanket Indian media censorship of any substantive criticism against him - subjected to a major cover story in India Today, December 4, 2000 (See, link below). This was the result of the testimony of organized former devotees from various countries, who increasingly documented their adverse experiences of Sai Baba, including to major parts of the international media.  Many had been for years in leadership positions in the Sathya Sai Organization, and are still regarded as outstanding and unselfish contributers to the welfare of their wider communities, no less than they were when so deeply devoted and hardworking in his cause.

The pressure on Sai Baba and his servitors was considerable, and there was, at the same time, great pressure on them from devotees in consternation worldwide, and many left his organization. In the following example - amidst the spell cast by charisma and rhetoric - demonization can be observed to come quite dramatically together in both guru and the many thousands of devotees present. Sai Baba said:

“These types of publicity are shameless. Truly they are not human beings at all. The ones who put obstacles in the way of all sacred works are demons, not human beings. The determined vow of Sai will never change, even if demons like this may be all over the world. (Swami bangs his fist decisively on the table to emphasize His point. The audience applauds for long.)”

By Their Language Ye Shall Know Them

Too often the appearance in cult followers of happiness or joy or bliss can instead be euphoric, and the test of this is how quickly the state is lost when confronted with the simplest tests. Repeatedly, an attacker’s concern is to entrap, to demean, to slander, to intimidate and in some cases to terrify. One glance at their language is enough to see how often they employ curse words and phrases - like “liar”, “mentally aberrant”, “hallucinating”, ”hypocritical”, “vengeful,” “disgruntled” because the guru didn’t give them what they wanted”, etc. There are other examples but here is a quotation from T. Sri Ramanathan, formerly head of the Australian Sathya Sai Organization, one of Sai Baba’s closest leaders. This is the way he attempted to demean and intimidate those many former devotees and others around the world who have attempted to obtain independent, third party investigation of Sai Baba. T.Sri Ramanathan, as on other occasions (See links below), tried to defame former Sai Baba devotees to SBS, Australia’s great multicultural radio and television broadcaster. Fortunately, SBS acted like other reputed major media who have listened very carefully and rigorously to former devotee accounts, including the BBC, DR (Denmark) and CBC (Canada), whose top executives stood up to the leaders and other members of the Sathya Sai Organization.

The latter tried to stop the broadcasts (and also world top newspapers) and, in some cases, vie for equal time. SBS, refused to be intimidated by Ramanathan’s defamatory threats of sueing them. Well-informed Sai Baba devotees in Australia know that Ramanathan is a bully and an exponent of the art of bluff, and his approach to organized former devotees is no different to the autocratic high-handedness he has long meted out to those within the organization who have dared to question him :

“As for the anti Sai group, some of them subsist on the generous welfare handouts of government and exist on Disability Pensions (disability being physical or mental) have the time to conjure up situations. Some of the anti Sai group are eccentric, neurotic and their behaviour and attitude are equally bizarre”.

Further Resources

India Today, Test of Faith, A God Accused article: “As India’s most enduring god-man enters his 75th year, his spirituality rests uneasily with controversy”. By Amarnath K. Menon, Ashok Malik in Puttaparthi, and Vijay Thapa, et al

Sai Baba Cult Says it is ‘The’ Divine Organization In History (Links are given to various statements and actions of T.Sri Ramanathan, former head of the Australian Sathya Sai Organization)

Abuse. Some Reach Out. Many Suffer in Silence

Many of our witnesses come from various countries and cultures. They testify to sexual and other abuses by Sathya Sai Baba, and in some cases by those close to him, and the cover up by his core leaders in the Sathya Sai Organization. Many are unready to speak out.

Proper Debriefing Is A Sore Need

Some accept the importance of professional counseling but so many do not avail themselves of it, even though we do our best to organize properly accredited, culturally appropriate and experienced professional counseling, whether by former Sai devotee or other therapists from wider communities. Where individuals are not able readily to afford this, there has been no demand by professionals for fees.

Anger at Abusee Silence. Understandable, But Helpful?

The unwillingness of abuse survivors (a term preferable to ‘victims’, which can be a labeling of people), led one active former Sai Baba devotee to stop good and useful work for the exposé. This person said, “Why are they not standing up for themselves?”

Speaking Out Has Real Risks 

However, there are considerable factors that can make speaking out (or at least on one’s own) unwise in what is, after all, an extremely painful, confusing situation.

Survivors can go into denial and suppression, failing to reach out. A humane and responsible organization would do its best to support those who nervous about seeking professional counseling as well as those open to receiving it. The international Sathya Sai Organization, like other groups in cover up mode, has profoundly and repeatedly failed in the duty-of-care and accountability areas.

Further Reading

Cost Of Cover Ups Can Far Exceed Hoped-for Benefits

Quote: “Today, most societies are multicultural. Would it not make sense to take the broad approach, with not a single organization acting as though it, too, is unaffected? Or a wider public permitted to think that it has not its own accountability?”

Sexual Abuse And Cover-up

Quote: “The same sinister pattern of cover-up and denial is to be noted in Terry Gallagher’s findings. He was the head of the Sathya Sai Organization in Australia but, like a number of other leaders and rank-and-file Sai Baba followers around the world, he left after making careful enquiry into the sexual abuse allegations. In fact, Terry Gallagher’s enquiries were most extensive. Among other sources, he had spoken privately with a number of Sai Baba’s students”

Hazards For Abuse Survivors Both Timid and Bold

Many abuse survivors are afraid to speak out.

Sai Baba’s proxy defenders on the Internet and elsewhere make the most of this difficulty. They say there have been no prosecutions of Sai Baba. Yet it often takes years or decades before survivors can come to terms with what happened to them.  

Hazards Of Brave Abuse Survivors

 

Even those few ready to face the public with the facts can often be in no position to litigate. This is because of lack of funds, time, energy, or family or close friends to support them in an intelligent and genuine manner.

In one case (See 1. under Further Resources) which should never have failed, a pro bono lawyer let his client down badly and was not proactive enough to field excellent witnesses who stood ready - indeed at various kinds of personal sacrifice - to testify.

Problems of Litigation Acute

In any case, litigation is always an uncertain, costly and often extremely drawn-out process, especially in sex abuse cases where the success rate is still far lower than in most other common crimes.

Sai Baba Heavily Protected In India.

Added to these huge obstacles, Sathya Sai Baba enjoys (as he has done for many decades) powerful protection from the Indian Government, judiciary and other power echelons from any prosecution, as attempts to bring him to book in the Supreme Court of India and High Court of Andhra Pradesh have amply demonstrated. (See 2. 3. and 4. below)

Further Resources

1. Alaya Rahm’s Lawsuit vs Sathya Sai Society of America - Joint Statement by the International JuST Group and the Rahm family

2. Sai Baba Protected By The Supreme Court Of India

The archive at this link contains a document with court proof - contrary to assertions of Sai Baba’s proxy defenders on the Internet - that a case was in fact brought. One of India’s top advocates, Kamini Jaiswal, took the case on behalf of Hari Sampath, and she and her assisting Counsel Prashant Kumar and Gaurav Agarwal and their client had to suffer the ignominy of a kangaroo court presided over by the profoundly compromised  judges: S.P. Barucha, A.S. Anand, G.B. Patnaik (or G.B. Pattnaik), and R.C. Lahoti. Each one of these went on to become Chief Justice of India. Their CJ at the time was P.N. Bhagwati, a very active member of the Sathya Sai Central Trust, well known for keeping a damper on Sai Baba scandals over many years. As a number of us know personally, when the legal notes for this case are shown in eminent legal quarters where mature democratic principles much more cohere, the lawyers are disgusted! We shall share the as yet unpublished details of this case with responsible media, legal authorities or academic researchers.

3. See my Corrupt Indian Judges Stonewall Case Vs Sai Baba. In 1986, a case B. Premanand brought in the Andhra Pradesh High Court shows a judge’s clear violation of India’s secular legal system. Judge Y.V.Anjaneyulu (who just happened to be a Sai Baba devotee!) pronounced,

“An article or ornament materialized from air in a split second by the use of spiritual powers or otherwise cannot be said to be made, manufactured, prepared or processed within the meaning of section 11 of the Gold Control Act”

See also, Satya Sai Baba and the Gold Control Act, by B. Premanand, 1986

4. My reader may be curious (or could simply guess) as to the outcome of the following. The news article is from the Deccan Herald, May 11, 1999:

“Hyderabad Nov 4: Justice G Raghu Ram of the Andhra Pradesh High Court on Thursday admitted a writ petition seeking initiation of criminal prosecution against the doctors of the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences, Puttaparthi in Anantapur district alleging malpractices regarding the transplantation of kidney”

For the kidney donation scandal, See material HERE 

Dissent From Guru Cults Draws Slander and Harassment

Discussions with activists from other movements of exposure of corrupt gurus are revealing. The various types of comparison between our separate experiences fall thick and fast. Those who speak out have typically and intensively undergone:     

• threats of injury or death
• cyber and other forms of stalking
• vilification, demonization, libels, character assassination
• attacks on privacy and attempts at muckracking
• attempts at intimidation by threats of various kinds, including those aimed at media who investigate the allegations
• shunning or sometimes harassment by former fellow followers
• mixed falsification and concealment by leaders to the rank-and-file of the testimony of those who have dissented
• dereliction of the duty-of-care by organization leaders
• gross distortions of words, intentions and actions of those who speak out
• frequent branding of dissenters as ‘liars’
• putting worst case interpretations on statements and situations, without considering alternative explanations
• failure to understand, or at other times deliberate failure to acknowledge, why in many cases replies cannot be given to questions aimed at dissenters (e.g., security, individual or family sensitivities, knowledge that whatever is stated, attackers will use it for their own ends, sometimes devious, sometimes simply blinded)
• ignoring the points being made, leaping on peripherals and ignoring essentials
•  making extremely improper inferences by extrapolation and decrying of dissenters as e.g., perverts, anti-Semitic, fascists, drunkards, Hindu hating, Christian fundamentalists, liars, hallucinators, addicted to drugs, etc
• the lumping of all dissenters, as though they are perfectly co-ordinated or speak with one voice at all times (The Aristotelian ‘law of the undistributed middle’ - the confusion of the logical operators of ‘all’ and ’some’ - is frequently violated)
• complicity by organization leaders, of both high and lower rank, in standing back and allowing proxy defenders of a guru to attack dissenters, while secretly ensuring that legal or other information or funding is passed to the proxies, and turning a blind eye to devotees who stalk, harass, and defame those who speak out or, more often, covertly assist those who do.

All of this proceeds despite the knowledge that dissenters have spent long years of dedication, service and sacrifice in their former cause, and who are known in their professions, trades and communities at large as persons of integrity, sacrificial service in noble causes, kindness and decency.

The Sharing of Experiences With Those Abused By Other Leaders

In discussions with those involved in other abuse exposures (sometimes very usefully conducted via webcam via a service like Skype), discussants have often not had to end our sentences. This is because of the great similarity of experience of the crimes, dirty tricks, cover ups, and shocking vilification of those who raise their voices out of conscience and deepest concern. The recognition-of-situation factor is sky-high, and tragedy, betrayal and - that greatest of emotional allies and sublime social lubricant - humor are able to be deeply and spontaneously shared.

Further Resources

A selection of closely-related articles on http://barrypittard.wordpress.com follows:

Some Key Cultic Responses To Critics

Probed On Male Sex Abuse, Sai Baba Evicts BBC TV Team

Cost Of Cover Ups Can Far Exceed Hoped-for Benefits

Exiting A Top International Cult. A Sai Baba Experience

The Case of UNESCO’s Missing Media Advisory

Sexual Abuse And Cover-up

Corrupt Indian Judges Stonewall Case Vs Sai Baba

If Not For Whistleblowers

Cultic Depersonalization or Demonization of Dissenters

Caught In One of History’s Most Powerful Cults (Parts 1-4)

Indian Gurus Stifle India’s Chance To Excel

Is Humanity One Big Cult?

Sai Baba. Some Dissenting Themes and Resources

The Secret Swami. BBC Docu. Review. Condensed

Many have sought out my article, The BBC’s The Secret Swami - A Revision. However, it is very long, and many readers are very busy. So, for the sake of condensation, here, in the form of quotes, are some key pieces of information from it. Downloadable video footage is in the clickable references at the foot of this present blog.

Subheaders

• Focus on One Family Obscures Vast Extent of Allegations
• Governments Placate India
• Supposedly God, Sai Baba Woos Heads of State and other Big Players
• Foreign Goose Lays Multi-billion Dollar Eggs For Sai Baba
• BBC’s Tanya Datta asks: ‘Is Sai Baba Above The Law?’
• Oiling Penises Not A Hindu Ritual. (Nor Of Other World Faiths)
• Top Indian Minister Shows Ugly Face of Indian Government Sai Baba Patronage
• Dr Goldstein Tells BBC “I am what I am - a consummate professional”
• “He Could Go Out And Murder” Says Billionaire backer, Isaac Tigrett
• “Absolutely Cold-blooded Murder”, Says Fmr Home Secretary, V.P.B.Nair
• Room For Many More Documentaries

Quotes

“The BBC’s cameras at Sathya Sai Baba’s ashram at Puttaparthi in South India catch the pomp, circumstance, opulence and the highly stage-managed atmosphere of the crowded Mahasivaratri festival, February 2004″

“V.P.B. Nair, former Home Secretary in Sai Baba’s State of Andhra Pradesh at the time of the killings, is seen in the BBC television documentary on Sai Baba, The Secret Swami, (2004), where he says that the police killings were “cold-blooded murder””. 

“The Secret Swami confines itself to four areas:

• Accusations down many years of Sai Baba’s serial sexual molestation of young males from various countries
•  His implication in police executions in his private quarters on June 6, 1993
• Cover-up by him and the leadership of his worldwide organization, and as well as by successive Indian governments, of major criminal allegations
• His faking of miracles”

“BBC producer Eamon Hardy and his team’s view was that serious questions are raised about India’s political maturity”.

“Focusing on one family meant no examination of anything like the full extent of the allegations. It also meant no examination of the multiple billions (that’s a ‘b’ not an ‘m’) that pour into the Sathya Sai Central Trust coffers from all over the world, or of financial scams by his administration (e.g., the selling of apartments which are sometimes later taken away from the paid up owners), which devotees blindly accept, as “tests of faith”. It meant no examination of Tony Blair’s and also the Conservative Party Whips suppression of over fifty British parliamentarians (an earlier list showing, as I recall 47, was incomplete) to raise Sai Baba-related issues in the House of Commons.  This was at a time when Blair wanted to placate the then Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee so as to win a contract for 66 jet fighters for India. The BBC had evidence from a former British diplomat that Vajpayee demanded of Blair that he cool down the activity concerning Sathya Sai Baba, whose long-time devotee Vajpayee was, and is. The urgency to win the deal was bi-partisan”. For futher information, see my article, Flag Follows Trade. Abetting Indian Government Corruption 

“Other documentaries will need to look at the supposedly miraculously materialized jewelry which independent international assayers like the Queen of Denmark’s crown jeweler attest are faked“

“Caught by the BBC cameras for all time, Sai Baba pretended to vomit up pure gold Siva Lingam. A few minutes later, he told his vast audience:

“Out of the stomach emanated Shiva Lingas of the weight  of three tonnes.  That’s the reason why some strain on  the face and the body”.

“BBC producers say that Sai Baba’s top leaders at first thought the documentary would present a ‘positive image’ of their guru and the works of his organization to the world. Hence the rare permission for the BBC to shoot at Sai Baba’s ashram”.

“The exposure by Denmark’s national broadcaster in its 2003 documentary Seduced (renamed Seduced By Sai Baba in the English language version by Australia’s national multicultural broadcaster SBS), seen by millions in Denmark, Norway and Australia - when the top Sai leaders in Denmark and Australia made unavailing threats of legal action - must still have haunted their minds”.

“Showing three zealous western devotees eccentrically rhapsodizing about Sai Baba fails to indicate his appeal to people of many cultures and socio-economic backgrounds. Filming eccentrics detracts from the serious purpose seen elsewhere in the documentary. It obscures the interest he has evoked in figures of great power (e.g., Bill and Hillary Clinton (more particularly Hillary), Al Gore, Mikhail and (the late) Raisa Gorbachev (a friend of mine informed me that Mrs Gorbachev told her that Gorbachev had a book of discourses by Sai Baba as his bedside reading). Confirmation of the Clinton connection and their readiness to meet Sai Baba, which was thwarted by security advisors on both sides, was given to me by my beloved friend, one of Sai Baba closest of all servitors, the great Indian author and newspaper Editor (the late) V.K. Narasimhan. The sheer penetration of Sai Baba’s influence is of real concern”.

“One learns that The U.S. minerals magnate James Sinclair got upset when Sai Baba officials announced sums of money that he had donated, so it is likely that his continuing donations are now not being disclosed. However, we know that he twice donated U.S. 600 million dollars. I shall have to see whether I can check the figure but I think Sinclair further donated $100 million for Sai Baba’s first water project, a sum announced by Indulal Shah (then head of the Sathya Sai Organization) at Sai Baba’s 70th birthday celebrations, when Shah listed every donor to the Water Project who had given at least one crore. U.S. devotee friends who knew Sinclair and his wife, (the late) Barbara Sinclair said that Sinclair was very shocked that his name would brought out”.

“Would many Indian politicians, notorious for their extreme corruption, dare expose the foreign goose that lays the (cosmic!) golden egg? Driving this question would have reinforced the documentary’s fundamental query about whether India is a mature democracy”.

“We see the hospital by English architect Keith Critchlow for Sai Baba (a long-time conduit to Prince Charles). Largely funded by Isaac Tigrett and inaugurated in 1991, this hi-tech heart and kidney hospital even outdazzles the many-splendoured architecture of the ashram. BBC cameras miss the names of other big donors, overseas and Indian, which are on a Roll of Honour in the hospital portico. Indeed, The Secret Swami fails to mention the billions that pour into the Sai coffers from various countries such as Australia, Canada, Hong Kong (indeed, the Chinese diaspora), Germany, Indonesia, Japan, UK, USA … Like the American James Sinclair (who often works from Canada), the precious metals speculator, alone has donated several hundreds of millions of dollars)”.

“To convince the most critical, the BBC needed demonstrations as sophisticated as those in the Danish documentary Seduced (a copy of which the BBC possessed) where the Danish magician Nils Krøjgaard exposes the deceptions involved”.

“Confronted by the BBC’s Tanya Datta, Murli Manohar Joshi, one of the most powerful ministers in the since-defeated right wing Vajpayee government, soon loses his temper, jabbing away with pointed finger at Ms Datta, accusing the BBC and people in England of plotting against Sai Baba, A.B. Vajpayee and P.N. Bhagwati (a key Sathya Sai Central Trust member and former Chief Justice of India). He arrogantly shouts at her:  “No, no, no… You don’t know the meaning of interviewing a minister in my capacity, as a minister of my stature””.

“So repeatedly evasive was Dr Michael Goldstein that the BBC team gained permission from BBC heads and legals to film him with hidden cameras. The BBC cleverly gets him to admit the correctness of the Rahm family’s report of his words. Unlike his archangelic namesake and just like Joshi, his finger repeatedly jabs at Tanya Datta as he snarls, blusters and fulminates. Seemingly in need of a child’s first dictionary, Dr Goldstein hurls the questions, “Transparency in what sense?” and “What do you mean by thorough investigation”? He says that his “heart and his conscience” know that the allegations of sexual molestation could not be true. But what about the heart and conscience of families and individuals around the world who give accounts of Sai Baba’s tragic harming of their boy children?”

“We see the President of India Dr A. P. J. Abdul Kalam and Dr Manmohan Singh (now India’s Prime Minister) visiting Sai Baba on his birthday. The ‘secret swami’ does not have to go to Indian Presidents, Prime Ministers and other power brokers on all sides of politics. They go to him!”

“In exposing a dangerous and influential cult, The Secret Swami is plucky and perceptive. Canada’s national broadcaster CBC was waylaid by hundreds of phone calls and emails by Sai Baba devotees, both before and after the screenings of the documentary in Canada. The program host said on air “We stand by the professionalism of our BBC colleagues”.

For Downloading and Viewing

The Secret Swami (BBC Television)
(80 MB, Broadband). The Secret Swami (23.3 MB, Modem)

Seduced (DR, Danish Broadcasting, Denmark’s national television and radio broadcaster):
(80 MB, Broadband). Seduced (21 MB, Modem)

P.N. Bhagwati, India’s Ex-Chief Justice: Wild, Reckless Claims

P.N. Bhagawati, former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India, a key figure on the Sathya Sai Central Trust (India) has also long been on the Board of Directors of The Times of India. 

In a joint public letter (December 2001), Bhagwati along with the former Prime Minister of India of the right wing BJP, A.B. Vajpayee, and another former Chief Justice of India, Ranganath Mishra, and three other prominent leaders wrote a public letter stating that contentions of Sai Baba’s dissenters represent a:

“wild, reckless and concocted allegations made by certain vested interests and people against Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba”.

See my own responses after this issue broke, HERE

“Wild and Reckless”?

What then of an Indian Prime Minister and former Chief Justices and others (one now Home Minister in the current Manmohan Singh Government) who proffer no evidence that they, in a transparent and accountable way, have investigated any of the substantive allegations against Sai Baba?

P.N. Bhagwati - supposedly a model of the dispensation of Justice - does a profound injustice to hundreds of good and decent former Sai Baba devotees from many countries who have, on the strictest ethical principle, left Sai Baba and his worldwide Sathya Sai Baba Organization.

(Dr Goldstein pic from: The Secret Swami, BBC). What? Not looking wild and reckless?!

The leaders of this organization, such as the world chairman Dr Michael Goldstein of Covina, California, USA, know perfectly well the excellent standing of many former devotees who have attempted to bring attention to the allegations. This is both from the point of view of their role when still members and of the high esteem they have attracted in their professions, trades, education institutions and wider communities.

Yet P.N. Bhagwati and the other signatories wrote of “wild, reckless and concocted allegations made by certain vested interests and people against Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba.”

History will judge very harshly of the failure of those blinded by their devotion so greatly as to be incapable of exercising requisite ethics, sensitivity and applied skills and processes to investigate serious and repeated allegations. These have been asserted by scrupulous and conscientious individuals who have, indeed, investigated the allegations with probity, moral responsibility and a natural compassion.

Why the great anomaly? Why should the Sathya Sai Organization and a few public figures who support Sai Baba not be subject to the same accountability criteria that are now best practice in countless organizations?

We Are Open to Bona Fide Investigators

Many individuals worldwide have, in varying degrees, been alienated from Sai Baba and his Sathya Sai Organization from which they expected to see spirituality and compassion in action. In some cases they have been terribly traumatized by their experiences of Sai Baba and his core leaders, whom they see as having grossly derelicted their duty-of-care for members. Therefore, they are not likely to be too open to those who are aggressive, name-calling, and who fail to observe proper ethical and professional canons of enquiry.

In fact, our submissions to various media, government, civic, academic, law enforcement and other authorities are submitted with the utmost responsibility.  For those of them who are ready to act with integrity, sensitivity and care, we provide as a further mark of good faith, and on the basis of strict privacy, the contact details of those in outstanding, in some cases eminent, positions in government, law, media, education, psychology, medicine, etc., who know the facts.

As well, we are able to coordinate personal and telephonic, and where practicable, contact with articulate individuals and families - and also others not intellectually articulate but who are nevertheless also poignantly moving in their accounts - who are ready to share, in a proper atmosphere, their harrowing experiences of sexual abuse by Sai Baba and other wrongdoings. These are very far from confined to those like the Rahm family (BBC and DR, Denmark’s national television and radio broadcaster), who have already shared their experiences in the media and elsewhere.

We have always been ready to to assist investigative journalists from quality major media in various parts of the world, as well as important religious and civic institutions, and, for example, academics who are either researching allied issues themselves or supervising students who are doing so.

We also have provision of highly qualified professional counselors.

In short, we are able, with the strictest accountability, to provide compelling credentials, for those who are far removed from attacking, slandering and maligning the many witnesses who attempt to tell (not always particularly coherently and yet often most movingly) of their extremely painful and traumatic experiences at the hands of Sathya Sai Baba, and of his also profoundly compromised officials and other supporters.

Related Reading and Viewing

Indian Minister Shields Sai Baba on BBC TV

The BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’ - a Revision

See this video clip. Here, BBC footage clearly exposes one of the then Vajpayee Government’s most powerful Ministers, Murali Manohar Joshi, follower of Sai Baba, as he angrily bullies and slipperily evades the interviewer Tanya Datta, who asks him entirely reasonable questions.

This Link is worth a look. India’s foremost Rationalist B.Premanand (later copying the exchange to his newsletter The Indian Skeptic, Vol. 19. No. 7 15-11-2006) wrote a series of letters in 2006 to top echelon Government of India officials, including police, referring back to the period when A.B. Vajpayee was in office. The letters attempt to establish a) whether the provenance of the letter ostensibly written by Vajpayee and other in defense of Sai Baba was true and b) whether, if it was, there had been any proper investigations of allegations against Sai Baba for sexual abuse of young males. The essence is that, as usual - since Sai Baba has for decades been heavily protected by Indian governments irrespective of what regime is in power - he got grand obstruction. Of course, one of the great successes of Premanand’s “failures” in his tireless efforts with power structures is to reveal the billowing smokescreens that rise as soon as accountability issues are probed.

List of signatories to letter supporting Sai Baba

(a Wikipedia linked copy of the joint letter is HERE)

A.B. Vajpayee
(then) Prime Minister of India
P.N. Bhagawati
Former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India
Ranganath Mishra
(then) Chair Person, National Human Rights Commissioner of India
Formerly Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India
Najma Heptulla
(then) President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union; UNDP Distinguished Human Development Ambassador
Shivraj V. Patil
(Details as signatory: Member of Parliament, India; Formerly of the Lok Sabha & Union Minister. However Patil is now Home Minister in the Government of Manmohan Singh, who himself has shown strong partiality to Sathya Sai Baba)

Note On The Provenance of the Letter:

The good provenance of the letter can scarcely be in doubt. Clearly none of those whose signatures it bears are of a character too timid to wish to set aright matters concerning their position in regard to Sathya Sai Baba.

Former devotee websites did of course carry the letter. But good provenance (in this respect) is the official online Sai Radio Listener’s Journal run by Dr G. Venkataraman, the Deputy World Chairman of the Sathya Sai Organisation and Director of Sai Global Radio. The relevant page contains the Vajpayee et al letter - the provenance of which has never been disputed by any of the signatories. The link is HERE. Page down to the subheading: ‘Mr Vajpayee et al Counter The Lies Through A Public Statement’:

There is also a Wikipedia citation in the article under ‘Sathya Sai Baba’ which links to a copy of the letter at a Wikirefs page HERE. The Wiki article states:

“In an official letter released to the general public, in December 2001 … (the signatories) “called the allegations against Sathya Sai Baba “wild, reckless and concocted allegations made by certain vested interests” and that they “unequivocally condemned” the allegations as “baseless and malicious”.

Robert Priddy (2). The Protection of the Young and Innocent

Disaffection from a powerful belief system is often a slowgoing process, particularly when there has been adherence to a charismatic figure. And this, moreover, when many followers experience states difficult to understand for those who undergo them as it is for even sympathetic scientists. Going on then, to expose to the public an institution’s and guru’s corruptions and other major shortcomings, no matter how determined the activist, is an often an extremely uphill journey.

This is a note on but a small aspect of the work of a valued colleague in the exposure of Sai Baba and his worldwide cult, Robert Priddy, now a retired lecturer in philosophy and social science from the University of Oslo. He was a long-term follower of Sai Baba and national leader of the Sathya Sai Organization. He makes the big effort, and stays the long haul, no matter the strenous demands, as a duty of conscience.

Protecting the Young First Imperative

The overwhelming concern of many disaffected, now former, Sai Baba followers was - as it is for adults the world over - the protection of the young and innocent. Comparing notes with Robert Priddy over time has only reinforced my repeated discovery that disaffection from a powerful movement is a slowgoing process, not least for those who are investigative by bent and training. (See, Robert Priddy (1). Erosion of Trust in Sai Baba Over Time).

Priddy, former head of Sai Baba’s Norwegian organization, and I were both strongly commited to work inspired by Sai Baba - he for nearly two decades, and I for 25 years. He ended his affiliation with the Sathya Sai Organization in 2000. My own leave-taking of Sai Baba occurred in October 1999, after my having been lengthily blind to quite a number of situations that for the less blinded would have been warning flags of something deeply amiss. I now begun to contact primary witnesses and/or their families in various parts of the world, with their reports that Sai Baba sexually abused boys and young men, and other allegations of profound misconduct - in regard to him, and - a later development - to certain Staff in his educational establishments. There was repeated evidence of cover up by leaders close to him, and by core leaders of his wordwide Sathya Sai Organization. Ever and again came the gutwrenching accounts, and these from people not remotely connected with each other.

Opposing Cover up That Is On A Grand Scale

This massive cover up prevails  irrespective of which political forces have ruled India at any given time, and which protect Sai Baba. Apart from our own researchers, of whom Robert Pridddy is one of several, information highly adverse to Sai Baba and his ashrams has long been known to professionals in Indian journalism, police, government and politics. See, for example, my articles:  Indian Ex Top Official Dogs Sai Baba On BBC. ‘Cold-blooded Murder’, and The BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’ - A Revision.

Websites like those of Robert Priddy (Norway), Brian Steel (Australia), Lionel Fernandez (Mexico), www.Exbaba.com (Holland) reflect the far wider concern of former devotees of Sai Baba, and indeed other critics, that there be proper third-party investigation of the many and serious allegations.

Thorbjörn Meyer et alia.

Sathya Sai Organization’s Absence of Transparency, Accountability, and Duty of Care

Robert Priddy has published his Februry 2002 email exchanges with one of Sai Baba’s foremost leaders, Thorbjörn Meyer, HERE. In his introduction to the email exchange, Priddy wrote:

“I decided to approach Mr. Meyer, whom I have known somewhat in the past, with information that might help him investigate better. His response to this confirmed my worst suspicions about his bombastic refusal really to investigate the many and varied allegations about murder and ‘dirty’ play in Sai Baba’s ashram, Prashanti Nilayam. His failure to retract his own groundless allegations against victims of sexual molestation also confirmed and decisively documented, as is seen below, his refusal in fact to do what he falsely promised to do, namely to investigate the allegations properly … He did not even put to me a single question regarding any of these serious matters, which he claims to wish to investigate!”

Priddy comments:

“He stuck himself firmly on formalistic grounds. Extraordinarily, Mr. Meyer repeated that it is all ‘undocumented’, like a mantra to ward off evil! As if statements made by victims on film were not of ‘documentary’ status”.

When Minors Report Sexual Abuse Adults Must Heed and Act

Absurdly far out of line with contemporary public attitudes in more democratically advanced societies, some of Sai Baba’s leaders - like Thorbjörn, Meyer, Professor Peter Pruzan, Steen Piculell - have condoned Sai Baba’s practice of ‘oiling of genitals’ of young males. With absolutely no sanction from Hindu or any other religious authorities, Meyer calls this an “age old Indian anointing oil ceremony”.

It is important that Indian religious leaders speak out on this issue. But will they? Might one be too far out in guessing that they, like the various churches in the West have a great deal to cover up? Although he is not a religious authority, at least the reknowned Indian journalist and writer Khushwant Singh told the interviewer Tanya Datta in the BBC’s The Secret Swami (2004):

“There’s no Indian tradition to support the fact that, you know, worship of the Lingam includes also doing the blow job, if that is what you are referring to. I don’t think there’s any basis for that whatsoever”.

The Robert Priddy-Thorbjörn Meyer Email Exchange

In one of the emails, Priddy wrote to Meyer:

“Your cavalier attitude to ‘oiling’ overlooks the fact that any physical intrusion on genitalia without explicit consent beforehand - even by doctors - is a punishable offence in civilised countries!”

But Thorbjörn Meyer derides the accounts such as those of British musician and former Sai Baba university teacher and global ambassador David Bailey, which include genital oiling but extend far beyond it. Bailey had disaffiliated himself from perhaps the foremost role that Sai Baba has ever conferred on a Westerner. In replying to Priddy, Meyer spoke of “Bailey’s many second hand stories”, saying “Nothing of what Bailey writes is first hand. Nothing is confirmed, everything is blowing in the wind”.

Indeed, some individuals and families did go to leaders of the Sathya Sai Organization. They were, in country after country, shocked and mortified with the lack of humane (much less spiritual!) response.

To Defame Serious Second Hand Accounts of Sexual (and other) Abuse Is Wrong

Here is precisely the point at which Thorbjörn Meyer, together with many other Sai Baba devotees, departs from one of the greatest ethical imperatives. Accounts do not have to be other than second hand. It is entirely absurd to think that they should be. When a young person approaches an adult with a plea for help, citing sexual or other serious abuse, it is the duty of that adult to act on behalf of that individual, ensuring that the individual is accessed to a proper and professional proceedure.

This great responsibility is exactly what so many who are now former devotees have excercised - only to be shunned, ostracized, demeaned, and some threatened, and outrightly slandered.

To be sure, the Board of Church of Christ Grammar School, Perth, one of the leading private colleges in Australia did not cancel the Sai Baba national conference booked at its prestigious venue. However, the message to the conference of Garth Wynne, the Principal (who acted in handling the Sai Baba matter on behalf of the then Anglican Archbishop of Australia, Dr Peter Carnley) was this - as he himself told me:  the accusations against your founder have kept on coming year after year. It puts an institution like ours, as well as your own organization, in a difficult position if you do not follow the appropriate procedures of investigation and accountability.

Failure of Duty of Care and Transparency

This failure of duty of care was the case of the now deceased leader in the USA, Dr. John Hislop, and has all along been so with Sai Baba’s foremost leaders such as Dr Michael Goldstein, Robert Bozzani, William Harvey, Phyllis Kristal, J. Jagadeeshan, T. Sri Ramanathan, and others. They were informed of ‘oilings’ and of worse sexual abuses. In purging the cult of those who raised voices of conscience, Meyer, Indulal Shah (then Sai Baba’s world coordinator) and Steen Picullel were responsible for evicting one of the finest leaders from organization, Serguei Badaev (Russia), just as was T. Sri Ramanathan in getting rid of Stephen Carthew (Australia). These fine men had raised absolutely proper and quintessential questions on matters of conscience.

The like reaction is duplicated by Sai Baba’s top leaders in various countries. For example, when I suggested the wisdom of instituting transparency and accountability processes to Sri T. Ramanathan, then head of Sai Baba’s organization in Australia, he replied that matters only need to go to him. After I had succesfully persuaded a number of foremost Australian religious and political religious leaders not to accept the Sathya Sai Organization’s invitations to appear at the 2003 national conference, Ramanathan phoned me on April 3, 2003 - first to sweet-talk me “I know that you’re a decent man”, and then to threaten legal action. He said “I have only one simple mechanism which I have applied down the years” which is to “deal with complaints personally.” “Your thinking is cloudy,” he said and stated that there was no need for a complaints mechanism in the Sathya Sai Organisation, which is “special and different to any other organisation… and a divine organisation”. (See, HERE and HERE).