Video of Some Primary Witnesses of Sathya Sai Sex Abuse, and Sai Cult Cover Up

Please feel free to put these videos on YouTube or other venues. This is a small part of wide primary witness testimony that accuses Sathya Sai Baba of serial sexual abuse of young men. 

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CLICK ON IMAGE TO DOWNLOAD BRIEF VIDEO 2.9 MB.	CLICK ON IMAGE TO DOWNLOAD BRIEF VIDEO – 1.4 M

Those of my readers who are psychologists, police, lawyers, etc., do please kindly confer with your colleagues who specialize in body language, and voice prints. There are those of us, including myself, who are happy to submit to FBI-certified lie-detector or today’s other leading-edge tests for truthfulness. Jay Narain, so recently resoundingly successful in Indian court actions against one of Sai Baba’s top teacher-officials. Jay Narain’s family was shockingly treated by Sai Baba and his officials, after the family intervened to rescue boys in the family from sexual abuse in Sai Baba’s Puttaparthi education establishment. He tells me that he himself has already passed this type of rigorous lie detector test. I also learn via separate means that, in his business life, he has long been known as being fiercely honest, and even sent people out of his office who were not of integrity. Whatever different legal jurisdictions may make of lie-detector tests (I speak  of the most recent, cutting edge ones), there are responsible media organizations who use them as one method among other methods of allowing educated publics to make their own judgements of witnesses. Where are you Goldstein, Shah, Venkataraman, and all the rest of you? Are you afraid of what will be – only too readily – detected?

I here challenge Sathya Sai Baba’s servitors, who stand accused, to undergo the same tests. My opinion of them, carefully formed over many years, is that they are too cowardly, too guilty and too deeply implicated ever to do so …….

These are but a couple of forensic areas where those in the Sathya Sai Central Trust and International Sathya Sai Organization can, I assert, be soundly exposed, and our witnesses around the world be shown to be telling the truth. Large numbers of former followers and other critics of Sathya Sai Baba and his Cult have been branded liars and deceivers. These things we are not. We wish to put beyond doubt the mendacity of these vicious attacks, launched by people such as Dr G. Venkataraman, deputy world chairman of the international Sathya Sai Organization, and the extremely vicious Gerald Moreno, who has long been aided and abetted with those known to be closely associated with Sai Baba and his key henchmen. We trust that official after official, and other accomplices, are pursued in case after case – in properly constituted Courts of law, as well as exposed in television and newspaper venues, and so on.

Above, the former Swedish film star turned professional prison rehabilitation worker, Conny Larsson, former head of the Sathya Sai Organization, Sweden. And Jed Geyerhahn, USA, former devotee.  He is a graduate in Philosophy from Fordham University.

Ullrich Zimmerman, USA former devotee. See:

Dr Timothy Conway’s Summary of Ullrich Zimmermann Interview

Alaya Rahm, supported by his mother and father in testified to the BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’. Al Rahm was, until he spoke forth, one of the major, high-profile leaders in the international Sathya Sai Organization.

Robert Priddy notes:  The Rahm family (USA) were very ‘close & privileged’. Their son, Alaya, had most bravely and convincingly stood forth to tell of the awful situation in which he found himself when Sai Baba began abusing him sexually. This young man’s candour and honestly contrasts greatly with the cover-ups, secrecy and abuse from the Sai Organisation and its leaders and puts all who continue as Sai devotees to shame! View proofs on video clips from the documentary of the Rahm family’s former closeness and central position in the Sathya Sai Organisation, and the large amount of so-called ‘divine grace’ they received:

1) Three robes from Sai (Filesize 654Kb) 2) Numerous ‘materializations (Filesize 1.12 Mb3) Alaya Rahm tells of Sai Baba threats and oral sex abuse of him when still a minor 1.05Mb)4) Testimony – Sai Baba tried anal sex etc. (Filesize 1.0 Mb)5) Al Rahm tells of his learning of the sex abuse of his son) Alaya’s mother tells of her reaction7) Indian student sex abuse victims cannot speak out (Filesize 340Kb) 8 ) The Rahm’s son’s fears if he told the truth about Sai sex abuse (Filesize 515 Kb)9) Alaya Rahm was told not to tell and threatened by Sai Baba (Filesize 840 Kb)The US State Department were contacted by the BBC (filesize 1.26 Mb) and confirmed their Travel Advisory warning as being directed specifically against Sathya Sai Baba. There is also video testimony that many students were abused in the Danish film ‘Seduced’

Some of the bribes: ‘materialised’ items – fake gold watches, false gemstone/diamond rings and some of the £10,000.- paid to Alaya (who was trapped in the cult from childhood) for his silence under threat of terrible things if he should tell of the over 20 sex abuses.

See:

‘The Secret Swami’ & U.S. State Department Warning against Sai Baba

View ‘The short video clip (1.5 Mbs) with Tanya Datta on the State Department Travel Warning confirmation

Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

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When Perfumes Reek: Lavish Scents, Shampoos etc., Among Sai Baba Secret Treasure Hoard

Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

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Decay presides over Miss Haversham’s ruined mansion, as in Sai Baba’s

Rotting House In Dickens' novel Great Expectations' redolent of decay in Sathya Sai Baba's Secret living Quarters

The decay now found in Sathya Sai Baba’s quarters, which he locked off from all his servitors, it appears, except his male lover and carer Satyajit, is nothing like the ‘Satwic’ (Pure) quality of which he constantly preached. One may be somewhat reminded of Charles Dickens’ novel ‘Great Expectations’, and the wealthy old Mrs Havisham’s wretchedly decrepit mansion, quietly rotting away, like she herself. Indeed, rotting just as Sathya Sai Baba’s reputation is now doing. And rotting just as he was doing for some time before he died on 24 April 2011. The newspaper article below reports:

“The Swiss and Danish chocolates and huge cache of dry fruits which have passed the date of expiry were also found by the team”.

Though in a higher tragic key than Miss Haversham, Shakespeare’s King Lear, came through the “wheel of fire” to an ephiphany. For Miss Haversham light floods in at the last. And the light-bearers are the two young people, Pip and Miss Haversham’s adopted daughter Estella. Sathya Sai Baba brought the downfall of a great many boys and young men. These poor boys and young men (though many have come from rich homes) were, so to speak, Sathya Sai Baba’s Great Expectorations, that is, spittle  – for he used them, and he spat them out. For them, he was the darkness-bearer, showering some spurious light so that he would seem otherwise than what he was.

Miss Haversham, in her perversion of love and in her unrequited pain, revenged against men by trying to proof Estella forever against them, because of her long-ago romantic undoing by the wretched criminal Compeyson. In Sai Baba’s case, there was a similarity with a difference: He perversely ensured that the great numbers of boys he sexually abused would not, forever, be able to function with females. Indeed, we have well-documented his true anti-female sentiments (despite his hypocritical carry-on in glorifying statements about ‘sacred Indian womanhood’, and so forth. See:

Ladies Day – Sathya Sai Baba vs. Women’s Day and true female emancipation

A Few of Sathya Sai Baba’s Confused and Traditional Views On Women

At the end, Miss Haversham – at last being able to see in a mirror the pain of unrequited love in Pip, who so loved Estella, as she loved him – was able to understand his pain through her own pain of rejection. She was then able to make a good repentence. She says to Pip:  “Until you spoke to [Estella] the other day, and until I saw in you a looking-glass that showed me what I once felt myself, I did not know what I had done. What have I done! What have I done!”.

But where was Sathya Sai Baba’s repentence? He who ruined countless lives!  He who cursed those who questioned his conduct! How could he see himself when he looked into his secret hoard of glittering treasure? Or into all the glitzy opulence that he erected around himself? How could he see his true self from aloft his gold chariot and his gold thrones? How could he see that the God whom he proclaimed himself to be has never, unless by sick minds, been linked to the notion of pedophilia? It is left – if at all they are capable of it – for the members of the Sathya Sai Central Trust and the members of the international Sathya Sai Organization to repent. Do they wish to pain to go on, endlessly? If so, we shall pursue these evildoers until they speak the plain truth, and begin to make practical, meaningful amends. The rank-and-file, from whom so much was hidden, could at least start of apologize to those whom they have so cruelly shunned and allowed to be vilified, defamed and libeled, even thought they always knew them as good persons. The likes of Robert Priddy and I shall be glad to pass along our networks any news of such changes springing from contrite hearts

             Sathya Sai Baba Demonized His Critics. He consigned them to eternal Hell

In his fulminating, so-called ‘Christmas Discourse’ of 2000, he dared to denounce with utter hypocrisy. Loudly thumping his lecturn, and cheered on by thousands of profoundly duped devotees, he denounced apostates from him as: demons’, ‘Judases’, and saying that there will never be, in no matter how many lifetimes, any salvation for these persons. Nothing could be a greater distortion of Christ’s teachings of peace, love, forgiveness and hope of atonement.

The persons (yes, they are actually decent and good human beings, most respected in throughout their communites!) he condemned, I should add, at great cost to themselves, spoke out about his homosexual and many other abuses. They may be able to forgive, but forgiveness is a debt owed to ourselves, which means an inner letting-go, and should not, as all too many so-called ‘spiritual people’ do in their systemic confusing of forgiving and forgetting, instead mean letting go, scot free, bullies, thugs and abusers.

Sathya Sai Baba is dead. But many of his close accomplices are not. One cannot sue and gaol him, but one can have a strong go at sueing and gaoling them. He was at all times backed by an organization which cannot pass any rudimentary test for accountability or duty of care. They talk compassion and deny it in their very actions. The way in which they have treated former devotees – always hitherto in good stead in the Sai Baba organization, until their began asking fair and reasonable questions – is truly appalling.

That is to say, the Sathya Sai Central Trust and the international Sathya Sai Organization, in regard to which entities we are working on ways to bring to some kind of justice via large-scale litigation and pursuit of Sai criminals. Indeed, gaol sentences where possible. A lot depends on whether our teams can work around a corruption endemic in sections of India’s government, political, justice and police systems.

Our advancing forces – thanks especially to Jai Narain and his fine legal team – though badly delayed by a judge’s Order in the State of Karnataka of mutual non-disclosure, now have brought about one conviction, a sentence of three years, for a close lieutenant of Sathya Sai Baba, a foremost teacher, whom our records show as having serially and cruelly molested many young males. We shall now sort a lot further through our check lists – one miscreant after another.

Whistleblowers, do make sure that you increasinly whistleblow! Survivors of abuses by those Sai officials did not protect you against, do demand the right to some healing and compensation for the terrible offences committed against you! And all who would be good citizens, and not lost in airy, fine-sounding, so-called ‘spiritual’ abstractions, please do send stark messages to offenders about our need to excercise practical compassion, duty of care, and apply democratic processes in governance of institutions.

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Sunday 24 July 2011

Goods found believed to have been gifted by the devotees from across the world

Perfumes, sarees form Sai Baba’s inventory

Hyderabad, July 23, DHNS:

French perfumes, shampoos, shaving kits, Swiss chocolates, boxes full of imported dry fruits and silk sarees were some of the personal belongings of Sathya Sai Baba among an obscene amount of gold, silver and cash recovered at Yajurmandir.

Yajurmandir, the residence of Sathya Sai Baba and his aide Sathyajit, also threw light on the lifestyle of the godman, revered as the reincarnation of Shirdi Sai.“Baba used perfumes to smell good when he gave darshan to thousands of devotees, and gave personal interviews to dignitaries who will be sitting close to him,” recalled a devotee at Prasahanti Nilayam.While there is no brand-wise perfume list available with the revenue officers, they could recall latest and rarest kind of perfumes and toiletries stocked at Yajurmandir.The revenue officials of Anantapur district during the three rounds of inventory taking completed on July 20, also found thousands of pure silk sarees, dhotis and shirts at Yajurmandir. Baba used to present the sarees to a few select women devotees and also distribute among the volunteers who do free “seva” at Prashanti Nilayam. A large number of silver and gold “mangala sutrams” were also found during the inventory.

Electronic gadgets

“We also found electronic gadgets of various makes that one could dream of and around 5,000 watches that include Rado, Tag Heuer and mostly Swiss hand-made watches,” the awestruck revenue officials, who took part in the inventory sessions from June 2, said.

These goods believed to have been gifted by the devotees from across the world, indicate the love and affection they had for Sai Baba. The revenue officers also stumbled upon two gold garlands, each weighing 6-7 kg under a table.

The Swiss and Danish chocolates and huge cache of dry fruits which have passed the date of expiry were also found by the team.

“These might be gifted by devotees from abroad, but one wonders why they were not distributed and left to rot,” a senior officer from the revenue department deputed to  make inventory, recalled.

The inventory making, which still has to open the personal living quarter of Sathya Sai Baba.  The officials also found 40 pairs of saffron robes, 75 silver glasses each weighing 700 gm in a carton, thousands of gold rings and gold-plated fancy earrings.

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PLEASE FEEL FREE TO PUT ANY OF THESE VIDEOS ON YOUTUBE OR ELSEWHERE! Those of you who are psychologists, police etc., do kindly confer with your colleagues who specialize in body language, and voice prints. These are but a couple of forensic areas where those in the Sathya Sai Central Trust and International Sathya Sai Organization can, I assert, be soundly exposed, and our witnesses around the world be shown to be telling the truth. Large numbers of former followers and other critics of Sathya Sai Baba and his Cult have been branded liars and deceivers. These we are not, as we wish to put beyond doubt as cases come are heard in properly-constituted Courts of law, television interviews and so on.

Calling All Who Wish To Attest, In Public Or In Private, Against Sathya Sai Baba Cult

We very much have in mind going after many who have aided the profound Sathya Sai cult cover ups.

These include officials, past and present, in the Sathya Sai Central Trust, and the international Sathya Sai Organization, and the Sathya Sai Society of America, and officials in areas such as Indian local, state and central governments, past and present.

The miscreants should not make the mistake of thinking that their old methods of hiding and threatening and using their influence at levels of great political and government power will continue to succeed. Which is to say their use of tactics which would appall decent rank-and-file members of the international Sathya Sai Organization!

These power brokers and other miscreants should also think, correctly, that those involved in legal proceedings on our side have vast financial reserves. (Not of course illicitly and secretly hoarded up like their late guru did with treasures of almost unimaginable scores of millions of dollars worth).

Those offenders in India should think, correctly, that there are Indians at high levels indeed, among others, who are ready to assist us, and that we have already made meaningful plans with them.

The wrongdoers should all begin to think of their conscience. If they have one. And of the honor of their families. And of the feelings, too, of their peers in their professions, trades and wider communities.

They may like to consider that there could be avenues of repentance and even some kind of atonement for their own terrible deeds. These offenses include turning a blind eye to those around them who perpetrated the crimes and spiritual betrayals. Some persons may like to assist us substantively. They can write to Robert Priddy or me, Barry Pittard or Jay Narain c/o the Hunt and Hunt law firm, Australia, which is a distinctive leader in the legal world, and has strong outreach into South Asia.

But all should think of the awesome power of the subpoena. And of gaol sentences, one of which we have already secured – in the case of a foremost Sathya Sai Baba officials. There are many more of them in whom we have keen interest.

All of us should ask:  are we prepared to see our children – or see anyone else’s children – in education venues where teachers sexually and in other ways abuse them? Are we prepared to tolerate education authorities and trusts who, once alerted with compelling evidence, fail in their due diligence and duty of care.

And think, too, of the fact that the attention of many of the decent jurisprudential forces in India (and the interest from the law profession in the Commonwealth within which Indian law has close ties) will be, in these matters, increasingly alert to our large-scale challenge, in regard to the Sathya Sai cult, and to its aiding and abetting of corruption in the Indian judiciary.

And think, moreover, about the new and powerful tide of anti-corruption crusades in India. And, given these changes brought by vast public outcry, think of the more awakened forces for proper process within the Indian legal system.

Offenders in Sathya Sai Baba’s cult, and those who, who by their refusal to act with integrity, allowed their ascent, will need to consider the power of the international media. With our extensive cooperation, it has exposed the Sathya Sai cult and its late, former head, Sathya Sai Baba, in a manner that did the cult great damage. Its recruiting efforts (although it has long and misleadingly said that it does not recruit) have suffered badly. And, in consequence, Sathya Sai Centers have severely depleted. Some of its most prominent and respected leaders have resigned.

These damages, unless the Sathya Sai community comes to its senses, and acts with as much integrity as it can muster, can now fairly be expected to be a great many times compounded.

NOTE:

Calling all who are thinking of Class Action Litigation, Police Investigation, Whistleblowing, against Sathy Sai Baba interests, etc

By no means is pursuit of justice regarding the Sathya Sai cult confined to sexual abuse of boys and young men – extensive and of long duration though this has been. In the next days and months (and years, if that is what it takes)  Robert Priddy and I shall be detailing other types of grave wrongdoings about which, for long years, those in the Sai cult, or who subsequently left it, and others, have had deep concerns.

To begin with, so as to set up professional security systems, those who may wish to be informed of the legal options that they may wish to assist with can contact us. We give our promise of confidentiality and sensitivity – as has long been Robert Priddy’s and my case – towards those survivors and other witnesses to the Sathya Sai cult’s international and enormous derelictions of duty of care.

To do this assists us, our legal teams and the courts to act quickly, so as to make it more difficult for any who are bent on destroying evidence, or intimidating or bribing witnesses or attempting to destroy documents and money trails, and so forth.

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Further Related Reading

Oprah Winfrey Show On Male Sexual Abuse: Sathya Sai Baba Cult Survivors Should Watch

Posted by Barry Pittard on July 21, 2011

Another Sathya Sai Baba Multi Million Haul Found At Puttaparthi

Posted by Barry Pittard on July 20, 2011

Young Male Sex Abuse: Legal ‘Locomotive’ Hurtles Towards Sai Baba’s Accomplices

Posted by Barry Pittard on July 19, 2011

Young Male Sex Abuse: International Legal Challenge Will Confront Key Sathya Sai Baba Men

Posted by Barry Pittard on July 19, 2011

Towards Accountability Of Sathya Sai Baba’s Accomplices: A Call To Legal Action

Posted by Barry Pittard on July 16, 2011

For Those Connected With Sathya Sai Education Institutions: A Reckoning Time

Posted by Barry Pittard on July 16, 2011

Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

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Related TAGS:  Oprah Winfrey,Oprah Winfrey Show, Sexual Abuse, Homosexual Abuse, Child Safety, Turley Law Firm, ISKON, International Society For Krishna Consciousness, Hare Krishna, Cults, Sects, Child Abuse, Childrens Rights, Human Rights, Sri Sathya Sai Organization, Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust, Sathya Sai College

Will Court Decision Topple A Top Sathya Sai Teacher? Male Sexual Abuse Case

STOP PRESS! Breaking NEWS ……

We will be going after many who have aided the profound Sathya Sai cult cover ups, not a few. These include officials, past and present, in the Sathya Sai Central Trust, and the international Sathya Sai Organization, and the Sathya Sai Society of America, and officials in areas such as Indian local, state and central governments, past and present.

This morning,  Friday, I received important news, the details of which are being wrapped up in an Indian High Court today. Until I access the notes, I shall wait and examine the details, and check on what those on the spot have to report.

Witnesses to the court proceedings made such comments as: 

“Our side had only three ‘suits’ (ed. i.e., lawyers or solicitors). The Sathya Sai lot had no fewer than thirteen!!  Our three advocates ran rings around them. The judge removed the gag”.

One of the family members I spoke to, who along with other family members, has long suffered the effects of  Sathya Sai betrayal, was so overjoyed at the routing of a formidable accomplice of Sathya Sai Baba that he told me:

“I was so happy that I leapt into my swimming pool forgetting that I had my Sat(ellite)Phone in my pocket. I have to get a new one” ….

Prison Sentence – More Sentences To Come? More Litigation?

Nothing succeeds like success. Too many aggrieved individuals and families have believed that the Sathya Sai forces were invincible. A pin-point of a minority believed this to be craven and a sell-out, especially given that young students are particularly vulnerable. And these activists, on extremely slender pecunious means, persisted.

More voices advocating for human rights against the Sai Baba’s and his accomplices enormous hypocrisy and spiritual betrayal are now being raised, as never before. Case after case on our side is now starting to succeed in an Indian court. Thus far, the pro Sai forces have used one legal technicality and one suppressive ploy after another. See:  Robert Priddy and Barry Pittard On Dr G. Venkataraman – Sathya Sai Baba Global Propagandist.  Posted by Barry Pittard on October 18, 2009. See how the conscienceless Dr Michael Goldstein, world head of the Sathya Sai Organization and the Sathya Sai Society of America used the technicality that the Sai movement in the United States was ONLY a bookshop and therefore an entity which could not be sued by the Rahm family’s young son Alaya: Big Cult Trumps At Law. Is But A ‘Bookshop’. Posted by Barry Pittard on June 7, 2008.

There is determination and massive funding among those who have turned their minds, and their pledges, to further, and indeed prolonged, actions against those forces such as the Sathya Sai Central Trust and international Sathya Sai Organization.

For over two decades former devotees have maintained that these have profoundly covered up, along with Indian government authorities and politician Sai Baba devotees and other supporters. Many leading media in the West heard the cries of the abuse survivors; almost all of the Indian media were blind and deaf. Many who once respected India, even to the point where they saw India as a spiritual light in the world and thought that it was a fairly worthy democracy were, and remain, deeply shocked.

Gaol Sentence Is Of One Man. But Many Other Abusers Inhabit the Sathya Sai Cult. And Many Cover Up For Them …..

Early news, conveyed to me privately, is that a Sai Baba man now faces some three years gaol for but a small part of that  sexual abuse of boys that has been much earlier reported to us in regard to him. Known throughout India because of his long and close association with Sathya Sai Baba, his victims were boys (now grown adults) in a prominent Sathya Sai education institution. 

This man has been within our sights for a long time, and his sexual abuse survivors have spoken of him with dread and loathing.

One is reminded that parents expect the utmost probity from teachers to whom they entrust their precious children. It is sad that this man has brought such suffering over the years and, now, a sense of disgrace to his own family. This certainly does not bring rejoicing.

However, a number of us, though not all former devotees in our network, hold the view that attempting, by means of silence and inaction, to spare the feelings of those near and dear to predators upon our children is foolish in the extreme. Hiding their crimes fails to message to offenders and would-be offenders that a properly civil society will not tolerate their wanton, evil and devastating actions.

A report comes, too, that a Bangalore judge’s earlier non-disclosure gag has now been lifted. This will enable further legal actions from among our own forces, which had been precluded until now.

If the Indian media get on to the story before I can report it in the next few days, so be it. This will be nothing new in recent times.  There has been some alert Indian media coverage of the  be,

For two decades, those such as Glen Meloy, Hari Sampath, Robert Priddy, Brian Steel, Alexandra Nagel and I have had to be, alas, the first to report on Sathya Sai cult wrongdoings, because of the appalling news blanket in almost all of the Indian media against stories critical of Sathya Sai Baba. Recently, one very prominent Indian journalist-telecaster tried to tell me, most adamantly, that this is not so. I know differently, because I was closely involved in the transactions. I am not unknown to some Indian Editors, and a few years back one of the foremost told me, quietly that:  Sai Baba’s people are too powerful to take on. In fact one of Sai Baba’s top men was on this Editor’s Board of Directors.

Anyway, we – including our Indian workers – will be glad to debate the topic with any comers, and produce compelling evidence of an enormous dereliction of almost all Indian media responsibility. They have played their own part in shoring up the taboo on sexual abuse issues in India – and failed to cognize that other parts of the democratic world have moved a long way towards discussion, disclosure, prosecution, reparation and, hopefully, some substantive healing. See: Oprah Winfrey Show On Male Sexual Abuse: Sathya Sai Baba Cult Survivors Should Watch. Posted by Barry Pittard on July 21, 2011

My alert readers have noticed the plethora of Indian news on Sai Baba shortly before and then after his death. But let anyone look as hard as they like – they will find nothing remotely like it to compare. My colleagues and I (including in India) got virtually nowhere in the Indian media. Only a swish dinner given to them by a former advisor to one of the greatest foreign affairs players of the twentieth century did a major force in the Indian media see the light of day and help us  (not the individual I am about to mention). This signalled a major difference. This was when we worked on getting our Duke of Edinburgh story into some major Indian newspapers – see: A Duke Stops An Emperor. Edinburgh Routs Sai Baba. Posted by Barry Pittard on July 9, 2007

The fact is that Aroon Poorie, founder and Editor-in-Chief of the mass ciruclation magazine India Today is the ONLY Indian publisher who has done a story on our allegations facing Sathya Sai Baba. He is also Chief Executive of the India Today Group, Managing Director of Thomson Press (India) Limited, Chairman and Managing Director of TV Today and Editor-in-Chief of Reader’s Digest, India. How disgraceful it is for India as a supposed democracy, with a supposed free press! How lily-livered that the Indian media has until the recent, inescapable – and, of course, far more newsworthy! – revelations about Sai Baba’s hidden treasures should blithely have carried endless stories positive to Sathya Sai Baba and his cult! And yet knowingly, in the same fashion as Manmohan Singh, Vajpayee and so many others who have been provided with compelling and responsible documentation, they have endangered the safety of young people in Sathya Sai Baba’s schools, colleges and university and beyond.

Some enterprising journalist may like to ask Aroon Poorie this question:  Did you personally know a family which withdrew their boy from a premier Sathya Sai Baba’s institution, after which, convinced of the  boy’s truthfulness, the parents thereupon withdrew him for reasons of moral protection of their son?

In fact, we learn that many parents have, for the same reason, withdraw their son or sons from Sathya Sai Baba places of education. Our astute exposure lawyers should have no problem proving that this is true.

But, then, a court can of course issue subpoenas compelling those who may try to sidestep the giving of vital evidence. We shall be thinking about that.

It may always assist our exposure when powerful and influential Indians themselves know families, sometimes their own, in which there have been boys in, and beyond, Sathya Sai education institutes whom Sathya Sai Baba and/or his accomplices has/have sexually abused.

Below is a note I have written today to a foremost worker in the sexual abuse area. This person is from one of the four most prestigious universities in the world. Unfortunately, it is one of a great many notes that  I or we have written, seeking the most eminent assistance possible, to assist the survivors  Sathya Sai Baba cult abuse. (I shall cut out some references for the sake of privacy of those concerned).

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Dear Dr  ………

I shall again include the experienced and very qualified counseling professionals Ms X (Iowa) and Ms Y (Florida) in this email. Both are esteemed by many ex-Sathya Sai Baba followers from different countries.

It is not without going through your credentials, both academic AND as a respected worker in the sexual abuse area, that I’m getting in touch. 

My main focus is that, whatever benefits ‘successful’ litigation brings, I want to see that not too much is left to the tender mercies of courts-lawyers-police. My experience is that all too few of those who have turned to persons such as my principal colleague, Robert Priddy and I will turn to counseling. That is their choice and to be respected but I want to anticipate that there may be some who will accept as timely psychological assistance as possible.

At the moment, possibilities for relocation of our Indian people are: Australia, Canada, USA and UK. Then we have other abuse survivors (and families) who live in a wide number of countries around the world. Most of course will never leave India, and it would be great if some way lay open to determining – yes, I mean secure – counseling situations there. Perhaps wonderful alumni who have passed through your mentorship, and of respected colleagues of yours, and who now practise in India.

Individual litigation is being prosecuted with great determination and funding, with avowals that it will continue in one case after another, and consultations proceed suggestive of large class action or actions further ahead.

In whatever the event, I am wishing to think ahead, especially in any cases where persons end up by being richer in money but in fact the more messed up.

By “secure and best practice services”, I mean, for example, culture-appropriate – so that those we wish to see happy will feel safe and comfortable about any services that we think, after our careful ‘homework’, we can point them towards, including resources like your own website and the expertise behind it.

I also mean (although it may seem alien to many in more democratic countries than India) that there are concerns about life or limb. Our archives reference murder, attempted murders, suicide, beatings, and other forms of physical and mental violence perpetrated against those who have attempted to speak up about Sathya Sai Baba, certain of his servitors, and of his cultic Sathya Central Trust and international Sathya Sai Organization.

Many of those for whose wellbeing we care have passed through Sai Baba’s extensive education system, including a major University, and/or have served in his hospitals and other aspects of his worldwide Sathya Sai Organization. I myself was a lecturer (1978-79) in his, at that time, premier education institution, although not knowing (which has pained me ever since) of the serial sexual abuses of those boys from all over India whom I so greatly loved teaching.

Sathya Sai Baba is often accredited with millions of followers throughout the world. If they relocate to a new land, they will be in a hard situation – strangers in a strange land AND grappling with  grotesque and haunting struggles relating to the earlier abuse experiences.

Sathya Sai Baba and his accomplices abused so many boys and young men. Some, in turn, have become, and remain, abusers. Some allow themselves still to be abused.

Reported to us are, for example, issues of badly confused sexuality, which inevitably gets tangled up with marriage problems (and exacerbated by the great complexities of the Indian extended family scenario).

Only this morning, I was informed that a XXX of one of Sathya Sai Baba’s very prestigious [places of education]  has, as a result of one of a close and valued colleague’s strenuous work, been sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for sexual abuse, which brought terrible suffering in a family I have known over the years. A major firm involved envisages far further results.

Dr …., I am doing my best to consider implications of various kinds of ‘fallout’, and I would most appreciate anyone who understands such situations being there for us in these difficult matters.

It has taken twenty years of almost unimaginable hard work for us to get to this point, and I would so greatly appreciate any suggestions you or your colleagues can make.

Would you kindly assist in whatever ways that you can?

Barry Pittard, Australia

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Tags:  Psychology, Psychotherapy, Psychiatry, Mental Health Professionals, Medicine, Healing, Social Services, Social Workers, Child Abuse, Child Safety, Children’s Rights, Cults, Homosexual Abuse, Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust, Sri Sathya Sai Organization

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Further Related Reading

Oprah Winfrey Show On Male Sexual Abuse: Sathya Sai Baba Cult Survivors Should Watch

Posted by Barry Pittard on July 21, 2011

Another Sathya Sai Baba Multi Million Haul Found At Puttaparthi

Posted by Barry Pittard on July 20, 2011

Young Male Sex Abuse: Legal ‘Locomotive’ Hurtles Towards Sai Baba’s Accomplices

Posted by Barry Pittard on July 19, 2011

Young Male Sex Abuse: International Legal Challenge Will Confront Key Sathya Sai Baba Men

Posted by Barry Pittard on July 19, 2011

Towards Accountability Of Sathya Sai Baba’s Accomplices: A Call To Legal Action

Posted by Barry Pittard on July 16, 2011

For Those Connected With Sathya Sai Education Institutions: A Reckoning Time

Posted by Barry Pittard on July 16, 2011

Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

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Subscribe to Call for media and government

Oprah Winfrey Show On Male Sexual Abuse: Sathya Sai Baba Cult Survivors Should Watch

At this juncture of preparations to litigate against those in the Sathya Sai Organization or allied with it who have sexually abused, or permitted to be abused, I copy below some details and links relating to a November 2010 Oprah Winfrey Special on sexual abuse of males.

It is important for those survivors of Sathya Sai Baba’s and his accomplices’ serial and profound wrongdoings to raise their awareness of a number of psychological and social issues, including various forms of remediation that are available.

I had earlier spoken to an Oprah Winfrey producer about the Sathya Sai cult cases, but nothing came of it.

Activists – strong in the truth and justice of their cause – who take on powerful antagonists invariably come to know two things especially. They learn how powerful vested interests are, and to what extraordinary lengths they will go to defame, libel, threaten and bully, and to distort and lie. They also know that only dogged persistence, unblinking, unyielding, will finally win the day. In the article: Fighting Multi Billion Corruption Takes Longer. Posted by Barry Pittard on March 10, 2007, I remarked:

“Former Sai Baba devotees worldwide are ready, as indeed many times before over several years, to submit our credentials and findings to bona fide independent third-party adjudicators.

In an attempt to obtain proper investigation of the allegations against Sathya Sai Baba and his powerful and influential worldwide organization, we have closely cooperated with major world media and other reputed agencies and institutions. He and the entity he calls the “Divine” instrument for bringing about the greatest spiritual revolution the world has ever seen, the Sathya Sai Organization, have not”.

As only to be expected, since there are constraints on the young  that would prevent their crying hearts from speaking out, these are men who have come forward to share their experiences. This they did in front of one of the biggest audiences television history.

However, let us bear in mind that large numbers of those whom Sathya Sai Baba sexually abused, or in other cases, whom those around him abused (including, as teachers around the world will be unhappy to learn, certain teaching Staff) are now men.

There Comes A Time When Men Have To Stop Acting Like Frightened Children

I would like to think that those boys I taught (1978-790 at Sathya Sai Baba’s Whitefield College (via Bangalore, South India), and many other boys who have passed through Sathya Sai education institutions, will start to mean what they have so often uttered about Vedic and other sacred injunctions to be fearless.

These men, now gathered and pledged to powerful litigation against corrupt Sai Baba forces, will  longer will be silent. As I have mentioned in my last few posts, considerable wealth has been generated that is now at the disposal of that part of our cause which is to make accountable as many of the abusers that we can.

As I have elsewhere pointed out, a measure of legal success has already been achieved in a Bangalore law court BUT it was a success was achievable only at the cost of conditions of mutual non-disclosure.

But the shameless men who were thus exposed should now entertain the notion that large legal remedies are not closed off.

For it is non-disclosure that permits that very silence and secrecy in which the sexual abuse of the young so collossally thrives and infects. A key figure in the exposure of the rampant sexual and other abuses within ISKON (the International Society of Krishna Consciousness, Pratyatoṣa Dāsa, dealt with the renowned Turley law firm states:

“Mr. Turley also said that sexual abuse of children, if not routed out and cured in it’s infancy, spreads like an infectious disease, and this, unfortunately, is exactly what happened within ISKCON.”

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Important Breakthrough!

Litigation against the Sathya Sai Baba forces of serial sexual and other criminal abuses is now powerfully on the move. World class law firms are being consulted. Millions of dollars are on call for this fight on behalf of one of history’s profoundly righteous causes.

SPECIAL NOTE:  Those who wish to litigate or in other ways support legal actions against those who supported the years of homosexual abuse of boys and young men, and other abuses, can, with assurance of strict confidentiality contact my close and trusted colleague Robert Priddy:  rero@getmail.no or myself, Barry Pittard at: bpittard@westnet.com.au or Jay Narain (former Sathya Sai student) client of Hunt and Hunt law firm (see below) at:  jnarain05@hotmail.com

  A TWO-DAY OPRAH SHOW EVENT: 200 ADULT MEN WHO WERE MOLESTED COME FORWARD

watch preview

november 5, 2010

A landmark Oprah Showevent that’s never been done before. Two hundred men courageously stand together to reveal they were all molested.

• 3 survivors share their stories
• The first steps toward healing
• Find help and support with our sexual abuse resource center

Watch the Full Episode

If you missed this show or want to share the lessons with others, watch now.

Survivors Speak Out

Watch brave men open up about the abuse they suffered as children.

The Grooming Process

How some sexual abuse survivors were targeted by their perpetrators.

EXCLUSIVES

Sexual Abuse Resource Center

Get the tools—support groups, expert advice—you need to help yourself or a loved one heal.

How to Heal

Dr. Howard Fradkin shares the first steps survivors can take to begin the healing process.

Living with the Stigma

Men who’ve been molested discuss the myths and misconceptions they encounter.

10 Daily Affirmations

Dr. Fradkin offers affirmations to help men move forward.

Sexual Abuse Poll Results

Audience members respond to questions about suicide, sexual confusion and more.

In His Own Words

Male survivors share what they hope for others who see this show.

RELATED RESOURCES

• Search our sexual abuse resource center for help and support

Oprah on her abusive childhood

6 stages of grooming

Oprah’s talks with molesters

Molested by his mother

Tyler Perry Speaks Out

The Hollywood mogul shares details about his horrific childhood.

Sexual Abuse Information

Reflect on the lessons our guests and experts have taught us.

Daniel’s Story

Meet the teen who killed his accused rapist.

Male Sexual Abuse Survivors Stand Together

For the first time, 200 men who’ve been sexually abused stand together to shed light on the subject. More

Sexual Abuse Survivors’ First Steps Toward Healing

Dr. Howard Fradkin shares nine steps for male sexual abuse survivors who are ready to start the healing process. More

Road to Recovery: 7 Ways to Help a Male Sexual Abuse Survivor Heal

Ilene Lieberman-St. John shares seven ways for sexually abused men to learn to heal. More

In His Own Words – Male Survivors Speak Out

Twenty-two men who say they were sexually abused as children reveal why they’re coming forward and sharing their stories. Their hopes, regrets and words of encouragement. More

Read more: http://www.oprah.com/showinfo/A-Two-Day-Oprah-Show-Event-200-Men-Who-Were-Molested-Come-Forward_1#ixzz1SgmyWLVy

—————————————————

Busy journalists, scholars, institutional researchers, and the probing reader in general can do with shortcuts. See:

Barry Pittard’s Guide To His Articles On The BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’ (Exposing Sai Baba)

Posted by Barry Pittard on June 6, 2010 –  is a guide to my articles written across some six years on the BBC’s one-hour documentary, The Secret Swami (2004) which, according to the BBC itself, has been aired in some two hundred countries. The articles referred to in this guide are those mentioned below. To give enquirers – in one fell swoop as it were – the opportunity to view the scope of these articles in prospectus, the guide has key quotations from each of the articles.

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Further Reading

Another Sathya Sai Baba Multi Million Haul Found At Puttaparthi

Posted by Barry Pittard on July 20, 2011

Young Male Sex Abuse: Legal ‘Locomotive’ Hurtles Towards Sai Baba’s Accomplices

Posted by Barry Pittard on July 19, 2011

Young Male Sex Abuse: International Legal Challenge Will Confront Key Sathya Sai Baba Men

Posted by Barry Pittard on July 19, 2011

Towards Accountability Of Sathya Sai Baba’s Accomplices: A Call To Legal Action

Posted by Barry Pittard on July 16, 2011

For Those Connected With Sathya Sai Education Institutions: A Reckoning Time

Posted by Barry Pittard on July 16, 2011

Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

Subscribe in a reader

Subscribe to Call for media and government

Tags:

Oprah Winfrey, Oprah Winfrey Show, Sexual Abuse, Homosexual Abuse, Child Safety, Turley Law Firm, ISKON, International Society For Krishna Consciousness, Hare Krishna, Cults, Sects, Child Abuse, Childrens Rights, Human Rights, Sri Sathya Sai Organization, Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust, Sathya Sai College

Another Sathya Sai Baba Multi Million Haul Found At Puttaparthi

As major litigation preparations unfold – particularly in regard to Sathya Sai Baba’s officials with the complicity, over the years, in cover up by Indian, local, state and national governments – it does the Sai devotees’ cause no good that one extraordinary revelation follows another of his secret hoarding of Midas or Croesus like treasures.

Fresh from having just uncovered yet more millions of dollars worth of secret treasure in currency and valuables (See reports below), Andhra Pradesh revenue officials are now readying to search further parts of the Puttaparthi complex, as well as other venues such as the ashram at Kadugodi.

This ashram is, by the way, where I was a lecturer at the Sathya Sai college, Whitefield, via Bangalore (1978-79, very happily teaching without remuneration at the invitation of one who, all the while, unknown to me, was serially sexually abusing, along with certain teaching staff, the students whom I loved. I am to this day determined to see justice done against the great abuses to which many of them, under inducement of threats, bribery and flattery, were subjected.

Many are the accounts,too terrible to be spoken of unless to those like Robert Priddy and myself who have, down many years, been trusted by former devotees in taking leadership roles in exposing the International Sathya Sai cult. Those who, down the years, have confided these terrible secrets, know that we have honored this privacy. Nor have we overstepped into preserves which properly belong to professional counselors. Indeed we have stood ready to ensure that any who wish for counseling are accessed to properly accredited, respected professionals. Recognizing how fragile survivors of abuses can be, we have been very careful to respect vulnerability when vulnerability has already been so shockingly, in some cases tragically, outraged.

I say to all those who were once Sai Baba’s male students:  Now furnished with great financial and legal resources, a number of us have not forgotten the terrible iniquities that Sathya Sai Baba, his teachers and other of his key servitors have perpetrated upon you. Hopefully, you will be able, by courageously putting aside your past silence and inaction, to support those of your former classmates and others who now work to assail those shameless men, and occasionally women, who knew what was going on and who are still very much alive and hold sway at the top echelons of the Sai cult in India and far beyond. Those who cannot, for whatever reason, bring themselves to act publicly can at the very least encourage and support privately those who are standing determined and tall.

———————————————

Important Breakthrough!

Litigation against the Sathya Sai Baba forces of serial sexual and other criminal abuses is now powerfully on the move. World class law firms are being consulted. Millions of dollars are on call for this fight on behalf of one of history’s profoundly righteous causes.

SPECIAL NOTE:  Those who wish to litigate or in other ways support legal actions against those who supported the years of homosexual abuse of boys and young men, and other abuses, can, with assurance of strict confidentiality contact my close and trusted colleague Robert Priddy:  rero@getmail.no or myself, Barry Pittard at: bpittard@westnet.com.au or Jay Narain (former Sathya Sai student) client of Hunt and Hunt law firm (see below) at:  jnarain05@hotmail.com                                                   

Further Reading

Young Male Sex Abuse: Legal ‘Locomotive’ Hurtles Towards Sai Baba’s Accomplices

Posted by Barry Pittard on July 19, 2011

Young Male Sex Abuse: International Legal Challenge Will Confront Key Sathya Sai Baba Men

Posted by Barry Pittard on July 19, 2011

Towards Accountability Of Sathya Sai Baba’s Accomplices: A Call To Legal Action

Posted by Barry Pittard on July 16, 2011

For Those Connected With Sathya Sai Education Institutions: A Reckoning Time

Posted by Barry Pittard on July 16, 2011

Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

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Subscribe to Call for media and government

More gold found in Sai Baba’s room

TNN | Jul 20, 2011, 01.10am IST

PUTTAPARTHI: It’s raining diamonds, gold and silver in Sathya Sai Baba’s abode, Yajur Mandir, at Puttaparthi’s sprawling Prashanthi Nilayam.

A day after 34.5 kg of gold and 340 kg of silver stashed in Sai Baba’s personal chambers was found and its value revealed, more gold and silver articles tumbled out from Baba’s personal rooms.

During the searches conducted from 10am on Tuesday, officials found 737 kg of silver worth Rs 4.5 crore, 1.32 kg of gold worth Rs 30 lakh, a gold crown (weighing half a kilo) worth Rs 11 lakh, Rs 32 lakh in cash and a diamond set whose value is yet to be estimated. A gold bracelet studded with Belgium diamonds, silver slippers, a silver throne, panchaloha (five-metal) idols of Lord Rama, Sita, Lakshmana, Hanuman and a statue of LordKrishna were also found.

Sources said 2,000 expensive silk saris, silk dhotis, watches, pens and gift articles were also found from various rooms during searches supervised by social welfare department special officer D Venkatesam.

Officials also found old currency notes and old personal articles of silver and gold used by Sai Baba from one of the rooms. Till now, Rs 60 crore worth of gold, silver and cash have been found in four rounds of inventory conducted inside the Yajur Mandir, which has 15-20 rooms. It was first opened on June 16 after Sai Baba’s death on April 24.

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More treasure found in Sai Baba’s ashram

Hyderabad, July 19 (IANS) Cash, gold and silver continues to tumble out of cupboards in the late Sathya Sai Baba’s residential quarters in Puttaparthi town of Andhra Pradesh, with valuables worth nearly Rs.75 crore being found so far in three rounds of counting, officials said.

At the completion of the counting on the second consecutive day, government officials found 1,161 kg of silver, 1.5 kg of gold and Rs.5.91 crore in cash in the building adjoining Yajur Mandir in Prashanti Nilayam, Anantpur district. The latest haul is estimated to be worth Rs.16 crore.

The items found Tuesday reportedly include a diamond necklace and a suitcase containing Rs.27 lakh in cash, said to be donated by a top cricketer.

The latest round of inventory, the third in a month, was taken up Monday and on the first day 34.5 kg of gold, 340 kg of silver and Rs.1.90 crore of cash was found. The counting resumed Tuesday morning in the presence of Sathya Sai Central Trust officials and completed around 9 p.m.

Anantapur District Collector Durgadas told reporters the jewellery, cash and other valuables were found in six rooms, which were not opened in the earlier rounds.

The officials found gold bangles, earrings, silver mugs, silver cookware, plates, spoons, puja material, expensive saris, shirts, trousers and other gift items.

The officials believe there might be more rooms and closets which were not searched earlier and might yield more treasure.

The third haul is likely to raise further doubts about the functioning of the trust, which manages the affairs of the vast spiritual empire of Sathya Sai Baba.

The trust, which had opened the spiritual guru’s personal chamber June 16 for the first time after his demise April 24, found Rs.11.56 crore, 98 kg gold and gold jewellery, and 307 kg silver and silver articles.

It also claimed to have completed the inventory of all the articles.

However, two days later seizure of Rs.35 lakh by police while being transported from Prashanti Nilayam to Bangalore triggered a huge row with a section of devotees alleging that the trust members were involved in financial irregularities and that huge amounts of cash and gold were shipped out of Baba’s ashram.

Though the trust clarified that the cash was donated by a group of devotees for building Baba’s ‘samadhi’, police have still not solved the mystery behind the unaccounted money.

Following the row over the seized cash and the allegations by devotees, the government stepped in. The district officials inspected the rooms adjoining Yajur Mandir July 3 and found silver and gold articles worth over Rs.76 lakh.

The second and third round of valuables have proved wrong the initial claims by the trust that there were no more rooms left to be inspected, say officials.

In the three rounds of inventory so far, nearly Rs.75 crore worth gold, silver and cash has been recovered from Yajur Mandir and adjoining rooms, say officials.

More cash, gold and silver is being found at a time when an expert committee appointed by the state government is evaluating the report submitted by the trust July 10.

The report was submitted by the trust after the government issued a notice, asking it to provide all details of its finances, activities, revenues, background of the trust members and officials and future plans.

After evaluating the report, the government is likely to take a decision on whether to take over the trust or set up a mechanism to monitor the trust in view of the demands made by a section of devotees.

©Indo-Asian News Service

Young Male Sex Abuse: Legal ‘Locomotive’ Hurtles Towards Sai Baba’s Accomplices

Important Breakthrough!

Litigation against the Sathya Sai Baba forces of serial sexual and other criminal abuses is now powerfully on the move. World class law firms are being consulted. Millions of dollars are on call for this fight on behalf of one of history’s profoundly righteous causes.

SPECIAL NOTE:  Those who wish to litigate or in other ways support legal actions against those who supported the years of homosexual abuse of boys and young men, and other abuses, can, with assurance of strict confidentiality contact my close and trusted colleague Robert Priddy:  rero@getmail.no or myself, Barry Pittard at: bpittard@westnet.com.au or Jay Narain (former Sathya Sai student) client of Hunt and Hunt law firm (see below) at:  jnarain05@hotmail.com

Litigation against the Sathya Sai Baba cult is aimed at holding accountable  Sathya Sai officials and other enablers complicit in permitting and covering up his, and others’, wide-scale, serial sexual and other criminal abuses.

Thus, our Sathya Sai Baba cult exposure now moves into a whole new phase. An impressive array of former Sathya Sai Baba alumni and others stand ready to use formidable wealth to show India and the world that corruptors of the young can, and must be, unmasked.

Former Sai Baba devotees have fought, in the two decades, a gruelling, uphill, international campaign. They expect, soon enough, resounding vindication. From the moment ex-devotees spoke out truthfully – which was, and is, their habit – Sai Baba branded them “demons”, and “Judases”, saying that they were condemned forever and beyond salvation.

‘By Their Fruits Shall Ye Know Them’

Sai Baba devotees have an appalling record for their maltreatment of former devotees. They have repeatedly vilified, shunned, made apostates out to be liars and fools, cruelly libelled them on the internet, and threatened with law suits and criminal proceedings.

T. Sri Ramanathan, Kulwant Rai, et alia

One of these attempts to cower us was the unconscionable bluff by top Sathya Sai Organization leader T. Sri Ramanathan. As well-informed Sai Baba devotees in Australia know too well, he is accounted – more particularly behind hands and doors in whispers – an authoritarian bully within the Australian Sathya Sai Organization itself, which he led for several years. The devotees, all too lamb-like, would say e.g., “Rama is simply Baba’s test for our sadhana; Swami knows all our karmas”.  See: Ramanathan Threatens Barry Pittard With The Law 

Likewise appearing to think that we were panicky lambs, the Sathya Sai Baba supporter Kulwant Rai, one of India’s wealthiest moguls, and scion of the Rai family, various of whom are Sathya Sai Baba devotees, threatened us via his lawyers.

With scarcely a penny in our pockets – at that time! – our forces welcomed them to proceed. We wanted the facts to come out. Our course was, and is, entirely just. We had nothing to hide, but they did, so they threatened like bovver boys.

They – having too much to hide – went away. More’s the pity.

Typically, Sathya Sai devotees – who forever harp on Truth, Right Conduct, Peace, Prema and Non-violence – acquiesced with their centre, zone, national and Sathya Sai Central Trust and international Sathya Sai Organization in a glacial wall of silence.  Former devotees were now, in effect, non-persons.

So much for all the bright, beamy ‘Sai Ram’ nomenclature such as:  “Sai brothers and sisters”, and Sai Baba’s catch cry of “Love all, Serve all”!

One Day, Outraged Boys Become Enraged Men – And, Formidably, Sue!

Many who, when boys, came to grief at the hands of Sathya Sai Baba and various of his key servitors – including notable Sai Baba teaching Staff who have betrayed their duty of care as teachers – now increasingly gather support for very powerful legal action.

The members of the group make firm pledges to ensure that Indian citizens, and the world, are satisfied that the malefactors complicit with Sathya Sai Baba, and, in some cases, actually homosexual abusers of boys and young men themselves and offenders in other areas, are made accountable.

Many victims were students in Sathya Sai Baba’s education establishments, and are from a number of countries. In the aftermath of their bitter experiences – which included the betrayal of their parents, guardians and significant others who thought Sathya Sai Baba and his teachers were trustworthy – they have succeeded as responsible, upright citizens in a veritable array of businesses and professions. Some have attained awesome wealth and notability, which they wish to see put to the service of righteousness – or dharma, as some of them who are heirs of Eastern spiritual and cultural backgrounds term it.

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Note from the website of Hunt and Hunt, a top Australian law firm which has an extensive international reach, and just one of the law firms being consulted:

“Many of our practitioners are regarded as thought leaders in their field. They are often asked to provide media commentary on various industry developments and legal issues.

Finance Monthly Law Awards 2011

Hunt & Hunt is the winner in the category of International Trade Law Firm of the Year, Australia for the Finance Monthly Law Awards 2011

Hunt & Hunt is the winner in the category of International Trade Law Firm of the Year, Australia for the Finance Monthly Law Awards 2011

Established in 1929, Hunt & Hunt is a leading Australian law firm, with offices in Sydney (City and North West), Melbourne and Adelaide.

Hunt and Hunt’s strength and reputation are in three core areas – Commercial, Insurance and Property – and over the years has gained clusters of clients across a number of key sectors. These include financial services, transport, manufacturing, government, health, IR, education and property”.

————————————-

Further Reading

Towards Accountability Of Sathya Sai Baba’s Accomplices: A Call To Legal Action

Posted by Barry Pittard on July 16, 2011

For Those Connected With Sathya Sai Education Institutions: A Reckoning Time

Posted by Barry Pittard on July 16, 2011

Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

Subscribe in a reader

Subscribe to Call for media and government

Young Male Sex Abuse: International Legal Challenge Will Confront Key Sathya Sai Baba Men

Those Sathya Sai Baba accomplices who have so grievously outraged the innocence of boys and young men over many years had best not underestimate the sheer punching power and international outreach of law firms now being consulted. I am assured by my private means that they are able, via their experience and alliances in South Asia, to sort out the sheep and the goats in the Indian legal system.

Already some of Sathya Sai Baba’s officials know – to their considerable cost – that three  strong legal actions have already succeeded against them. It was unfortunate that, hitherto, these were settled out of court with mutual non-disclosure agreements. However, they should remember that there remain legal pathways ahead that they will not rejoice in facing.

SPECIAL NOTE:  Those who wish to litigate or in other ways support legal actions against those who supported the years of homosexual abuse of boys and young men, and other abuses, can, with assurance of strict confidentiality contact my close and trusted colleague Robert Priddy:  rero@getmail.no or myself, Barry Pittard at: bpittard@westnet.com.au or Jay Narain (former Sathya Sai student) client of Hunt and Hunt law firm (see below) at:  jnarain05@hotmail.com

One of the strategies is to ensure that corrupt forces within the Indian legal system, including complicit Sathya Sai devotee judges and other judges partial to them or to him, cannot further be allowed to subvert the course of Justice. 

See articles cited below, which expose former Chief Justice of India, P.N. Bhagwati, longtime Sathya Sai Central Trust member. Bhagwati was briefly, at the height of the recent series of scandals aired worldwide, the head of the Sai Trust. Given the opportunity, advocates on our side should not have too much bother exposing him and those like him, and others worse than he, to the world.

P.N. Bhagwati. New legal challenges ahead for Sai Central Trust stalwart

Of the morass within the Indian legal system that our international and Indian lawyers will have to cut through, I have earlier written. An old friend of mine, an eminent legal expert, speaks of the actions of Judges G.B. Patnaik and R.C. Lahoti with the concurrence of then Chief Justice Dr A.S. Anand as constituting a “kangaroo court”. See:Sathya Sai Trust In Vast Treasure Scandals: Secret Temple, Van, and Bus Stashes. Posted by Barry Pittard on June 20, 2011, where I wrote:

“Anyone accustomed to democratic court procedures can hardly believe, as one reads the lawyer’s notes in transcript, that judges could be so blatant. See, Record of Proceedings document of Hari Sampath’s 2001 case against Sai Baba in the Supreme Court of India.  See how the case is scuppered by Judges G.B. Patnaik and R.C. Lahoti with the concurrence of then Chief Justice Dr A.S. Anand. Prompted by concern for her client if he were to proceed in and Andhra Pradesh court – the proposed remedy of the judges, Kamini Jaiswal, a senior advocate in the Indian Supreme Court, strongly contested the three judges’ direction to pursue matters in an Andhra Pradesh court. 

                                                    Sathya Sai Baba Disposed Judges

Soon after the three judges’ determinations, which have more than raised eyebrows among some most distinguished lawyers of our acquaintance, the Supreme Court of India deleted the public documentation. In vain, even the British Ambassador to India tried to obtain confirmation of the Supreme Court’s rejection of the Sampath PIL. The Court denied all knowledge of any record of the case”.

                                              ————————————————–

Note from the website of Hunt and Hunt, a top Australian law firm which has an extensive international reach, and just one of the law firms being consulted:

“Many of our practitioners are regarded as thought leaders in their field. They are often asked to provide media commentary on various industry developments and legal issues.

Finance Monthly Law Awards 2011

Hunt & Hunt is the winner in the category of International Trade Law Firm of the Year, Australia for the Finance Monthly Law Awards 2011

Hunt & Hunt is the winner in the category of International Trade Law Firm of the Year, Australia for the Finance Monthly Law Awards 2011

Established in 1929, Hunt & Hunt is a leading Australian law firm, with offices in Sydney (City and North West), Melbourne and Adelaide.

Hunt and Hunt’s strength and reputation are in three core areas – Commercial, Insurance and Property – and over the years has gained clusters of clients across a number of key sectors. These include financial services, transport, manufacturing, government, health, IR, education and property”.

————————————-

Further Reading

Ex-Chief Justice of India: Sathya Sai Baba “dictated my every single judgement” Posted by Barry Pittard on May 4, 2011

On Sathya Sai Baba: Times of India, Ex-Chief Justice Interview. What Judge Would So Opine?

Posted by Barry Pittard on May 1, 2011

Indian Ex-Chief Justice: “Wild, Reckless Claims” about Sathya Sai Baba

Posted by Barry Pittard on April 29, 2011

Indian Ex-Chief Justice: “Wild, Reckless Claims” about Sathya Sai Baba

Posted by Barry Pittard on April 29, 2011

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Towards Accountability Of Sathya Sai Baba’s Accomplices: A Call To Legal Action

Posted by Barry Pittard on July 16, 2011

For Those Connected With Sathya Sai Education Institutions: A Reckoning Time

Posted by Barry Pittard on July 16, 2011

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Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

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Towards Accountability Of Sathya Sai Baba’s Accomplices: A Call To Legal Action

 A formidable legal challenge is being mounted against those who aided and abetted Sathya Sai Baba in what many say are heinous and immoral acts against boys and young men, what to mention other abuses.

Among those connected with this legal action, which is very well-funded indeed, are those with compelling accounts of sexual and other forms of grave abuse of boys and young men at the hands of Sathya Sai Baba.

Furthermore, the litigants attest that others close to Sai Baba also perpetrated immoral acts in what became a serial and manipulative culture of homosexual abuse. This evil harmed the lives of large numbers of boys and young men from India and other countries around the world.

Among the accused are teaching staff – those very persons to whom parents and guardians entrust the most precious beings in their lives – their beautiful children.

A succession of local, state and central Indian governments cannot escape the shame of their complicitous roles in covering up the crimes and spiritual and ethical betrayals of Sathya Sai Baba and many of his key servitors. Nor will the present government of longtime Sai Baba supporter Manmohan Singh, which has lately faced major charges of corruption, escape the ambit of such terrible complicities. There exist proper records – to be placed in the hands of legal representatives – which show a whole trail of side-stepping by Indian governments, all the way to the top, who were blind and deaf to worldwide concern (including from UNESCO and the private diplomacy of the US State Department and several other governments).

We urgently invite all those who have been, or are, connected with Sathya Sai education sectors – e.g., parents, students, teachers, ancilliary staff and all others who may have salient information they are willing to provide to contact my close and trusted colleague Robert Priddy, former head of the Sathya Sai Organization, Norway, and retired academic of the University of Oslo (Read also this refutation of the alleged ‘exposure’ of Priddy at Robert Priddy Not Exposed ) or myself, Barry Pittard, former lecturer in all three year levels of the Bachelor’s degree course at the Sathya Sai College, Brindavan (1978-9).

We undertake that such communications will be conducted UNDER CONDITIONS OF THE STRICTEST CONFIDENTIALITY .

You can contact us very briefly by email so that – if felt necessary – a totally secure contact can be agreed, such as using direct messaging, Skype, or telephone or any other method that secures optimal privacy.

We guarantee that nothing told to us will be made public in any way without your full agreement. We will explain preparations already underway by a team of top lawyers in India and abroad, and the possible options (justice, compensation, avenues for healing, etc) it can offer to each person who contacts us according to the information they may then be willing to confide in the team.

For Robert Priddy’s, Jay Narain’s and my contact details, see them at the foot of the just posted, detailed article: 

For Those Connected With Sathya Sai Education Institutions: A Reckoning Time

Posted by Barry Pittard on July 16, 2011

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Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

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For Those Connected With Sathya Sai Education Institutions: A Reckoning Time

From Barry Pittard, Australia, former lecturer (1978-79) at the Sathya Sai College, Brindavan, Whitefield via Bangalore

My words here I especially address to my former students, and others in Sai education institutions, formerly and currently -:

Some of those whom Sathya Sai Baba and his aides betrayed are taking new steps. Sai Baba is dead, but those complicit in his many and terrible abuses are still alive.

Many of you know that Sathya Sai Baba, sexually molested many boys and young men, faked materializations, made failed promises of cure from grave illnesses, made prophecies that have not come true, collected incredibly vast moneys and valuables, and many other wrongful acts.

Many of you realise that his deeds profoundly contradicted his words, and that setting himself up with an imperial splendour continues to bring India into terrible disrepute around the world.

Apart from his betrayal, you were badly let down by those very teachers, who failed to display that duty of care expected of all professionals and all adults who have young in their charge. He betrayed you; they betrayed you. The Sathya Sai Central Trust and the international Sathya Sai Organization betrayed your trust and that of a great many others.

Those of you who tried to reach out to parents, friends or leaders in the Sathya Sai Organization often met with incomprehension, anger, threats and rejection. There is a lot of healing to be done, which will not be achieved until the light of truth is shone into the dark places of deception.

From direct, highly confidential contact with former students, those such as Robert Priddy (former head of the Sathya Sai Organization of Norway and retired academic at the University of Oslo and I (formerly a lecturer at the Brindavan College, Whitefield, via Bangalore, South India) know that so-called ‘form boys’ were often molested sexually in Sathya Sai education institutions. They were given sham reasons for the sexual molestations, like healing, spiritual awakening, divine love on a mystical, transcendental plane, and so on. 

Soon, I shall write separately regarding others beyond your Sai institutions, suggesting what steps are now opening up for redress.

It has long been heavy in my heart (although I did not then know of their plight) that my own, much-beloved students at the Sathya Sai College, Whitefield, via Bangalore were being sacrificed to the hands of a predator. I say to them and to other victims: Your age and tender experience made you vulnerable to him and to his calculated lies, and you were virtually under his (and others’) power at Sai places of learning. It hurt you all the more that, in many cases, your parents were devotees who would not hear a word against Sai Baba, or those teachers complicit with him, even from their own sons.

In some cases, Sai Baba had given ashram apartments and other privileges to family and relatives or more widely in India or abroad. Our contacts say that this was a key factor in making some boys remain silent about what was happening to them or their friends there.

You too may have heard of deeply disturbing accounts of suicides, and of cases where ‘form boys’ and others have been sent out in disgrace. It is also my understanding that a Sai college colleague of mine, and who boys liked and respected, who did speak out was cast out, because he spoke forth, wanting to protect the boys. Trustfully his good repute can now be redeemed. I wish to see, as part of the work of our newly strengthened group, that honorable persons who attempted to address these matters will be, at last, vindicated. Those who did not heed them, and who threatened, reviled and shunned them owe them profound apologies.

But some situations are so criminal that apologies will not do, and due restitution needs to be exacted in no uncertain terms.

You would, surely, never wish that your own children be prey to immoral behaviour in a college in which founder and staff permit students to be used for sexual gratification. Now that Sai Baba is gone, many of you who are still left with a terrible dilemma. Today, you have family and significant others who fully expect your own children to join his schools, colleges and university. With all my heart, I urge you to stand up to the voices that would keep you in pain and silence. While you yourself know that Sai Baba was not the only sexual abuser in his education institutions, those around represent a considerable pressure to send your children to these places. You are now an adult, and the same extenuating circumstances which you faced when young and vulnerable cannot now be offered. You can make choices, and be either resolute or weak.

Duty of care is practised by millions of parents, guardians, teachers and others throughout the world. But it was not practised by the one who told you he was God. Quite a few of you will recall how Sai Baba told you that you had been his dear consorts when he came as Lord Rama, Lord Krishna, or Shirdi Sai Baba. But the late Glen Meloy (USA), who had been an honored, dedicated Sai Baba devotee for 26 years, and who, until he died in 2005, was my close collaborator in the exposure of Sai cult corruption wrote: “The God in my heart does NOT molest little children and does NOT sexually abuse ANYONE regardless of their gender or age… nor does he/she masquerade as a magician in a cloak of goodness while committing other acts of evil”. See: Glen Meloy (“Standing up for truth and goodness”) – In Memoriam

These heinous betrayals of trust are not forgotten. True, now that he is dead, Sathya Sai Baba cannot further be pursued in person. However, he had many enablers. They are alive today, and have much to answer and to atone for. They represent at least four generations.

But there are those who are determined, able and willing to pursue these unconscienable miscreants by all the means civil society provides. We are aware that in India the law has been totally waylaid by Sai devotee judges for many years, and with the backing of successive national, state and local Indian governments to the highest levels. This state of affairs will not last and it is already changing in favour of those whose relatives, and in some cases themselves, have been abused. They are ready to exert their considerable powers to pursue justice.

Many have tried to forget the deep wounds of heart and mind that they bear, which they tell us has often been extremely hard for them. Others have come away who appear less affected because individuals differ greatly in how they deal with the consequences, including the emotions like guilt, shame, anger and hate aroused by such abuses.  Perverted sexuality and other forms of grave abuse do regularly cause long-lasting and often deep ongoing disturbance. Relationships between partners and parents and children are at risk.

Frequently, abused and traumatized persons forcibly thrust out of mind the unwelcome, painful memories. These undealt-with issues often lead to a slew of physiological and psychological sypmptoms. Terrible secrets undermine and corrode. And wounds only heal when they are cleaned.

Among victims with whom we have been privately in touch over the last two decades are dignified, productive and confident survivors. Some of them are readying to speak out in clear terms. There are affidavits and pledges from honourable persons from several countries, including those who attended Sathya Sai education institutions.

Still others are willing to assist in the background. Some fear that they cannot speak out without endangering themselves or their families. Some see relocation to other more democratic countries as a means to speak out, and also to pursue their own healing. Some are already non-resident Indians.

The burden of having to remain silent has been very heavy, we know. That some persons feel they have had some success in ‘moving on’ does not alter their acute sense of wrongness in not having spoken out or to have supported those who have.  

But then, it is silence that allows abusers to thrive. Without plenty of survivors and their advocates strongly grouping to prosecute those who abuse and those who aid and abet the abusers, whole communities and societies are endangered. Voices crying in the wilderness are defamed, libelled and made to appear liars and fools. This situation is now beginning to be addressed by an influx of new exposé activists who are already organising the documentation and collation of materials with the support of ex-students and others whom Sai Baba and others in his education sector have abused.

It is intended that these actions of ours be decisive, professional, and ongoing. Unlike some who fail to see the necessary connection between spirituality and civil action, we see as entirely proper the use of both criminal and civil courts to protect the innocent.

Many survivors of the crimes of Sai Baba and his aiders and abettors have spent years of getting together their families, trades and professions. But those such as (the late Glen Meloy (q.v.), Alexandra Nagel, Hari Sampath, Robert Priddy, Brian Steel, Conny Larsson, myself (and former Sai devotees worldwide in the background) have made a mission constantly to remind that justice has not yet been done in the face of Sai Baba’s and his cult’s great iniquities.

Some of you who are current and former teachers and students know that, since circa 2000, the speaking-out by former devotees has troubled the abusers. Those of you who were close to Sai Baba knew, after our formal movement of exposure revealed him to an international audience, of his fits of anger, weeping, and ongoing decline of mental and physical health, and of his cowardly, unsubstantiated and vague denunciations against those who have spoken forth. Some of you will know that Sai centers in different parts of the world have almost emptied of membership, because of the known integrity of some families or individuals who addressed, rather than hid from, the allegations of sexual molestation and other abuses by Sai Baba or his close accomplices.

The powerful challenge to those who have brought your places of learning into terrible disrepute will unfold in due course. And the international public will come to know of this shortly. Quite apart from our former devotee network’s history of extensive and highly successful contact with leading world media and high echelons of government – some of our dissenting forces bent on revealing the truth have wrested a number of successes that have not been made public. These were achievable under circumstances which, hopefully, we will be free to reveal after due processes have been implemented.

In analagous areas, I commend this as a good time to look at the success of the Turley law firm, among others, in winning a large settlement against ISKON (International Society for Krishna Consciousness) in a huge sexual abuse case which won international attention. There is a statement of an ISKON leader which I find quite moving. See: http://www.pratyatosa.com/?P=14.

Likewise, the Roman Catholic Church, which has long been plagued by sex abuse scandals, has accepted responsibility. Its senior clergy is now informing the police, paying compensation, protecting children and helping in the prosecution of those who covered up these scandals. Increasingly, there are those who say that the Sathya Sai Central Trust and international Sathya Sai Organization should be made to do the same.

In these other pursuits of justice, student, parent, teacher and friendship networking has played a signal part  powerful in bringing the predators and bullies to their knees. My key point is that you, too, can play an important role in an historic watershed challenge to the forces of corruption that have held you in thrall. My assurance to you is that Indian citizens, non-resident Indians and non-Indians from several other countries are massing forces.

Confidential enquiries can be addressed-:

To me: bpittard@westnet.com.au

Robert Priddy: rero@getmail.no

Or to our colleague: Jay Narain, who is coordinating a major litigation lawsuit against Sai Baba’s officials and others deemed to be complicit in many and serious abuses: Jnarain05@hotmail.com. In the 80’s, Jay was a student at the Sathya Sai College, Whitefield, and I have long ago had contact with his close family members, among whom there have been other attendees at a Sathya Sai Baba institution.

The law firm handling this lawsuit, which already has many outstanding members, which others are welcome to join is: Hunt and Hunt – http://www.hunthunt.com.au/expertise/international-group/

Barry Pittard, Australia. (Former lecturer at the Sathya Sai College, Whitefield, outside Bangalore, Karnataka, South India).

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Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

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Is Isaac Tigrett Sai Baba’s ‘Walking Will’? Guru Purnima Revelation Or A Fall?

At any time, has the Sathya Sai Central Trust cast public aspersions against the huge donor to Sai Baba’s work , Isaac Tigrett? He is the famed  founder of the international chain of Hard Rock Cafes and the House of Blues?

No, they have not. Do they do so now? Again, no.

 Tigrett has long been a trusted and close associate of Sathya Sai Baba. Indeed, we may eventually discover what mounting evidence already suggests:  Sai Baba did not trust the Sathya Sai Trust. Most of all, he trusted his young paramour Satyajit, who has now been sidelined by seasoned power players, such as R.J. Ratnakar and V. Srinivasan. And, in one of the strangest developments in the already strange Sai saga,we find an extraordinary example of Sai Baba’s trust for Isaac Tigrett.

In a video posted to the internet a month ago (see details below), Tigrett has undertaken to make a momentous statement on Friday 15 July 2011, a major Hindu festival. Tomorrow ……  There was one rider, though. He said (See his Times Now interview):

“I will at his approval – ah – give this information to the Sai Organization, if they wish to approach me”.

The Trust’s response to media (via a lawyer member, Naganand), could not be more clear. They do not intend to approach Tigrett. He said:

“If Bhagwan has given his instructions in sacred talks it is his business to come and tell us. If he doesn’t he can’t expect us to go and ask. I don’t think those discussion or instruction they had from Bhagwan have any value today as they were all personal instructions.”

But questions arise – What, in these days of immense disruption and confusion within the Sai movement, in exactly what might this entity consist? And what might be its supreme command center? Is it the Sathya Sai Central Trust? Or the international Sathya Sai Organization? Will Tigrett, long known to have something of a mind of his own, be quite happy to bypass the likes of Rathnakar and Srinivasan and deal with the wider organized fold of Sai devotees? Not least those great many donors who are deeply suspicious about the trustworthiness of the Sai Central trust – or some members of it. And concerned about how, exactly, their donations were disposed. We are talking billions, and not in rupees, either!

In various Sai devotee magazines, Isaak Tigrett – who has long maintained a relative degree of frankness that markedly contrasts with Sai Baba officials around the world – has spoken of how, the Indian Sai Trust officials constantly thwarted him. This was even though Sai Baba had put him in charge of arrangements to equip the Superspeciality Hospital at Puttaparthi, the multi-million dollar project  which Tigrett in fact funded for (according to figures we have heard) some 49 million US dollars, and not sums such as the 108 million so often spoken of in Sai Baba circles round the world.  My reader might find it instructive to hear a telephone recording of David Bailey, formerly Sai Baba’s closest western devotee who knew Tigrett and many other key Sai Organization players from India and abroad. See below.  See also:  Truth In Action: David and Faye Bailey Vs Sathya Sai Baba and: David Bailey and Thomas Wiehe. Transcript Of Phone Link: Sathya Sai Abuses

Sai Baba had trust issues in that Sai could not trust the Sai Trust

Given the vast millions in currency, gold, silver and many other valuables Sathya Sai Baba stashed away in quarters away from which, according to all reports, he kept even his closest confidants  (except Satyajit), one may not unduly wonder that he was secretive in the extreme.

The Sai Trust contests Tigrett’s statement. It is one that has drawn sections of the Indian media to refer to Tigrett as perhaps being Sai Baba’s “walking Will”. Tigrett has portrayed himself as keeper of a great secret Sai Baba entrusted to him in the witness of another. The name of this individual’s  name is not yet revealed, but Tigrett says that it is a distinguished devotee of Sai Baba.

But what legal status could any such custodianship have? The matter is fraught with oddity. However, if those forces among Sai devotees at large have confidence in the word of Tigrett and the witness to whom he refers, the succession game may change radically. And in doing so sweep Ratnakar and Srinivasan abruptly aside. There are many reports of grave concern in the wider Sai organization, and, in the 50 minutes version of his talk (at Sai Baba’s Dharmakshetra in Mumbai), it is not surprising to hear Tigrett make an impassioned plea to all devotees to stop rumor-mongering, and to come together as a “loving Sai family”. But his use of graphs detailing newspaper reports can be seriously criticised. Any reader not blinded by faith can see that a great deal of the reportage in the more responsible sectors of the Indian press have reported and raised questions that any professional newspaper has a duty to do. All his talk of focusing on praying for all the members of the Sai Trust, and sending out love, simply aids and abets the profound lack of accountability and transparency which have brought the Sai Baba world to its present unhappy pass.

Nagananda, Trustee, Sathya Sai Central Trust Board (See newspaper report below) says:

“Bhagwan had a one to one interaction with lot of people and it was an interaction between guru and devotee. So really it is one’s own personal experience. Swami’s administration was different from personal relationships built between devotee and guru. Those personal relationships had nothing to do with the administration of the ashram.”

But it needs no lawyer like Naganand to see that the Sai Trust’s stance on this issue, at least, is normative. That is to say, in countless legal systems around the world, a person’s Will and Testament are to be recorded in writing. There is a number of precautionary requirements, and provisions for certain contingencies – see,  Making a will (The Law Society, UK).

Vital questions will be: 

• Who was the witness to whom Tigrett refers?

• Was any substantive matter recorded in writing and signed by Sathya Sai Baba?

• Did any such document contain any witnessing signature? 

Has Tigrett Lost His Marbles, Too?

Heaven knows what a “walking will” is, if anything. If Tigrett has lost his famed acumen acquired in building hugely successful international businesses, he gravely risks, after his promised statement (due this Friday, if he makes it), being made an international laughing-stock.

Of course, we shall need to wait until Friday. My readers may just be able to hold their breath until that time.

                             Full video with whole statement is at http://vimeo.com/24685452

Wealthy Donor Isaac Tigrett. Says he is Sai Baba's "Walking Will"

In his writings, my colleague Robert Priddy has focused on a number of details that would appear to write Tigrett off as a considerable eccentric. The evidence does not look good for Tigrett, admittedly. Priddy writes:

“Isaac Tigrett has stated that Sathya Sai Baba – who Tigrett worships as God Incarnate etc. etc. – gave him a crystal skull at an interview where the object just appeared in Sai Baba’s hands (as posted recently on my blog). Tigrett believes in the supernatural power of this skull and that cosmic balance depends on it (somehow) and that it carries a cosmic curse which can destroy the earth – as can be seen from the pages copied from the Internet below”.

I shared a nearby desk with Tigrett in my editing days at Puttaparthi, and got the sense of a man with his marbles intact. Perhaps mine weren’t, and I may remain the more mistaken, but I sensed a man of clarity and straightness. Indeed, he was upfront with the BBC – which none of Sai Baba’s officials were. Tigrett was frank with the BBC interviewer in ‘The Secret Swami’, Tanya Datta:

ISAAC TIGRETT
Interviewed by the BBC in the one-hour documentary ‘THE SECRET SWAMI’

Tanya Datta: But even if it was proven to you that Sai Baba was a paedophile and a serial sex abuser, you¹re saying it wouldn’t change the fact that he is your guru. (Tigrett laughs at this rather wildly, see picture on left)
Isaac Tigrett: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. He could go out and murder someone tomorrow, as I said, it’s not going to change my evolution, it’s not going to change the good things that have come out of my relationship down there.
Tanya Datta: Does that mean that some part of you believes there could be some truth to the rumours?
Isaac Tigrett:Oh, absolutely I believe there is truth to the rumours.
Tanya Datta: You believe there is truth to the rumours?
Isaac Tigrett: Sure, there probably is, probably is.
(Click to view video clip of this episode- file size 1.34 MB)

Mind you, billionaires can afford a wee bit of integrity, and, in any case, have minions to get dirty hands so that the big boss can look good.

My nutshell view is this:

That as Sathya Sai Baba increasingly faced enormous problems – particularly after circa 2000 and our movement of exposure and devotee exit from the international Sathya Sai Organization – he behaved like the man he was instead of the God that he thought he was. For example, in his 2000 Christmas Day discourse, he lost his cool publicly.

The huge upsurge of bad publicity – chiefly via the exponential growth of the internet – threw Sai Baba and his minders into many tailspins. Secrets which, by means of political and other types of influence, the inner circle of the Sai Trust had  suppressed hitherto now surfaced. And with great force – right round the world.

From the minders’ point of view, the ‘cats’ being let out of ‘bags’ must have seemed to scream, and to be tiger toothed and clawed. Never before had their damage control instincts and skills been so challenged.

In 1997, after reports of scandals were already starting to surface more widely, my having not been to Puttaparthi for 15 years, one of the first things that struck me were Sai Baba’s highly controlled, rigidly choreographed movements to and fro. I mentioned this observation to Chris Parnell, a foremost leader in the Australian Sathya Sai Organization. A little later, he said to me, with an air of some mystery: “You are going to have a lot of work to do when you get back to Australia”. I took this to mean that harm stemming from allegations about Sai Baba sexually molesting many boys and young men was going to have to be addressed.

This along with Sai Baba’s seriously declining health, both mentally and physically, allowed the power players around him increasingly to stage-manage him publicly and browbeat him privately. He could have his boys and young men, but be far more careful. And for godssake  contain the foreigner situation, because if you don’t the vast donation base will be heavily jeopardized.

Of Sathya Sai Baba’s increasing lack of poise, In 2003, I wrote:

“Clearly losing his nerve in response to our intense government, police, media and internet pressure, Sathya Sai Baba’s discourse on Christmas Day 2000 far from celebrated Christmas themes, such as wishing ‘peace and goodwill to all men’. The Times of India, 26 December, 2000 headlined: ‘Sai Baba Lashes Out At His Detractors’. He extensively boasted his social works (actually they are overwhelmingly those of his devotees). Jealousy and reception of money motivated us, he said. Very terrible is the karmic future he evoked for us: ‘Betrayal of God is the worst of all betrayals. It will not be atoned no matter how many births are experienced'”.

Robert Priddy, former cofounder and head of the Sathya Sai Organization, Norway, on Isaak Tigrett

Isaac Tigrett’s announcement of secrets Sai Baba told him

Posted by robertpriddy on June 23, 2011

Isaac Tigrett, Sathya Sai Baba and the crystal skull

Posted by robertpriddy on October 7, 2008

Isaac Tigrett – the fantasies & fall of a Sai Baba supporter

Posted by robertpriddy on October 5, 2008

On Tigrett’s donation to the Superspeciality Hospital at Puttaparthi, Priddy notes:

“Word has long had it in the Sai movement that Tigrett donated over $100 million, at least. However, David Bailey, who was a very close follower of Sai Baba (until he finally blew the whistle), and who knew all the Sai ‘veranda VIPs’ well, knew that Tigrett gave $49 million dollars, of which $15 million simply disappeared. unaccountably. (Hear the phone call where he details this). Tigrett wrote an article – published in some Sai magazines – where he told how he was put in charge of the hospital equipping project by Sai Baba, but was frozen out by the ashram and Central Trust and had great problems doing many things due to the huge egos he encountered”.

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Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

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I will reveal Sathya Sai Baba’s secret soon: Hard Rock Cafe founder Published: Thursday, Jun 23, 2011, 16:13 IST Place: Puttaparthi | Agency: ANI

Sathya Sai Baba and Isaac Tigrett An American devotee of the late Sathya Sai Baba has said that he will reveal a closely kept secret of the Godman in six weeks. Sixty-four-year-old Isaac Tigrett, a businessman of Jackson, Tennessee, made a startling revelation that ‘he is a living will of Bhagwan‘. Speaking to the Times Now television channel, Tigrett, who is also the founder of Hard Rock and House of Blues and lives in Sai Baba’s ashram Prasanthi Nilayam, said that Sai Baba gave him instructions on how he wanted the ashram to be run after his death. Trustees of Sathya Sai Baba, however, have rubbished Tigrett’s claim, saying that the spiritual guru had no secrets. Considering that Sathya Sai Baba left behind a considerable fortune, there is almost a scramble among his successors to know what the secret is all about. Nagananda, Trustee, Sathya Sai Central Trust Board said, “Bhagwan had a one to one interaction with lot of people and it was an interaction between guru and devotee. So really it is one’s own personal experience. Swami’s administration was different from personal relationships built between devotee and guru. Those personal relationships had nothing to do with the administration of the ashram.” “Whenever some instructions were given & Bhagwan wanted action to be taken on that instruction, he would inform the administration like the secretary. If somebody got some instructions from Bhagwan it is their bonded duty to pass it on. They cant expect us to go an ask that have you got instructions, what that is and why don’t you tell us?,” added the trustee. He added, “If Bhagwan has given his instructions in sacred talks it is his business to come and tell us. If he doesn’t he can’t expect us to go and ask. I don’t think those discussion or instruction they had from Bhagwan have any value today as they were all personal instructions.”

Sathya Sai Baba College Teachers Angry At “Illegal” Non Payment And Sacking

News Flash – Today ……

Scarcely a few days pass before there is yet another series of revelations about the Sathya Sai institutions. In the past, Sai Baba devotees have been extremely remiss to speak out about the negative experiences they have had of the various sections of his organization as being e.g., “Baba’s Leela”, “Swami’s Test of our faith”, “Bhagavan’s Lesson”, etc., etc., ……

Anything that is remiss, ugly, cruel and unusual, irregular, and so forth, has long been passed over with a profound sense of psychological denial, or, in other cases, because those who have been outraged have not wanted to cause difficulties to themselves, families or friends. Sai Baba would commonly say – don’t criticize, see your own reflection in what you like to criticize. In other words, a teaching which, in certain applications, may have sense, but was repeatedly perverted in a way supportive of cover up, suppression and the climate of fear that attends authoritarian rule. The outcome has been, all along, a far-reaching denial of perfectly normal, legal entitlements, what to mention serious and fundamental human rights.

One may, soon enough, witness an increased readiness for more and more Sai Baba devotees ready to give court testimony of a kind which, in the following months and years, can tear away duplicitous and complicitous mask after mask from the leaders of the Sathya Sai Central Trust and international Sathya Sai Organization.

To be sure, Sathya Sai Baba is dead. But those who acted in complicity with him and ignored –  so our considerable body of evidence goes – crimes which outrage Indian laws and constitution and ethics in countries everywhere, are still very much alive.

In the news report below, a Sathya Sai Baba college lecturer, Dr Savita Swami, Senior Lecturer, Sri Sathya Sai College, Jaipur, speaks right out. She is from an institution that is run by the Sathya Sai Central Trust. That is to say, the Trust which is repeatedly being front-paged, in an atmosphere of shocking and vast-scale scandal, in India for the last many weeks. Here are its executives – all male:

	Sh. Ranjeet VithaldasConvener, Sri Sathya Sai Trust
	Sh. Indu Lal ShahMember, Sri Sathya Sai Trust, Jaipur &Member, Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust &Advisor, Sri Sathya Sai World Council.
	Sh. S.N. BhargavaChairman, College Governing Council
	Sh. J.N. SharmaSecretary, Sri Sathya Sai College, Jaipur &Secretary, Sri Sathya Sai Trust, Jaipur.

A great many who do not know the way the Sai Baba ethos and daily officialdom works, may think that there is nothing unusual about Dr Savita Swami, a part of the Sathya Sai institutional framework, being outspoken. In fact, such a pronouncement is extremely rare. She is a part of the highly integrated Sathya Sai education system. Her college prospectus proclaims that it aims to embody the ancient aspiration of  “Sa Vidya Ya Vimuktaye” – education which liberates. The college ventures this:  “Our own modern correlative of providing to the students that education which not only liberates but also empowers”.

Well, notoriously, the prospectuses of education institutions are, the world over, cases of promises vastly exceeding performance, and ideals that bear scant touch with the real world. But, given that the Sai Baba system, promises far more than any other institution – namely, the direct guidance of the Lord of Lords – the claims are terribly tall, and, rather, are mere plays with words. The typical flowery rhetoric gave me discomfort when I was teaching in the Sathya Sai education system – at the Sri Sathya Sai College, Whitefield, via Bangalore (1978-9), even though, at the time (and, mea culpa, for twenty-five years!) I believed that Sathya Sai Baba was the embodiment of what I then conceived as ‘Divine’.

But such education aims are simply not achievable when one is forbidden to speak out. To question. To debate. To fearlessly hold a point of view. When one is not empowered and therefore not liberated in any meaningful sense. The constraint is a terrible one, which shackles body, mind and spirit.

This is a Soviet-style, heavily hierarchic, top-down organization where there has long been a terrible price for those who do speak out. They are post-haste flung out of the Sathya Sai Organization or threats are made which cause many individuals to cower and recant against their own deeper stirrings of conscience.

However, in these days of swift and remarkable sea change in matters relating to Sai Baba’s organization, I suggest that increasingly many more ‘lower echelon’ Sai Baba organisation members will emerge to have their say. (From what I hear informally, I understand that this uprising of dissent against the Sai Central Trust will, in a number of other cases, include the presence of lawyers). Dr Swami says:

“If it were a private institution we’d have understood but its 90 per cent aided, they have to give only 10 per cent. How can there be a financial crunch then? There is no financial crunch,” said Dr Savita Swami, Senior Lecturer, Sri Sathya Sai College, Jaipur.

I suspect that Dr Savita Swami is an early symptom of a phenomenon in the rank-and-file world of Sai Baba devotion that I think will, soon enough, swing into action. In my blog of earlier today, I pointed out:

“One factor that may somewhat save the day could well be the actions of those Sai Baba devotees who have had their eyes at least somewhat opened, particularly those many who appear to have put up with more than enough from figures such as R.J. Ratnakar and V. Srinivasan, who are on the profoundly untrustworthy Sai Trust”. 

See:  Will Andhra Pradesh, South India, Only Appear To Address Sathya Sai Baba Scandals?

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Sathya Sai College in a financial crunch? Teachers cry foulc with

Tuesday, July 12, 2011, 10:52 [IST]

Jaipur, Jul 12: The Sri Sathya Sai College has run into functional and financial trouble after it illegally fired 15 staff members, including 11 lecturers.

According to the college, the staff was fired for financial issues but teachers beg to differ on the same.

“If it were a private institution we’d have understood but its 90 per cent aided, they have to give only 10 per cent. How can there be a financial crunch then? There is no financial crunch,” said Dr Savita Swami, Senior Lecturer, Sri Sathya Sai College, Jaipur.

Teachers also said that the college owed each of them Rs 2 lakh and only 66 percent of them were given their salaries since 2008.

The college has a different story to say. According to the institution, the money taken from teachers were donations, while the latter say that money was taken from them on the pretext of bringing the college out of crisis.

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General

Excerpt From Public Petition (and introduction)

Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

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Will Andhra Pradesh, South India, Only Appear To Address Sathya Sai Baba Scandals?

Sathya Sai Baba certainly lives on, though not in the fashion in which his devotees commonly conceive. The revelations of scandal and duplicity among those left behind to clean up the unholy mess have kept coming. So far the Andhra Pradesh government has shown a number of signs of being accountable. Its police and revenue seems to have been doing their job. Even so, questions need to be driven here – for example, why did the AP government leave the Sathya Sai Trust un-superintended after the first massive haul of treasure was exposed?  Why did it allow the Trust to appear to be a good taxpaying citizen when it allow the Trust to pay taxes on the vast millions of booty that has already be discovered?  This government will be under much scrutiny. But then, again, how can one scrutinise governments notorious for secrecy and duplicity?

So far the AP government has ordered some arrests, though we must notice that this has been of footsoldiers. Poor wretched minor players. Of the type who tend caught. But such a scenario is common the world over – the Mr Bigs usually are exempt and the Mr Smalls cop prison.

For decades, Andhra Pradesh has been complicit in cover ups of Sathya Sai Baba. Many sides of politics are riddled with Sathya Sai Baba devotees, many of them in the highest echelons of power. This is true throughout India but, after all, AP is the Sai Baba home ground. Even here, there is the factor that political horse-trading knows few boundaries when it comes to interstate influence by political parties that are India-wide.

Exposure of any improper procedures by the AP government may have to remain discoverable by what does not happen and what is not seen, when it should have happened and should have been seen. One factor that may somewhat save the day may be the actions of those Sai Baba devotees who have had their eyes at least somewhat opened, particularly those many who appear to have had more than enough of figures such as R.J. Ratnakar and V. Srinivasan who are on the profoundly untrustworthy Sai Trust.

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Sathya Sai trust submits report to Andhra Pradesh government

Indo-Asian News Service, Updated: July 11, 2011 20:57 IST

Hyderabad:  The Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust, which manages the affairs of late Sathya Sai Baba’s spiritual empire on Monday, submitted a detailed report to the Andhra Pradesh government on its functioning as well as financial details.

Responding to the government’s notice, the trust submitted the report to endowments secretary K.V. Ramnachari.

The report contains details of the trust’s finances, its activities, revenues, institutions run by it, members of the trust, their addresses and their professions.

The trust has also reportedly provided details of the trust’s objectives, its day-to-day functioning, details of the officials who run the trust and various institutions, assets, income and expenditure.

 The report also contains details of the trust’s bank accounts, the subsidies given by the central government, exemptions from income tax regulations and also the names and other details of its auditors.

Officials said the government would evaluate the report before taking a decision on the demands from a section of devotees to take over the trust or at least set up a mechanism to monitor the trust.

It was on June 27 that the government had asked the trust to submit the report in 10 days. The move came amid allegations that the trust members are involved in financial irregularities.

It is for the first time in nearly four decades that the government intervened in the affairs of the trust. The trustees were facing allegations of irregularities after Sathya Sai Baba’s demise on April 24.

Anantapur police had last month seized Rs.35 lakh from a car and arrested three people, who revealed that they were transporting the cash from Baba’s ashram in Puttaparthi to Bangalore on the directions of two trust members.

Though the trust has claimed that the money was donated by some devotees for building Sathya Sai Baba’s samadhi, the police are continuing the probe amid allegations that huge cash and valuables were shifted out of the ashram.

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BBC South Asia

8 July 2011 Last updated at 15:08 GMT

Satya Sai Baba Trust ‘has $190m cash reserves’

By Swaminathan Natarajan BBC Tamil

There has been wild speculation about the value of Sai Baba’s assets.

A trustee in charge of managing the vast empire of the late Indian guru Satya Sai Baba has revealed that it has $190m (£118.3m) of cash reserves.

The trustee says media reports have wildly exaggerated the true value of assets managed by the trust.

Media reports have put the value of all trust assets at between $10-25bn. This is thought to be the first time its cash reserve value has been revealed.

Satya Sai Baba was one of the most influential Indian spiritual leaders.

He enjoyed support from all areas of Indian society and had millions of followers around the world.

But he was dogged by controversy including allegations, never proven, of sexual abuse and charlatanism. He died on 24 April at the age of 84.

He used his wealth to carry out number of social welfare activities, including building a hospital and a university.

After his death, wide-ranging concerns were expressed by the public about who would inherit his massive wealth.

“We have about 8.5bn Indian rupees ($190m) of cash reserves. The interest we get from this will be used to run our hospital and university,” Madras-based industrialist V Srinivasan said.

But the trust does own huge assets. It runs a big hospital in Bangalore, it has a university and it owns land in various places around India.

“The properties we have are all for specific purposes. In Bangalore, we have 60 acres of land where our super-speciality hospital is already built,” says Mr Srinivasan.

“This land is not used for commercial purposes, nor will it ever be. So the value we will fix in our balance sheet is the value at which we acquired the property,” he says.

“Our trust is not speculative. It is very specific. We don’t hold any property for commercial development,” he adds.

But Sai Baba’s organisation also has property abroad.

“The properties that lie abroad don’t come under the central trust. They are run from respective countries. We have no control or knowledge of the value of properties abroad,” he says.

There are growing calls for the government to monitor the activities of the trust.

“[The] Andhra Pradesh government has asked certain details about the trust. We will furnish all the information that they have asked for by next week,” Mr Srinivasan said.

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General

Excerpt From Public Petition (and introduction)

Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

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Sathya Sai Baba Saga: Is There Too Little Indian Media Critical Analysis?

Let my reader imagine that the following is a note of mine to an Indian media person seeking me out to assist in the development of a news story. It may take no prizes for diplomacy, but it is not far, I think, from the mood of both our former devotee network members from both India and other countries.

First, Sai Baba and his key servitors on the Sai Central Trust and the international Sathya Sai Organization profoundly deceived and betrayd. From circa 2000, owing to both organized and informal activity of former devotees, a great deal of critical exposure of Sai Baba and his cult occurred. In some parts of the world, Sai Centers emptied, while, in general, many left, including many well-respected leaders.

Next, allied with Sai Baba and his cult’s officials, corrupt local, state and national governments in India consolidated the evils done by their complicity in the cover up of the outrages – wide-scale sexual abuse by Sai Baba and some around him of boys and young men, Police executions in his bedroom on June 6, 1993, unaccountable scams in regard to water projects, apartments in Prashanthi Nilayam, unadressed brutality by Sai Baba’s security detail, and much else. 

It has been one of spiritual history’s sorriest examples of perverted religion and spirituality. Even many who admit his wrongdoings, attempt to pass over the evil deeds by saying how much good he has done. Their highly-flawed logic is that if someone does good they should not be held accountable for the wrongdoings.

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Dear X (a high-profile media exective)

Thank you for our phone conversations and email exchanges, and speaking with one of our Indian members.

I appreciate your undertaking of security provisions for the safety of our personnel who live in India and security arrangements. As you and I know, many Indian media will e.g., unscrupulously record and quote without permission what, ostensibly, were the words of an interviewee. That your organization can deal with us with the same integrity that we received from Aroon Purie and his team at India today would engender our confidence in you. Our former devotee workers have put vast amounts of time and sacrifice, without payment of cash or kind so as to get their accounts out to the world.

Having lived some years in India, I know how keenly many Indian citizens, with whom I have dwelt and worked alongside, despise the disrepute that her corrupt institutions bring. It always struck me that these wonderfully kind and decent people do not in the least deserve the horribly corrupt elites that for so long have managed to cling on in the top roles.

There is agreement that, yes, hard evidence is important. But the BBC and many other investigative teams who took on the Sai Baba issue were no less aware of this than you are. Does not media have a proper role in eliciting peoples’ experiences whether or not individuals are able to back up their experiences with empirical evidence at every turning. 

The fact is that, except for India Today, which did a terrific job, Indian media might were deaf to our worldwide submissions on the Sai cult. Here was a wide cross-section of those who had resigned – in some cases exceptionally important figures in the Sathya Sai Organization. They were treated to the same high-handedness and deceit that the whole of India has now been able to see because of the revelations. 

The Indian media had a chance to expose the massive cover up regarding the police killings in Sai Baba’s bedroom. With almost no exception, it failed. Lawyers, police, politicians, and so on all know this. Failure is the correct word. If you are prepared to be proactive, we will certainly consider assisting you with witnesses, including those who have not previously spoken out, and who may not be so easy to ignore, as a small number who have fought without ceasing for 10 gruelling years.

 But why should many of our witnesses risk their personal and family safety and jobs and so forth if they are not to be listened to by senior journalists who have – with true professionalism – done their homework, just as was the case of journalists outside India.

You say that there have been, over the years, articles critical of Sathya Sai Baba and his cult in the Indian media. We shall have to compare notes – I challenge you to provide a list of any hard-hitting examples. Whatever examples you may be able to cite, they are more than contradicted by the many the rebuffs we got. Virtually day in and day out, I was close to the action, and stand witness to say that Sai Baba former devotees made many attempts to engage wide sections of the Indian media. In marked contrast, UNESCO, Interpol, the FBI, etc., and various non-Indian governments treated our workers’ reports, and sworn testimony from various countries, with the utmost seriousness.

I agree with your point about the pitfalls of hearsay evidence. Your point that Indian media did not have sworn testimony is an entire mistake. Where were you and your journalistic colleagues when we made it very clear that not only did we have a number but were in unique position – far better than journalists! – to bring still other sworn testimony, provided that there was a chance of any section of the Indian media doing a good job. Aroon Purie and his team DID not behave like the rest of you.

You overplay the hearsay issue. The matter is not an either/or situation. Both types of evidence, in their varying stages, are important. I think you err too far in the direction of wanting proof, or close to it. Proof often follows, rather than preceeds, proper investigation of allegations, clues, evidentiary contexts, study of credentials of witnesses, and so forth.The BBC not only followed up on our list but actually ventured out and got (I was assured by assistant producer of ‘The Secret Swami’, David Saville) and found still further apparently strong cases, such that the individuals and the various families DID NOT appear on our lists, he said. Why has not the Indian media, almost without exception, thus ventured out.

The last two months of daily Indian media reports are a great irony for us. At last, in India, there is wide discussion of the contradictions, cover ups, contradictions, lack of proper organizational.

I am glad that, in our phone conversation, you very strongly reacted to the disclosure right at that time of the Rs 35.5 lakhs from twelve devotees (yet another Srinivasan tale now exploded by the police). You, like I, disdained the manner in which prime matters are being overly focused on, and essentials being forgotten. It will be great to see media as a formidable force in educating a national and international public in how laws are, or may be being, broken, and the model qualities of due diligence, accountability and transparency which those laws expect of organizations, including those said to be ‘spiritual’.

As I look across the Indian media’s handling of the Sathya Sai and his Sai Trust scandals, I see failure – not particularly in the basic reporting but in the sheer lack of qualitative analysis. 

I note a lot of Indian media rely on government and police releases, important though these are in their own place. Yes, juicy for certain readers. BUT too often there lacks focus on essentials, and the acute need to keep the trajectory of main developments in the minds of readers/viewers as further news breaks.

I see news-management-by-Release, rather than by proactive, savvy news and analysis writers and editors who can help contextualize historic background, and intellectual and moral/spiritual issues.

Will your group provide regular overviews, so that the serious tendency for salient factors to be badly eclipsed can, in some measure be overcome. Happily, I have seen three leading Indian television broadcaster shooting hard-hitting questions in some depth and breadth. There was intellectual engagement.See: ‘Face the Nation’ Audience Poll, India – 87% Hostile to Gurus Like Sathya Sai Baba

But so often, one sees Sai Trust spokespersons getting away with the same ducking and weaving which we have exposed since circa 2000. Surveying a cross-section of Indian media performances, I scribbled the note: please guys, lay on some really trenchant questioning! Is there anything litigious about asking:  E.g.,:

a) How the treasure hoarding and dispositions could have occurred at all – what? Without a moment’s suspicion by ANY Trust personnel? Or knowledge of any of the male students (‘form boys’) whom, for sexual reasons, Sai Baba has long been known to allow to sleep in his room? He himself has acknowledged that certain boys are permitted to sleep in his room. This is recorded in official Sai literature, as WE have accurately documented, along with so much else. Are any of you in the Indian media asking  considerable Sai Baba experts like Brian Steel, Robert Priddy and Kevin Shepherd etc., to assist with ‘chapter and verse? You and other Indian media show few signs of having done so.

Were Satyajit and Sai Baba the only two who knew of Sai Baba’s vast hoard? Did it somehow materialize? What?  No bearers to transport it? No carriers sworn to dread secrecy on pain of some dire threat and/or some handsome reward? No plan for usage of the currency and valuables? No recipients? No presence of smuggling or money laundering? No gifts to Sai Baba from any major criminal or any Croesus-rich potentate (E.g., the Saudi King, one report has it, showering diamonds). No Swiss bank involvements?

b) How a Trust – charged with due diligence! – could, first, dismiss all suggestions that a unaccounted treasure could lie hidden, and issue emphatic statements that all-is-above board – with only cheques from, and receipts issued to, donors – and, YET, later, only after repeated contraindicating detections, come up with another explanation altogether. If they were let loose on the Sai Baba and Sai Trust saga, Indian newspaper cartoonists would have a field day,  ….! You potentially have a great story. But will you and your Team dare to go for it, X? Where are all the editorials? The serious Ed.Op pieces? Where is there a persistent raising of vital questions – e.g., about the circumstances leading up to Sai Baba’s death/ the death certificate circumstances/ the ordering of his golden casket from a source in Bangalore well before his death / his body weight at the time of his hospital admission / the reported concern of Sai Baba’s team of highly senior doctors about lack of information on any medications being given to him prior to his emergency admission to their care / or about the lack of statements from doctors and nurses and, above all, Dr Safaya at the Sathya Sai hospital who resigned en masse / or about Satyajit (about whom there is so much silence, and yet so much noise – indeed bluster! from V. Srinivasan and R.J. Ratnakar)?/ What of the on-again, off-again resignations of Ex-Chief Justice Bhagwati? And of the former world Sathya Sai Organization head, Indulal Shah? And so on ……..

I have looked almost in vain in the Indian media for sustained critical responses (except now and then in Readers Comments’ sections in some newspapers) to, among a host of issues, the absurd and contradictory of statements by Trust Officials. For example, the explanation of V.Srinivasan regarding the police van and bus seizures of treasure. Indians traveling India, and travelers visiting her, and foreign government’s with their Travel Advisories regarding India testify to the perils of travel. Yet, Srinivasan and other Sai Trust members constantly skip round matters of grave substance, and a passive media may be their best bet of getting away with it. Of this I have blogged, indeed harped, feeling it a great pity that foreigners like Robert Priddy and me should have to lead with so many of the probing questions and issues while the Indian media do  little but report and move on to the next revelation in the Sai Baba and Sai Trust saga, failing to gather up the strands and show continuities and interweaving relationship. I had the image of the Indian media, by and large, vacuuming up police and government reports and reverse blowing them out to a long-suffering Indian public. Why should Indian editors (and I am tired, frankly, of hearing it from them in our private conversations) speaking about their litigation concerns. What is litigious about pointed questioning? About going hard at contradictions and discrepancies in the stories of those such as Srinivasan, Ratnakar, Bhagwani, et al. In regard to the Sai Trust rapidly changing statements about the cash secretly moved out of Puttaparthi, I wrote (and wondered why the Indian media aren’t far more vigilant here):

“Where, too, has gone any semblance of the Sathya Sai Central Trust’s duty of care for the safety of life and limb of its  workers on a money transportation assignment fraught with danger? This, in an area with trained eyes not only of individual criminals, criminal gangs, and private armies of feudal landlords but of ubiquitous, highly organized, armed political struggle groups such as the Naxalites (with countless splinter groups), the so-called Peoples’ War Group or PWG, etc. Many police and security authorities complain of the emasculation by Andhra Pradesh state politicians of state security and police cadres capable of action, and the pipe dream of thinking that negotiation and accommodation are going to work. Why the earlier Trust assertions that donations are dealt with by cheque? Why such vast amounts of loose cash? Where is the accountability and transparency in all this?  Can we trust a Trust that doesn’t know about vast funds being transported in the dead of night, or carted in a passenger bus in gunny sacks of cash as if it were mere chaff or ragi? When proper practice by a Trust is upheld, who will dare to hump huge fortunes around the countryside like this? Such a Trust lacks due diligence, and is incompetent. What suppose wicked chaff or ragi robbers assail the van or bus and snatch the sacks?” See:

Sathya Sai Saga: Points Lost Among Big Sathya Sai Trust Reassurances of Transparency Posted by Barry Pittard on June 30, 2011

Well, X, I am very much concerned that there is – apart from the basic reporting – a  failure by India’s ramshackle Fifth Estate. Rather, one would like to see hard probing, and far better backgrounding.  If the media is so slack, how can India be bulwark of democracy? For decades, most of you guys grievously failed Sai Baba’s countless victims, who live in India and around the world. If you want sworn testimony, kindly do not make guesses as to whether they were offerred to the Indian media. You offend the facts here. If we decide that your network can do a good job, I rather think that we can provide news about the real treasure that Sai Baba tried to hide away, but did not value. The treasury of victims of his various types of abuse.

True, the key perpetrator is dead, and we can’t pursue him. However, those who were complicit and had knowledge of these various types of abuses, and who extensively covered them up, are still very much alive. They are still on the Sai Central Trust and in his Sathya Sai Organization. Sometimes, great moral outrage takes time to reach the tipping point. Let us see.

Barry Pittard (Former lecturer, Sathya Sai College, Whitefield, via Bangalore)

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General

Excerpt From Public Petition (and introduction)

Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

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Sathya Sai Trust’s V.Srinivasan: Defending A Religious Empire Fallen. A Torn House Divided

Unfortunately for Sathya Sai Trust spokesman V. Srinivasan and his (and Sathya Sai Baba’s) already badly tattered credibility, last Sunday, still more treasure was found in secret places in Sai Baba’s private quarters. This time, the joint District Collector and her team searched for and found it. But, in a case of caught-out-yet-again, this lot of treasure DID NOT appear in the Trust’s inventory, which the government of Andhra Pradesh had put the Trust on its Boy Scout’s honor to make.

Did the District Collector and her team obtain their spectacles or magnifying glasses from a manufacturer much superior to any the poor Trustees  can manage to find?

Srinivasan’s earlier story was that huge amounts of money which police found being secretly removed by van and bus did not belong to the Trust but to twelve devotee donors.The India Daily reported (Tuesday 21 June 2011):

“According to sources, during investigation, it was found that Pradhan, a retired Air Force official, brought Rs 35.5 lakh out of Yajurveda Mandir, Sai Baba’s personal chamber, and handed it over to Sathya Sai Central Trust members RJ Ratnakar and V Srinivasan at the Shanti Bhavan. The cash was in turn given to Chandrasekhar, driver of Srinivasan, and later, was passed on to Sohan Setty and Harish Nanda.

The trio was caught by the police on Saturday night while transporting the cash to Bangalore. Police are likely to serve notices on Ratnakar and Srinivasan in a day or two, the sources said”.

Srinivasan’s story falls down on at least three counts:

1.  The Sai Trust  markedly departed from its policy of donation by cheque with the administration’s issue of receipts.

2. Perhaps all the more strange in a (so-called) spiritual organization which should have a tender care for the safety of its workers  is the considerable security risk to which Srinivasan and any other accomplices (like the Puttaparthi head of Security) were ready to expose Srinivasan’s driver,  Chandrasekhar, and the Shetty brothers.

3. Commonsense and caution, following nation-wide attention on the enormity of the first, and truly vast, treasure cache, should have set in. The risks Srinivasan took can hardly be stated. Who would be so imprudent? What lawyer would ever countenance such folly? Yet Trust spokesmen are often enamoured of stating what depth of experience and talent subsist in its Trustees.

For one passing moment, a statement of Srinivasan sounded faintly like a Puttaparthi spokesman in the ‘good old days’. He told the Indian media:

“I do not see any need for the government to set up a separate mechanism”. 

But clearly succumbing to a changed reality, where Puttaparthi is no longer shielded from public accountability, he added that he saw no problem if the government should wish to set up a mechanism of accountability. IF …..!  Surely, not ‘if’ – but when. A high level business group CEO, Srinivasan cannot be so simple-minded as believe in such and IF. He gives every evidence of temporizing and trying to play to the naive masses.

But Puttaparthi times have change. Markedly unlike Srinivasan, the then world head of the Sathya Sai Organization in and Trustee, Indulal Shah, was able, in a medieval feudal chieftan-like response, though terrible police executions and other killings had just taken place, to make short work of The Hindu, June 10, 1993: 

“When press persons met Mr. Indulal Shah, chief functionary of the Sri Sathya Sai World Trust, he said, ‘the matter is purely internal and we do not wish to have any law enforcement agency investigating into it.’”

Background Note:

The then Indian Prime Minister Narasimha Rao and his Home Minister S.B. Chavan and other powerful forces in Indian politics aided Puttaparthi’s extensive cover up of the police killings in Sathya Sai Baba’s bedroom. We know (via the testimony of V.K.N. Narasimhan, editor of Sanathana Sarathi) that Chavan was in Puttaparthi assisting in the damage control. A former Andhra Pradesh Home Office Secretary, V.P.B. Nair told the BBC of the massive cover up that  prevented police, media and judicial investigation. The Anantapur Journalist’s Union protested the suppression.

Unable to take the haughty approach, Srinivasan keeps making difficulties for himself. For example, it was only days ago, that he maintained, absolutely, the Trust very strictly controls donations. That they must be by cheque. And that receipts must be issued. Next thing, apparently temporizing again, when his own agents were caught spiriting away huge sums of money under great secrecy, he said:

“… most transactions are by cheque but why can’t one be by cash? That money belonged to the trust. We had no other intention than to pay samadhi contractors.’’

He also dismissed any notion that cash, gold and gemstones and other valuables are still concealed in the Yajur Mandir.  Was the Sai Trust’s own inventory just the tip of the iceberg? the media asked. Srinivasan laughed, replying:

“I do not know why such fanciful statements are being made. We took an inventory and took everything into the accounts of the trust. The inventory was taken in the presence of trustees who are respectable bureaucrats, chartered accountants, legal practitioners and businessmen.’’

It is instructive to look at Srinivasan’s statements over recent days.  Two days prior to police questioning him for five hours about the money secretly transported from Puttaparthi by van and by bus (even AFTER all cash and valuable were said by the Trust to have been accounted for), Srinivasan told the Indian Express: 

“The money belongs to the Trust”. 

He said that there could be no more gold, silver and other valuables in the Yajur Mandir. All along Srinivasan has given out accounts as though they are indisputable facts, only to be falsified by the facts. Like his ‘spiritual master’, in fact, as analytical studies of Sai Baba’s discourses  and other documentation clearly show.

In passing, it is interesting that there is no record of Srinivasan saying a thing about any of the many other places in or around Puttaparthi where treasure may, or may not, be hidden – for example, secreted behind walls or in ceilings or in cement tunnels. Such genuine care, accountability, transparency and due diligence are not to be seen in him or this fellow.

Following yesterday’s searches for about a day just yesterday (Sunday), headlines in the Indian media read, for example:

Assets worth Rs77L seized at Sai ashram

See: Yet Another Sai Yajur Mandir Treasure Haul. Stash Not In Recent Enforced Sai Central Trust Inventory.Posted by Barry Pittard on July 3, 2011

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THE HINDU

Front Page, Wednesday, Jun 29, 2011

‘Rs.35 lakh cash does not belong to Trust’

Staff Reporter

Sathya Sai Central Trust clarifies the money belonged to 12 different people

PHOTO: R.V.S. PRASAD

Trustee V. Srinivasan (right) of the Sathya Sai Central Trust speaking to the media at Puttaparthi on Tuesday. Member of the council of management Naganand is also seen.

PUTTAPARTHI: The Sathya Sai Central Trust categorically stated here on Tuesday that the cash of Rs.35 lakh seized at the Kodikonda checkpost by police recently did not belong to the Trust but to 12 different people.

Trustees R. J. Ratnakar and V. Srinivasan, who were in the thick of controversy following seizure of the cash, had only facilitated the money being placed before the regal chair of Sathya Sai Baba in Yajur Mandir.

Mr. Srinivasan explained at a crowded press conference in Prashanthi Nilayam that the Trust did not wish to get involved with the finances of the construction of the Mahasamadhi as it was a public charitable trust and that the law did not permit them to undertake religious activity.

He said the Trust had decided not to directly undertake the construction but facilitate the devotees to do so under its supervision to ensure quality and aesthetics. The Trust took this decision as it was flooded with offers from devotees to pay for the Samadhi work. Shankarnarayana Consultancy Company of Bangalore was appointed as project consultant.

Mr. Naganand — member of the council of management of the Sathya Sai Central Trust — said there were no restrictions on people giving donations in cash to a consultancy to be used for the construction of the Mahasamadhi. He added that the said company was no stranger to Puttaparthi and had in fact even donated work worth crores of rupees, even when not asked for, out of devotion to the late Sathya Sai Baba.

Asked if the Trust would be compliant if the government decided to take on a monitoring role over the Trust, Mr. Srinivasan said, “I do not see any need for the government to set up a separate mechanism”, and that if and when such a decision was taken, the Trust would not have a problem.

He said even without a demand note from the Income-Tax Department, they had paid Rs.9.75 crore as tax on the income attached to the inventory of valuables found in the Yajur Mandir.

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THE EXPRESS

Sai trustee stands by Samadhi story

 Express News Service

Last Updated : 24 Jun 2011 08:23:57 AM IST

HYDERABAD: Breaking his silence for the first time since the seizure of R35 lakh of Sai Baba’s money, Sathya Sai Central Trust member V Srinivasan vehemently denied allegations of wrongdoing and said the amount was meant for a legitimate purpose: building the guru’s samadhi.

In an interview with Express, Srinivasan said, “There is no substance in the allegations being aired. We are not involved in any illegitimate activity. The money came from the devotees. The media is distorting the facts.’’ He laughed off allegations that wealth from the Sai Baba’s estate was being siphoned off. “The truth will come out once I make a statement to the police,’’ he said. Srinivasan is due to give his statement in a couple of days.Pointed out that his driver Chandrasekhar has told the police that it was Srinivasan who had sent him to get the cash from Yajurweda Mandir, the trust member asked, “When the money was meant for a legitimate purpose, where is the problem? Does sending my driver to deliver the money mean that it was being used for illegitimate purposes?’’ Asked if it wasn’t true that all transactions of the trust are normally done by cheques, Srinivasan said, ‘’Yes, most transactions are by cheque but why can’t one be by cash? That money belonged to the trust. We had no other intention than to pay samadhi contractors.’’ Asked if it was true that cash, gold and diamonds are still concealed in the Yajurweda Mandir and that the inventory revealed by the trust was just the tip of the iceberg, Srinivasan laughed and said, “I do not know why such fanciful statements are being made. We took an inventory and took everything into the accounts of the trust.The inventory was taken in the presence of trustees who are respectable bureaucrats, chartered accountants, legal practitioners and businessmen.’’ Asked whether the trustees were preventing government officials from entering the Yajurweda Mandir, Srinivasan said, “What is preventing government officials from entering the mandir now? We have never prevented them and never will.We never said they cannot enter.’’

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General

Excerpt From Public Petition (and introduction)

Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

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