Donors and Would-be Donors Beware (Sathya Sai Central Trust Example)

As the years pass, more evidence emerges of the very non-divine manner in which Sathya Sai Baba and his financial wing collect vast funds – particularly from wealthy donors. As with scams the world over, there are methods of ‘spotting’ – in this case, by ashram staff of visitors most likely to donate large sums. The admixture of ‘miracles’ – such as Sai Baba’s ‘materializing’ of expensive rings or pendants etc., for the wealthy – is central to setting up of these traps. This operation involves the participation of the registration office, as well as Sathya Sai Baba’s close servitors, many of them wealthy or those who have given away their wealth to him.

Criminals and police forces often refer to this type of spotting as finding the ‘mark’ or victim to be set up.

Donors and Would-be Donors Beware

There are two classes of individual, and in some cases institutions, who have every reason to be looking at these issues. First, those who have already been donors to Sathya Sai Baba’s exchequer, among whom there are those who have serious misgivings about how they were misused. Second, those who are contemplating donation to the Sathya Sai Central trust.

In the first group, there are those who have been far too busy with their business enterprises or professions to have time for deeper reflection on their experiences. It needs to be remembered that deeply emotional, religious or spiritual commitments are far from straightforward and rational. Donors have given, in some cases in many millions, thinking they have found an impeccable cause. However, some are at the stage where they are handing over their prime responsibilities to others in their enterprises, retiring, etc.  The photos below are just a very few examples of that for which of the Sathya Sai opulence, they have already handed over! (For more revealing photos, see bottom of this article).

In August 16, 2003. the Rediff news agency reported:
“The largest recipient of foreign contribution was Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust — Rs 88.18 crore (Rs 881.8 million)”

The Torment of Awakening From The Dream Splendid

Coming out of the dream splendid can be an emotionally tormenting period, whether one is rich or not. Again, irrespective of status, the wide tendency for individuals is to clam up, and let as few as possible know that one has made some bad choices.

To those wishing to reflect intellectually on their own experiences of donorship, or for those who may be contemplating giving money to Sathya Sai Baba’s organization, I point to the article (4700 approx words) of Robert Priddy, retired academic and former longtime leader of the Norwegian Sathya Sai Organization:

‘Donating to Sathya Sai Baba and His Bottomless Trust Or Other Institutions. How donations are encouraged and devotees are manipulated – with negative experiences reported’

QUOTE

“In my participant-observer sociological study of the International Sathya Sai Organisation, recorded mainly in 2000, I concluded that one of the main functions it actually fulfils, although in theory it should not, is to channel money from the widest possible catchment area of devotees in rich countries. This was implied by the collected data and analyses of its various practices which I interpreted on the basis of my wide-ranging experience – and increasing distaste – of how matters were handled at Organization meetings I attended in various countries. In stark contrast to Sathya Sai Baba pretends, his organisation contributes, indirectly and increasingly more and more directly, to the funnelling of donations in huge amounts into his account and under his control. Why does Sai Baba ‘allow’ this discrepancy between his word and action? The simple answer would be because money is a necessary ingredient of improving education, health and living conditions for the poor. To support this, Sai Baba points to the institutions like colleges, hospitals and village projects he has provided (as if it were not all from his devotees). So why then does he constantly boast that he has no connection whatever with money – saying as but one example, “Where money is present, there I am absent”? Obviously, it is a very clever device to hide the real situation and seem to put him apart from other money collecting ‘men of god’. Money gurus awaken much skepticism, especially among Westerners nowadays, it being known very widely that so many have been defrauded”.

Subheadings in this article:

Sizing up likely donors, and diamond gifts to soften them up?

What is Sathya Sai Baba’s actual relationship to money?

True Believer Devotees as Easy-Touches for Money

Soliciting Devotees for Major Funds

Ashram apartment ‘donors’ – deceptively called ‘owners’

Donors Recruited under False Pretenses

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Further Reading

Can We Trust The Central Trust?By Serguei Badaev.  (Ex-President of Sai Org. Moscow Centre and ex-deputy National Coordinator and National SSEHV Coordinator, Russia)

“It is not the Sathya Sai Organisation which is the owner of all the property and estates we can see in Prashanthi Nilayam and Brindavan (Sai Baba’s ashrams in Puttaparthi and in Whitefield correspondingly). There is another organisation which prefers to stay in a shadow. It is Sathya Sai Central Trust (the SSCT), which can be regarded as the highest authority in the Sai Baba movement except Sai Baba himself”

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The money behind Sai Baba By Hari Sampath. 08-04-2001. (Member of Sathya Sai Baba’s Security and Intelligence Wing between 1992 and 1995)

‘Secret Swami’ Cult Recruits At Prime Public Venues. By Barry Pittard

QUOTE

“The easiest way to look for the source of Sai Baba’s ‘immunity’ from investigation and what exactly all this scam is about is to just take a look at the staggering amounts of money involved, and approximately estimate how much money does Sai Baba actually have?”

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Barry Pittard at ‘Call For Media and Government Investigation of Sathya Sai Baba’

‘Secret Swami’ Cult Recruits At Prime Public Venues

Sathya Sai Organization: World Communities Need To Treat This Sect Cautiously

India’s ‘Emperor’ Sai Baba. By His Lavish Spending Ye Shall Know Him

Sai Baba, Kubla Khan, Citizen Kane, Bill Gates et alia

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General

Excerpt From Public Petition

(Note: The above articles contextualizes. Or you may prefer to proceed straight to the Petition):

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

There is a Spanish version available:

PETICIÓN PÚBLICA PARA INVESTIGACIONES OFICIALES DE SATHYA SAI BABA Y SU ORGANIZACIÓN A NIVEL MUNDIAL)

‘Black Sheep’ Of Sweden’s Nobel Family Called By Ba-Ba (Sathya Sai Baba)

There are many instances that show how Sathya Sai Baba, far from his being, as he claims, all-knowing and all-seeing, has behind him a trail of egregious blunders and unfulfilled predictions, promises of cures, and much else. Below, I quote the mess he made in the would-be Nobel Peace Prize incident. Repeatedly, he hangs his claims on their own petard. His apologists are too blinded to see, not the ‘Glory of Puttaparthi’ but the absurdity of Puttaparthi.

One of Sathya Sai Baba’s many hugely expensive and major Sai propaganda efforts has been the setting up of Sai Global Harmony via WorldSpace International Satellite Radio Service. It broadcasts 24/7 to many countries. A director of WorldSpace is Dr Michael Nobel, who, contrary to long-uncorrected statements (in Wikipedia and in various promotions) by Sai Baba activists, is NOT the son of the Nobel Peace founder Alfed Nobel – who died in 1896! But he, though widely considered ‘black sheep’ of the Nobel family, has answered the Ba-ba call of Sathya Sai Baba who, absurdly, told the Australian journalist Howard Murphet that, historically, when Jesus, the Lamb of God, called ‘Ba-ba’, he was referring to Sathya Sai Baba! The Nobel ‘black sheep’ is making more than a bleat or two of his own, for he has extended his international satellite broadcasting corporation to send Sathya Sai Baba propaganda across the air-waves of the world. 

Michael Nobel is a great grand nephew, although Alfred Nobel, were he here today, might not feel too grand about the descendant who has been repudiated by the Nobel authorities.

The director of Sai Global Harmony is Dr G. Venkataraman, who is also deputy world chairman of the Sathya Sai Organization. See: Sathya Sai Baba’s ‘Minister of Propaganda’ – Dr G. Venkataraman and:  Sathya Sai Baba’s Deputy Head, Dr G. Venkataraman, Speaks of “Mr Idi Amin” .

G.Venkataraman (retired Indian nuclear scientist, left).  K. Chakravarthi (Secretary of Sathya Sai Central Trust, sacked by Indian Administrative Service, IAS, for embezzlement, right).

 

Nobel Foundation and Head of Nobel Family Repudiate Michael Nobel

 

I quote from the Wikipedia entry under ‘Nobel Foundation’:

“In 2007 Dr Michael Nobel (born as Michael Oleinikoff), a great grand nephew of Alfred Nobel, attempted to start a prize called the “Michael Nobel Energy Award” that would award innovations in alternative energy technology. The plan was announced at nanoTX 07. The Nobel Foundation quickly reacted by threatening legal action for “clear misuse of the reputation and goodwill of the Nobel Prize and the associations of integrity and eminence that has been created over time and through the efforts of the Nobel Committees”. The Director, Michael Sohlman, of the Nobel Foundation and the elected Head of the Nobel Family disapproved to the institution of the so called ‘Dr. Michael Nobel Award’ as well as the Nobel Charitable Trust and Nobel Family Benevolent society.  Michael has (as of June 2008) not abided to the advice of the Nobel foundation and the Nobel family head, but continues his efforts to establish a new prize in his own (taken) name. ^“

New York Times Exposes Sathya Sai Baba Man, Michael Nobel

Michael Nobel has been exposed by the New York Times:

“…the organizers received a disturbing fax from The Nobel Foundation in Sweden. It advised them that Mr. Nobel had been voted out as head of the Nobel Family Society at a meeting in August of 2006 “mainly because of his unauthorized activities and involvements in the name of the Nobel Family Society.” And it threatened legal action against those involved in creating “The Dr. Michael Nobel Award”, as Mr. Nobel had indicated it was to be named.” (The Nobel Prize that Wasn’t – New York Times ). 

Sathya Sai Baba Exposed In Serious Error Concerning Nobel Prize Personnel and Process

“Aerodrome has come. Super Speciality Hospital has come. These things are not even in big towns. More, more, more, more will come. To show this to the whole world, it (Sai Global Harmony Channel, a satellite digital radio channel set up to broadcast Swami’s discourses, bhajans, etc.) begins within this month. To bring about these changes, numerous people will be involved. I am also telling you a few names.”

They are giving the Nobel Prize to many people. The man who gives the Nobel Prize (Chairman of the Nobel Prize Committee) is coming here on the 22nd November. The ones who will show this to the whole world, TV people, are all coming here on the 22nd. Who called them? Who invited them? If all things like these are seen, all sorts are coming here. No one has invited them at all. No one is giving them (a special) welcome. Yet they themselves are coming. What is the reason? That Chaitanya Jyothi (meaning Swami Himself) is here and It (He) is pulling them!” (Applause) [From Premsai translation. The Premsai editorial clarifications are in round brackets]

• To be continued

Censored Indian National Television Film of Sai Baba Cheating

Watch Sathya Sai Baba as he is caught out cheating in the supposed  materialization of a necklace. This is the August 1992 footage taken in Hyderabad by Doordarshan, India’s national television and radio broadcaster.  The Prime Minister of the time, P.V. Narasimha Rao,

a Sai Baba devotee, stepped in and forbade the showing of the film.

Click on this link to watch the clip:

Baba cheating with necklace (1.7 MB)

Keep an eye on:

– the assistant’s hand

– the exchange of the object to be (ostensibly) miraculously materialized

– Sai Baba’s right hand taking hold of the object and then appearing to materialize it.

This was but one case in a great many cases where, all along, heavy government and media censorship have obtained in India in matters detrimental to Sai Baba. His Sathya Sai Organization is extremely widespread and powerful in that country.  The constantly corrupt leaders, irrespective of which party or coalition is in office, have no desire to see cut off the vast wealth in donations that flow to India from abroad from Sai Baba followers and other well-wishers.

Being Wary With One’s Donations

Especially, if you have ever donated, or have been thinking about donating to the Sathya Sai Organization, you might consider looking at the following articles. The photographs may well be enough to put you off forever. See:

Sai Baba Exchequer Worth Billions. Many Countries Donate

For a photographic glimpse of the incredible lavish material ’spendour of Puttaparthi’, see:

India’s ‘Emperor’ Sai Baba. By His Lavish Spending Ye Shall Know Him

Sai Baba, Kubla Khan, Citizen Kane, Bill Gates et alia.

Sathya Sai Baba Chariots.

SEE article with links to some of the world’s most famous magicians using sleight-of-hand far more sophisticatedly than does Sathya Sai Baba. Learn how it is done.

Sleight Of Hand. The Sleightness of Sathya Sai Baba (Exposing film clips)

Sathya Sai Cult Under Media Scrutiny In Australia

A fracas looms involving the Sathya Sai Baba cult about to appear on a leading national highly-rated program, Australian Current Affair, on Channel Nine. The segment is due after the 6.30 pm (AEST) News on that channel. The piece may appear tonight or soon after.

You can keep an eye on the Australian Current Affair website.

The segment was postponed last Thursday night because of the tragic news of the little girl being thrown of the Westgate Bridge in Melbourne by her demented father.

In anticipation, I’ve assembled some information and resources at: Sathya Sai Baba Cult Exposure By Major TV Channel In Australia , with the Stats already in a steep upcurve in the last couple of days.

The SWARA Upheaval

Brisbane staff (allegedly sacked under draconian circumstances) and disabled clients of SWARA, a charity solidly funded by the Queensland State Government, say that they feel overwhelmed by a highly autocratic power concentrated in the hands of a committee. They claim that this body has been heavily stacked with Sai Baba cult members, and that clear and proper professional policies are not being adhered to. They also say that the committee is one of a number of fronts for the Sai Baba cult, which accepts large financial support by the Queensland government but bends these advantages in a way unacceptable in many properly conducted comparable institutions in Australia.

SWARA, in Brisbane, the capital of Australia eastern seaboard State of Queensland, was founded by two wealthy philanthropic sisters who have had long and close association with Sathya Sai Baba, Moyia and the late Dorothy O’Brien, twins well-known as ‘The Pink Sisters’. The SWARA website states that the charity is  “A multidiagnostic service catering for those with mild-moderate intellectual, psychiatric, cognitive, neurological, sensory or physical impairment”.

The Australian Current Affair segment is expected to link the cult of Sathya Sai Baba (a picture of whom Channel Nine has already shown several times in promotion of the segment, along with the unfortunate scenes when a group of centre workers (who say there have been threats to their jobs) and disabled clients attempted to air their views publicly) with troubles besetting SWARA (Sunshine Welfare and Remedial Association).

………………………………………………………………………….

General

Excerpt From Public Petition

(Note: You may prefer to proceed straight to the Petition):

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

There is a Spanish version available:

PETICIÓN PÚBLICA PARA INVESTIGACIONES OFICIALES DE SATHYA SAI BABA Y SU ORGANIZACIÓN A NIVEL MUNDIAL)

Isaac Tigrett. Wealthy Promoter of Superstition

Former head of the Norwegian Sathya Sai Organization Robert Priddy exposes a superstitious belief of Isaac Tigrett, one of Sathya Sai Baba’s key financial backers. Tigrett was an immensely wealthy U.S. citizen, who walks with some of the most powerful leaders in the world. Businesses he has built include famous institutions such as The Hard Rock Cafe and The House of Blues. He has contributed many millions to Sathya Sai Baba.

Isaac Tigrett. Secret Swami Cult’s immensely wealthy and hearty Laugher

Robert 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”

Sources

Isaac Tigrett, Sathya Sai Baba and the crystal skull

Posted by robertpriddy on October 7, 2008

The fall and fantasies of Sai Baba supporter, Isaac Tigrett

Posted by robertpriddy on October 5, 2008

Tigrett Speaks To BBC Television On His Faith In Sathya Sai Baba

Similar Tigrett preoccupation with mystic fancy has been seen in the BBC documentary ‘The Secret Swami’ 2004, where Tigrett tells the presenter Tanya Datta:

“India’s so unique, it’s so incredible. If there’s a spiritual train then India is the engine. All this mysticism, all the strangeness that surrounds Sai Baba and all that stuff, this is the perfect home for it.”

Unlike other Sathya Sai Baba leaders, Tigrett the latter comes across as compassionate but his unusual and repeated laughter in the BBC documentary suggests his ultimate denial of feeling that needs to translate to humane action. Tanya Datta says,

“But even if it was proven to you that Sai Baba was a paedophile and a serial sex abuser, you’re saying it wouldn’t change the fact that he is your guru.”

Isaac Tigrett says,

“He could go out and murder someone tomorrow.”

Tanya Datta probes,

“Does that mean that some part of you believes there could be some truth to the rumours?” Tigrett replies,

“Oh, absolutely I believe there is truth to the rumours.”

But the practical effect – which is that Isaac Tigrett does nothing to advocate a hearing for Sathya Sai Baba’s accusers – is the same as if he did not believe in their truth! This immensely wealthy man, who walks with some of the most powerful leaders in the world, like Al Gore, blocks the chance of marginalized victims to effectively tell their stories. Clearly, his self-perceived spiritual development is all that matters. Therefore, he lends himself to one of history’s great cover ups. He may provide palatial buildings for Sai Baba but what about rebuilding broken people, and perhaps saving still others from coming to grief in the secret chamber of the ‘secret swami?

View the BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’

The Secret Swami (BBC Television):
(154 MB Broadband)

Read the articles:

The BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’ – A Revision

BBC Hidden Camera in ‘Secret Swami’. Ethical?

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

BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’ and British Press Praise

BBC Acted “Totally Irresponsibly” Says Ashok Bhagani

Indian Ex Top Official Dogs Sai Baba On BBC. ‘Cold-blooded Murder’

Note:

For an example of another major figure around Sathya Sai Baba who lends himself to highly irrational beliefs, see my two articles:

J. Jegathesan. Part of The Secret Swami’s Cover Up and

Dato J. Jegathesan, a ‘Secret Swami’ cult top leader-roving ambassador

(These articles contain links to Robert Priddy’s writings on J.Jegathesan)

Judge warned: Crippling disease won‘t stop pervert

Some devotees of Sathya Sai Baba – the ‘God’ worshipped by so many of India’s top power brokers (and others beyond) who faces worldwide accusations of large-scale, serial sexual molestation of boys and young men – claim that he could not possibly offend, if he ever did, because of his age and physical incapacity, and that therefore his current accusers are caught in a palpable deceit. 

L. Ageing multiple rapist Wayne Chapman still Dangerous. (Boston Herald Photo Pool). R. An Ironside Sai Baba – not one to easily push around.

They offer no evidence concerning the nature of sexual capacity and ageing. Yet there is a mass of readings on the topic ‘ageing and sex’ in the popular press, let alone a wealth of information from Gerontology and Geriatrics. As ever, the Internet is an abundant source.  But why go looking for facts when there is a guru to defend at all costs? And the word ‘costs’ is more than appropriate, since Sai Baba’s worldwide cult has to defend many billions of dollars of investment in its notion that Sai Baba is about to rule the earth. Any dear reader who happens to be a billionaire, watch your money – Sai Baba is a consumate master in extracting it from you – without seeming to want it. See my article: Sai Baba, Kubla Khan, Citizen Kane, Bill Gates et alia

Of course, making Champion of the World may require Sai Baba to take a little more than Viagra or Cialis. 

Extract from: Judge warned: Crippling disease won‘t stop pervert
By Laurel J. Sweet
Boston Herald. Friday, March 23, 2007

‘Aging and Sick Sex Offender to Be Civilly Committed?

Whatever the wisdom of civil commitment laws it would seem that this fellow might qualify.  Increasingly, though, the states are going to have to contend with the high cost of health care in keeping aging and sick convicts behind bars.

Even though his aging, bloated body is confined to a wheelchair, a judge was warned yesterday a 59-year-old convicted sexual predator remains dangerous to children. A forensic psychologist assured Lawrence Superior Court Judge Howard J. Whitehead that convicted child rapist Wayne Chapman, who bragged he had sexually molested between 50 and 100 boys and even fantasized about killing some of them, “presents a high and unacceptable risk to re-offend.” “It just doesn’t go away,” Christine Schnyder Pierce testified. Chapman, an interstate predator, has been incarcerated for 31 years. Having served his time, he is hoping to retire in Massachusetts, but the Essex District Attorney’s Office is fighting to have Whitehead civilly commit him for life as a “sexually dangerous” person’.

Further Resources

Wikipedia, Sexuality in older age

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Sai Baba, Kubla Khan, Citizen Kane, Bill Gates et alia

Note:  3 December 2010.  In the aftermath of Sathya Sai Baba’s 85th birthday celebrations, here is a 2007 article which shows that the incredible opulence that surrounds him has been in the building for a long time now.

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 In the director-writer-actor Orson Welles’s great movie classic Citizen Kane, one can, it is true, note certain differences between the U.S. newspaper proprietor William Randolf Hearst

and Welles’s and Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s creation Charles Foster Kane. For decades, the differences have been fought over – fiercely. Nonetheless, both were fabulously wealthy, gigantically egocentric – and corrupt. They splurged incredibly on their domiciles. As does Sathya Sai Baba -See: Sai Baba’s Birthday. Vast, Costly Pomp and Ceremony

(Microsoft founder, Bill Gates’s humble little shack – dubbed by some wag as: Xanadu 2.0. No zoo there yet, but who knows? – with the true coming-of-age of Robotics something cyber-‘animal’ might be managed. Although Sai Baba’s imperial fiat has gone out to his devotees that they must have nothing to do with the Internet, his devotees, from top to bottom, are using it extensively. So much for the notion ‘Guru is God’).

In naming the fictive Kane’s dream home on sprawling acres, Xanadu, Welles and his writer Mankiewicz thought – perhaps inevitably – of the fabulous city of the 13th Century Mongolian emperor, Kubla Khan (see portrait above) and of the English Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s fittingly eccentric and exotic poem known to millions, whose first line runs:

In Xanadu did Kubla KhanA stately pleasure-dome decree

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea  

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

 Today’s Would-be ‘Emperor’ of India and Then the World

Kane in Florida, like Hearst at San Simeon in California, was absolute King of his castle. But there is a virtual Emperor in India – Sathya Sai Baba.

But even Randolph Hearst (as perhaps a modern-day media buccaneer Rupert Murdoch) might have blushed a wee bit for shame to hold such sway with the big end of town as Sathya Sai Baba has long done with India’s power brokers, irrespective of what political party is in power. Sai Baba (and I have seen him up close a great many times), who long ago learnt not to blush, is arguably India’s and history’s most famous – and infamous – guru. 

How the stupendous splurger Sai Baba can ever say the name of Mahatma Gandhi, modern India’s simple-living ‘father of the nation’, without blushing is one of his greatest miracles!

Hearst would refer to his establishment as “the ranch”. Hugh Heffner, the ‘soft’ pornography magnate and publisher of Playboy Magazine had built his Playboy Mansion, of which  the writer John Marshal has observed  that  driving through its gates is “like being misdirected into the back entrance of a public zoo”. The zoo atmospheric reminds that Hearst’s estate included a zoo – then the world’s largest. The narrator in Citizen Kane speaks of Kane having the largest zoo since Noah. See USA Weekend LINK.

India’s Fabulous Top Guru Sai Baba. More Emperor Than King

But then see the article: 

The Decline and Fall of the Showman Empire. Posted by Barry Pittard on July 10, 2007

 

One wonders why Sai Baba has not included a gee-wizzo zoo. Perhaps it would be a counter-distraction, because everybody is supposed to have their eyes trained on Sai Baba (it is called ‘darshan’, and his devotees spell it with a capital ‘D’. Instead of gazing at one’s navel, one gazes at the guru). However, one Indian man sitting next to me at a Sai Baba ‘darshan’ described Sai Baba’s setup to me as “a national circus”.

See:  SATHYA SAI ORGANIZATION LAVISH SPENDING ON SUPER DOME VENUE MEETING
 Compiled from Australian sources, with comments by Barry Pittard and Robert Priddy

Vastly Costly Monuments Glorifying Sai Baba

His splashy-colored and sometimes vast buildings rise up at enormous cost. Sathya Sai Baba’s exchequer owes to vast donations to his Central Trust via his powerful organisation spanning more than 150 countries, and not least to the donations of the extremely wealthy – like James Sinclair, the Canadian cable and minerals magnate, Isaac Tigrett the American founder of the Hard Rock Café and House of Blues, the Rai family in India in steel and technology, and an astounding number of other hugely wealthy and influential individuals and families from many countries. Rediff News, July 06, 2005, reported:

“The Andhra Pradesh-based Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust is the largest recipient of foreign contributions. The Sathya Sai Trust received Rs 95 crore (Rs 950 million) during 2003-04″.

This figure – which is well over US $20 million – is but the officially declared one and does not account for contributions of those foreigners who donate when they are in India. One can observe how at Sathya Sai Baba’s establishments at Puttaparthi, Andhra Pradesh, and Whitefield, Karnataka, in South India, the Indian and foreign mega business fraternity swap business cards – within what devotees regard as the so-called Holiest of Holy precincts! – and thereafter mutually thrive. At the Puttaparthi temple, on June 6, 1993) police executions took place in Sai Baba’s bedroom, with his close proximity and command of the situation. See my article, at LINK, which contains a further link to a video clip of the BBC The Secret Swami television interview with former Andhra Pradesh Home Secretary V.P.B. Nair saying that the slaying was “absolute cold-blooded murder”).

It is easy to see that far wider national and international economic and political forces are at play, and that it is little wonder how successive Indian governments both State and Central have been loathe to ‘kill’ a goose that lays an incredible number of golden eggs.

Twin Palace. Sai Baba Lives Here

Efforts to Globalize Sathya Sai Baba with World Radio Station

Sai Baba controls with an iron hand the international Sathya Sai Organization. This powerful cult has been found by some of the world’s top media like the BBC, Times of London, Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, and in other countries, as well as UNESCO, the U.S. State Department and other institutions to be extremely hard to investigate or act against. His second most senior aide is its deputy chairman, who, as head of Sai Global Harmony, is his ‘minister of propaganda’, Dr G. Venkataraman, one of the progenitors of India’s atomic bomb, as was Sai Baba’s previous close aide, the late Dr S. Bhagavantam – sometimes called ‘the father of the Indian atomic bomb’ – as was his present staunch devotee, the President of India, Dr A.J. P. Kalam, who writes flowery  panegyrics to Sai Baba, as did the last Indian Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Sai Global Harmony broadcasts, in affiliation with WorldSpace International Satellite Radio Service, 24/7 to many countries. With a behind-the-scenes corporate-style, assisted by the billions of funds that pour from many countries into the Sathya Sai Central Trust, the declared aim is to penetrate to every corner of the globe.

Government Inaction on Powerful Cults

A vital question will be whether politicians in democratic countries will be capable of distinguishing between the issue of freedom of religion and the issue of cults that decidedly do not, whatever may be their rhetoric, respect democracy.

Followers Believe Sathya Sai Baba Will Rule World

Former monstrous Ugandan dictator Idi Amin (about whom Sai Baba and G. Venkatarman have warmly recollected, See LINK) only imagined himself to be the ‘Last King of Scotland’ but Sai Baba takes all India for his domain, not to mention the world, which he has long said (it is one of his myriad of broken promises) he will travel to and bring to his feet, after he has “set (his) own back yard (India) in order” and before he dies in AD 2022. Given India’s enduring tragedy – despite her superpower aspirations – he had better get a bit of a wriggle on!

Poor Hearst, Jackson, Gates, Murdoch, et alia! For Sai Baba is an Emperor, who has Indian power brokers in his thrall irrespective of their party or religious affiliation. None – except a rare and tremendously courageous individual like B. Premanand, India’s famous “guru buster” – dare  take him on in India. See BBC story HERE.

For Successive Indian Governments, Sathya Sai Baba Is ‘goose that lays the golden eggs’

Indian local, central and state governments, often incredibly corrupt and incompetent, are able to watch while the more efficient Sai Baba and his massive organization get social welfare projects done. Drawn out of donations from some 150 foreign countries, his revenue is prodigious. India’s profoundly compromised ruling elites would no more sneeze at that country’s donations from Bill Gates, yet another of history’s outstanding buccaneers, than it would at the taxable revenue pouring into the Sathya Sai Central Trust.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man

 

Further Reading

The BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’ – A Revision

BBC Hidden Camera in ‘Secret Swami’. Ethical?

Guru Sex Abuse Testimony To BBC – After Years of Silence

Indian Minister Shields Sai Baba on BBC television

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

V.P.B. Nair. B.Premanand. R.Priddy: Sai Baba Bedroom Killings

Exposure of Sathya Sai Baba. Media Source List

Video Resources

The Secret Swami (BBC Television):
(154 MB, Broadband)

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

http://home.hetnet.nl/~seduced/seduced.wmv
(21 MB, Modem)

Right Hand. Sleight Hand. Watch Sai Baba Cheat With Sacred Ash (Film clip)

BBC and Other Film Footage Shows India’s Top Guru Sathya Sai Baba Faking Miracles

BBC Footage Exposes Fake Sathya Sai Baba Miracle « Call For Media and Government Investigation

Sathya Sai Baba Chief, Dr Goldstein, Explodes. “I am the consummate professional” (See Film Clips)

Raising ever more serious questions about how spiritual is the head of what Sathya Sai Baba has called THE divine organization in the world,

Michael Goldstein explodes with anger (710kbs)

at the BBC’s perfectly reasonable questions about accountability

Dr. Goldstein again reveals his higher self (1.500Kb)

Michael Goldstein and the sexual allegations (2,10 Mbs)

Michael Goldstein admits his view is merely a belief (456kbs)

Sathya Sai Baba Cult Exposure By Major TV Channel In Australia « Call For Media and Government Investigation

……………………………………………………

General

Excerpt From Public Petition

(Note: You may prefer to proceed straight to the Petition):

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

There is a Spanish version available:

PETICIÓN PÚBLICA PARA INVESTIGACIONES OFICIALES DE SATHYA SAI BABA Y SU ORGANIZACIÓN A NIVEL MUNDIAL)

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The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves ;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice ! …..

….. That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Indian Government Study of Child Abuse Is Groundbreaking

Recent blogs at: https://barrypittard.wordpress.com have drawn attention to the (for India) groundbreaking study of child abuse (which this link downloads in .pdf format) recently released by the Government of India via its Department of Women and Child Development. See:

‘Indian Study On Child Abuse. Robert Priddy Comments’,

‘Child Abuse Rife In India. But Who Would Speak Out?‘

‘Child Abuse. Landmark Indian Government Study. Abuse of Indian children ‘common’’

Child Abuse in India. Will Minister Renuka Chowdhury Act?

Having spent a number of years in India engaged in social work among the very poor, I do not know why the important Indian Organization PRAYAS (often simply Prayas) is not mentioned in the paragraphs below, because they were a major role-player in the study. For their opening page on the study, which has many and very valuable links, see here. PRAYAS works within charter and spirit of the UN Convention on the Rights Of the Child, 1989.

The International Save The Children Alliance states:

“For the first time, data on child abuse and neglect in India. A new report by the Ministry of Women and Child Development in India, (supported by Save the Children and UNICEF) released today, reveals the extent and magnitude of child abuse and neglect in India. This is one of the world’s largest empirical, in-country studies covering nearly 12,500 children and 4800 young adults in 13 States.

The Study looks at three different forms of child abuse – physical abuse, sexual abuse and emotional abuse and girl child neglect in families, schools, work places, on the street and institutions. The Study complements the UN Secretary General’s Study on Violence against Children, 2006.

The Study aims to develop a comprehensive understanding of child abuse, which will help formulate appropriate policies and programmes meant to effectively end child abuse in India.

Major findings of the Study:

– Boys, as compared to girls, are equally at risk of abuse.
– Persons in trust and authority are major abusers.
– 5-12 year old children are in the high risk category: across the forms of abuse, the percentage of abuse among them is the highest.
– 70% of the children have not reported abuse to anyone.
– Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar and Delhi almost consistently report high rates of abuse in all forms as compared to other States.
– 2 out of every 3 children have been physically abused.
– Two out of every three school going children are victims of corporal punishment. Half of these incidents are in government run schools.
– More than half of the child respondents reported facing one or more forms of sexual abuse.
– Every second child reported facing emotional abuse. In more than 80% of the cases parents were the abusers”.

Let Us Not Unduly Target India 

Note:  Some commentors may find it all too easy to point a finger at India. No country must be let off the ‘hook’. In an shortly upcoming blog, we shall look at the incredible remissness of the Australian Government of John Howard, which grossly fails to support key initiatives by some of Australia’s most notable workers in childcare, including by a woman often regarded as a national treasure, Professor Freda Briggs, who is Foundation Dean of the De Lissa Institute of Early Childhood and Family Studies, and Professor of Childhood Development at the University of South Australia. In 2005, in the Queen’s Birthday Honors, she was awarded the Order of Australia (AO). She was named ‘Australian of the Year, 2007’. See Advocates For Survivors of Child Abuse (ASCA), here. The economic rationalists, however, bestow awards as an easy ‘out’, instead of addressing the real issues.
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Dr Naresh Bhatia. Silenced Now In Indian Child Abuse Scourge

For many years, Dr Naresh Bhatia was a prominent doctor (and head of the Blood Bank) in Sai Baba’s vast but from many reports badly under-utilized Super Speciality hospital at Puttaparthi. There are accounts of his having to flee for his own safety from Puttaparthi and then finally being able to retrieve his possessions only after his undertaking with Sai Baba’s top officials to make no further public statements. A secret swami’s secret India, where at last a landmark study of abuse and the extreme hiding of it has just been released by the Manmohan Singh government. See Resources, at the foot of this article.

The Guru Can Do No Wrong

Dr Bhatia says that he, when younger, was for a long time a homosexual lover of Sai Baba. (The former Swedish film star Conny Larsson, now a drug rehabilitator among prisoners and others, says the same of himself). Dr Bhatia has told me that he still cannot shake off his belief that Sai Baba is Divine even though he knows that Sai Baba has sexually abused very many of his male students and other young males. One may note that the guru tradition in India cannot be readily understood by outsiders. One concept is that one does not criticize one’s guru, no matter what he or she says or does. Rooted in almost timeless history, the grip of the guru and other religious authorities is endemic in India.

On November 12, 2000, in an extensively researched article, author and journalist Mick Brown wrote:

“Contacted by phone, Bhatia said that he had become a devotee of Sai Baba in 1971, at the age of 20, and that he had sexual relations with Sai Baba for “15 or 16 years”. In that time, he said, he was also aware that Sai Baba had relations with “many, many” students from the college and school, and with devotees from overseas.”

When making The Secret Swami the BBC television producer Eamon Hardy also spoke with Dr Bhatia, this time in New Delhi but the segment was not included in the documentary, for which 80 plus hours of footage had been shot, containing many compelling testimonies from various countries that, taken together, depict Sai Baba as a serial sexual molester on a most terrible scale.

Many Indian Gurus Abuse But Followers Shut Up About it

Among my papers, I have a note by a former national leader of the Sathya Sai Organization (who still has not gone public). He had a huge outreach among both Indian and Western devotees. He wrote the note while still a devotee but already going through angst following the upheavals following fusillades of revelations around 2000 in the organization which he and his wife so much loved:

“Talking to some Indian devotees (who by the way are not affected at all hardly any of them have left) they tell us that it is common knowledge that “Gurus” generally have some of those tendencies”

Anecdotally, this scenario would surely suggest the origins of the vast shockwaves right now going through India, following the release by the Manmohan Singh government of a landmark study of child abuse in that country. Where sexual abuse is concerned, Sai Baba the ‘secret Swami’ (as BBC television has called him) is close kindred to countless other Indian secret gurus who but reflect countless millions of ‘secret’ citizens of India. Like those of us in other countries who shut up for the sake of the ‘quiet life’, they are – even when not directly committing child abuse – to an extreme degree, therefore permitting it. For decades, Sai Baba has said India is about to lead the world in spirituality, under his banner. But his own ‘backyard’ (which he has said he will clean up before visiting the world) is in a dire shambles. So is he, as we can see when we examine photos and film footage that emphatically display his decrepitude. He is also increasingly given to unquestionably inane utterances and other odd behaviour. Click here for my articles  Sai Baba’s Tip To Keep Ageing Away and Sai Baba – A Degenerative Disease?

Dr Naresh Bhatia – Some Clarifications

Dr Bhatia told me that he felt the threat to his life was very real and that he was concerned that no further harm should come to a young boy who he (and a medical colleague in Bangalore) professionally believed was injuriously sodomized by Sai Baba. For this reason, he says, he has modified his earlier public stance that can be read in David and Faye Bailey’s The Findings (April 2000). Though one child is extremely precious, there can be a great danger to protecting a single individual. Shutting up rather than strong combattive action can threaten the safety and well-being of a great many children.

There Have Been Threats to Life or Limb

I asked Dr Bhatia whether he thought his near fatal accident where a truck hit him was likely to be the work of those on the nasty side of Sai Baba’s outreach. He replied that he felt that the distance and speed from which the truck came before hitting him did not seem focused enough to have been an assassination attempt. I also asked him to clarify a point that has raised some confusion.

The Abuse Patient Was A Level Seven (Primary School) Boy

It had been repeated – either originating, or worse confounded, in the Bailey’s seminal article that a boy was seven years old when very badly sexually abused by Sathya Sai Baba. Dr Bhatia responded that the boy was not seven but was then in Level 7 at Sai Baba’s school at Puttaparthi. He has also confirmed this to my fellow Australian, Stephen Carthew, long known for his courage and truthfulness not least when trying to reform the Sathya Sai Organisation from within, who visited Dr Bhatia in New Delhi 2000. Stephen, who had made kept this visit to India very secret, wrote to me that:

“I found Dr Bhatia delightful and most welcoming, notwithstanding the bind he is in. His own ambivalence regarding the spiritual nature of his Guru and the pressures coming from many sources to keep quiet make it difficult for him to do more than tell his story when asked. Certainly, he believed he was threatened and harassed during his rushed departure from Puttaparthi, after criticizing Sai Baba to his face.”

Abuse Is Too Cruel At Any Age

I should add that, in essence, abuse of a person is still grievous no matter what the age of a victim. However, amongst Sai Baba apologist documents is the incessant habit of siezing on every mistake or inconsistency or inadvertency in the writings of critics of Sai Baba. Any attempt to point out the actual facts results in, for example, further adversarial displays of nitpicking and obsession with peripherals. There are also cases when responding so as to put the record right would entail releasing information that is sensitive and should be secure. However, to genuine and bona fide investigators, such as leading media and those doing studies with well-accredited tertiary institutions, patently sincere enquirers such as those processing the anguish of leaving Sai Baba, and so on, this constraint is often not present.

Note on the Baileys

The Findings reports the Baileys’ discoveries that Sai Baba is guilty of male sexual molestation, huge financial fraud, faked miracles and other criminal and vastly hypocritical deceptions. David Bailey is a well-known British musician who lectured in Music at Sai Baba’s university in Puttaparthi. Travelling around the world as Sai Baba would direct, he was his highest profile roving ‘ambassador’ among devotees. Sai Baba arranged his marriage with Faye, who had previously been a key worker in the Australian Sathya Sai Organization. Unlike so many of the other leaders who know the truth of the accusations, David and Faye were possessed with a conscience. When they spoke out, they had to endure untold scurrility. It went throughout many countries in the Sathya Sai Organization that David languished in jail on charges of paedophilia. Similar outrages occurred when Conny Larrson, former head of the Swedish organization, spoke out. Those of us who were in touch with them on their private telephones were struck by the fact that they were decidedly free – except from the dastardly slanders of many Sai devotees around the world. As has been the case with a number of those of us formerly connected with Sai Baba’s work, Sai Baba’s male students and others who have come under his sway, David and Faye Bailey have been the repository of many accounts of sexual abuse (not to mention other shocking revelations) by Sai Baba. Against almost unimaginable slander and distortion by his defenders, former devotees in various countries continue the attempt to expose these abuses to the world.

Resources:

Child Abuse. Landmark Indian Government Study
Abuse of Indian children ‘common’
By Geeta Pandey
BBC News, Delhi

The Findings
By David and Faye Bailey (an historic but in various ways a very dated document)

Child Abuse in India. Will Minister Renuka Chowdhury Act?
By Barry Pittard.  Email:  bpittard (at) optusnet.com.au

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Child Abuse in India. Will Minister Renuka Chowdhury Act?

(Renuka, in blue sari, and close business friend)

In the last hours, the BBC and other news services have reported on a major study of child abuse in India. See:
https://barrypittard.wordpress.com/2007/04/11/child-abuse-landmark-indian-government-study/

The BBC report says, 

“Two out of every three children in India are physically abused, according to a landmark Indian government study”

The Manmohan Singh government of India Minister responsible for the release of the report is Renuka Choudhury (also spelt Chowdhury). Before she became Minister for Women and Child Development, Ms Choudhury was Minister for Tourism who worked hard at driving tourism to Sai Baba and Puttaparthi, where he has his main ashram. She  comes from Andhra Pradesh, the same state of India as Sai Baba. Among many other serious accusations, Sai Baba faces worldwide allegations of sexual abuse of boys and young men, implication in police killings in his bedroom on June 6, 1993, and, along with his ashram officials and the Congress Party government of the time (the present Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Party), is accused of a massive cover-up of the scandal.

One of our Indian workers reports dealing closely with Ms Choudhury and briefing her in detail about compelling evidence against Sai Baba. He said that she went to real effort to personally photocopy vital documents our group shared with her and, still further, to go around to the then Opposition leader Mrs Sonia Gandhi’s residence to brief her on them. The rest was silence – which, of course, is the very essence of deep compromise and cover-up.

In her Tourism portfolio, Renuka Chaudhury, in all practical effect, drove large numbers of boys and young males to Sai Baba. This was even though she was in possession of extremely revealing documents (too sensitive to reveal on the Internet) that, among other terrible matters, evidenced years of large-scale, serial sexual molestation by Sai Baba.

How, then, after all, can Mrs Chaudhuri act to rid India of a sexual abuse scourge that implicates such powerful figures as Sathya Sai Baba?  Manmohan Singh and so many members of his political party – and indeed the President of India, Dr Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam – are deeply implicated with Sai Baba. 

Sai Baba is arguably the most powerful and influential guru in India’s history. How could Renuka Chaudhury and her Ministry of Women and Child Development possibly prevail against one who is so incredibly powerful, and one who the BBC has named ‘The Secret Swami’?

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Sai Baba Promised to Transform India. But Child Abuse Rampant

Children vulnerable to abuse during travel, weddings Apr 10, 2007 – 3:49:12 PM

The survey is expected to develop a dependable and comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon of child abuse.

By IANS, [RxPG] New Delhi, April 10 – Almost 50 percent of India’s children aged between 5 and 12 are prone to sexual abuse such as forcible kissing and being made to exhibit their private parts during travel, marriage and other family ceremonies, says the national study on child abuse.The figure reduces to half as soon as they cross into their teens, points out a study conducted by ministry of women and child development, UNICEF and two NGOs,Save the Child and Prayas.The survey among 15,000 children in 13 sample states has come up with disturbing data.While 41.17 percent of children in the 5-12 age group complained of being forcibly kissed, the figure came down to 25.73 percent for the 13-14 years category. Similarly, around 25.86 percent of teenagers reported being forced to exhibit their private parts, but the relevant figure for those below 12 was 35.86 percent.

Around 37.25 percent of the younger age group and 27.61 percent of teenagers were sexually abused during travel. As much as 41.33 percent in the 5-12 category and 25.29 in the 13-14 category reported abuse during marriages and other ceremonies in the family.

According to the study, 53.22 percent of the children surveyed faced one or more forms of sexual abuse while 21.9 percent of them faced severe forms of sexual abuse and 50.76 percent other forms of sexual abuse.

What is worse, the report said, ‘around 70 percent of abused children have never reported the matter to anyone’.

While Assam – topped the list of states where children faced sexual abuse, Andhra Pradesh and Delhi followed closely at 72.83 percent and 72.26 percent. Rajasthan reported the lowest complaints with only 29.36 percent.

The percentage of sexually abused young adults – is also high in Assam at 77.5 percent, followed by Delhi at 69.11 percent. Goa reported the least complaints – 23.01 percent.

‘Every second child reported facing emotional abuse,’ says the report. While 68.26 percent of children in Assam reported being emotionally abused through humiliation, the figure was 58.32 percent for Delhi and 55.67 percent for Madhya Pradesh.

The survey is expected to develop a dependable and comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon of child abuse.

‘It will also facilitate the formulation of appropriate policy and programmes meant to effectively curb and control the menace,’ Women and Child Development Minister Renuka Choudhury said.

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British Labour and Tory Whips Suppressed Motion On Sai Baba

British House of Commons: “Sai Baba and sexual abuse of children” Early Day Motion No. 886 November 2000

In November 2000, a petition signed by over fifty cross party Members of Parliament, was made by Hon. Tony Colman, (then) MP for Putney (Labour):

“That this House, mindful of the many accounts and witness statements of the sexual abuse of the male children of devotees by the Indian guru, Sai Baba, calls upon the Foreign Secretary to use the Travel Advice for India page of the Foreign Office Website to issue guidance to British families intending to visit the Ashram of Sai Baba about the possible danger to their male children of individual audiences with the guru.”

For information about how this Motion was suppressed (primary sources of which can be revealed to responsible media, academic investigators, etc), see my article: ‘Flag Follows Trade. Abetting Indian Government Corruption’ 

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Sai Baba Head Michael Goldstein’s Extreme Statement on 9/11

During the making of the television documentary The Secret Swami, the BBC confirmed but did not use (amid 80+ hours of its investigative film footage, a significant amount shot in the USA) the document in which Sai Baba’s U.S. head – who is now world Chairman of the Sathya Sai Organization, Dr Michael Goldstein of Corvina, southern California – in an email to devotees, made the following statements about 9/11: 

“A number of reports have been received from (Sai Baba) devotees indicating that our Beloved Swami prevented many of his devotees from being injured or killed in the World Trade Center where they are employed or had meetings scheduled. His Miraculous Intervention on behalf of His devotees is clearly evident… They were either late or never arrived…” 

In a public meeting in Buenos Aires, attended by some 1500 Sai Baba devotees, October 20, 2001, Goldstein also said:

“There are many (Sai Baba) devotees that worked in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon… And none of them went to work that day, or they arrived late…all the New York and Washington devotees are safe…”

Too bad for the thousands of non-devotees of Sai Baba who were killed or maimed in those catastrophes, and all who were left behind to grieve – Hindus, Moslems, Buddhists, Jews, Christians, and those of other faiths and of none)!

Further Reading:

The English translation from Spanish of “Gatapado” journal article by a top Argentinean investigative journalist and Azul TV presenter Alejandro Agostinelli is at:  

http://www.saiguru.net/english/media/020201divine_sin.htm

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Bob Bozzani Big Donor To Guru Sai Baba Under Siege

Will this multi-millionaire of Corvino, Southern California, USA, and a high official in the Sathya Sai Organization continue to ignore responsibly-made sexual abuse allegations against Sai Baba by a mother of a then teenage boy? Will he continue to say, as he told his old friend (the late) Glen Meloy, that the allegations are merely “old hat”.

Survivors have a right to tell their stories of abuse – without being assailed or vilified. Or told that their experience was hallucinatory. Or that they are not, in all reality, their body but their supreme soul. Or that they should forget the past and “move on”. Or that God, fully manifest in Sai Baba, has His ways, and who are we to bring Him down to our own level of understanding? Or that they are liars because they may stumble over details of memory – in what, after all, is a terribly confusing, traumatic ordeal.

What more reasonable course of action – one would think – than to turn to presumably responsible officers of their spiritual organization? But Sai Baba and his officials around the world have repeatedly done what they can to suppress the stories. In short, he and top Sathya Sai Organization leaders such as the late Dr John Hislop, Dr Michael Goldstein, Dr William Harvey, Dr John C. Evans, Robert Bozzani, Phyllis Krystal, Indulal Shah, Dr G. Venkataraman, Dr Narendra Reddy, Ashok Bhagani, Steen Piculell, J. Jagadeesan, and many others, have much to answer for – in many cases, from decades back.

After considerable efforts in discussion with former devotees around the world, I can find only one written response by a Sathya Sai Organization official. This was by Dr John C. Evans to a letter that details several major concerns by a former devotee Ella Evers of Eugene, Oregon. She had strenuously sought out direct Sai Baba sex abuse survivor statements and, along with many others in the Sathya Sai Organization of the USA, tried to get Dr Michael Goldstein, Bob Bozzani and other foremost US Sai Baba officials to act responsibly. In his letter to her (August 20, 2000), the then President of the Sathya Sai Organization in America, Dr John C. Evans, totally ignores her points and queries, showing absolute disregard for the terrible suffering she reports. He quotes a saying of Sai Baba:

“If one voices criticism loudly, it will be lost in thin air, if one criticizes within, it goes to one’s own self”.

In other words, the woman should criticize herself, and shut up. (But, then, what would an almost exclusively male-dominated Management know about the rights of a woman to speak up?! And why the preponderance of medical doctors through Sai Baba’s top leadership – wouldn’t one think that they would have some ethical grounding in matters of duty-of-care?).

We have written testimony from the late Glen Meloy about his attempt to alert his old friend Robert Bozzani about a mother’s concerns that her teenage son had been sexually molested by Sai Baba. Bob Bozzani is a Regional President, member of the Sathya Sai Baba Central Council of The United States of America, and Senior Trustee for the Sathya Sai Baba Society of America. Glen Meloy relates that a long-time friend had given him extensive details of her son’s severe and repeated molestation by Sai Baba. She asked him to contact Bozzani, whom he had known for twenty-six years, to discuss a submission from the family and other documentation that had already been sent to Bozzani.  The documentation had first been sent to Meloy, who relates:

“She was confident in her heart that Mr Bozzani and other officials would realize the serious implications involved and subsequently disband the entire organization in the USA. Unfortunately, this would not be the case. When I called Bob, he acknowledged that he had received and read the letter and the testimony from the son … Bob then went on to say that the mistake devotees make is when they try to bring God down to the human level and that was inappropriate because all of us either had to accept him as God or not.”

Here was a high-ranking Sai Baba official, Bozzani, a Sai devotee for over two decades, side-stepping a clear duty-of-care. That is intolerable. Would this lack of responsible process be tolerated in countless workplaces and in institutions civic or religious? Bob Bozzani might pause to think how proper policies and processes relating to sexual abuse and harassment exist in companies such as those in which he has served.

Bob Bozzani is a contributor of millions of dollars to Sai Baba projects – one of them the cancelled multi-million International Sai School in Denmark, which former Sai Baba devotee efforts exposed to the Danish government, municipal authorities and the public via television, radio and newspapers. On January 30, 2002, Danish Broadcasting aired Øjvind Kyrø’s 54-minute documentary on the Sai Baba Exposé, ‘Seduced’, with a number of repeats. It was released elsewhere, including Australia where the multi-cultural national broadcaster SBS resisted threats of litigation by T. Sri Ramanathan, then head of the Sathya Sai Organization. SBS screened the documentary, retitling it ‘Seduced by Sai Baba’. Reportedly, Robert Bozzani donated $US 6 million for the International Sai School project, but amidst good old-fashioned Danish community outrage, the sale to Sai Baba officials of the famous castle Arresødal in a fashionable suburb of Copenhagen was cancelled.  Bozzani’s close colleagues Thorbjörn Meyer, Central Co-coordinator for Europe, and the Danish businessman Jørgen Trygved, who was chairman of the ‘Sai international school’ fund board, failed. To expensively no purpose, they had retained the topmost litigation lawyers in Denmark in repeated litigation actions against Danish Broadcasting.

Robert Bozzani’s directorship on the Sathya Sai Society of America is all the more noteworthy when one considers that he is one of those whom Alaya Rahm – who has given an account of being sexually abused many times when in his teens by Sai Baba – tried to litigate against in 2006. At this time Rahm’s pro bono – yes, is pro bono worth the non-cost?! – lawyer, William Brelsford of southern California, in my view seriously failed to foresee a number of problems among which was that concerning whom or what entity to sue. In what looks to have been all too late in the piece, Brelsford, after the court had proceeded uncomfortably far with scarcely any, much less adversarial client representation, advised his client to proceed no further – indeed on terms crassly unfavourable to Alaya Rahm that have been gravely criticized by other lawyers.

We hold evidence (but withhold the individual’s details) that Sai Baba had genitally ‘oiled’ a close member of Bozzani’s family. Let those Sai devotees whom we learn are starting to raise questions, and attempting to reform the Sathya Sai Organization from within, ask Bozzani about these matters. Why – given that others have approached him for guidance and assistance – has he concealed the evidence that a sexual offence has occurred within his own family? The Indian law does not allow Sai Baba or anyone else, except doctors in appropriate clinical circumstances, to touch a person’s genitals without their mature-age and responsible consent. Let Sai devotee rank-and-file members ask Robert Bozzani:

1. Given that the allegation is true, what age was your family member when the event occurred?
2. And what was the age of that boy mentioned by Glen Meloy whose mother turned to you? Was it not 15 years old when the offences alleged occurred?
3. Was it true that many devotees knew Glen Meloy to be an immensely supportive decent and honorable person?
4. Is it the case that Glen Meloy turned to you on behalf of the woman and her son and you did nothing by way of support?
5. What is your conception of the notion:  Duty-of-care?
6. Have not those who have come to you and your fellow leaders with their accounts been in a state of terrible suffering, and did you and the leadership cut yourselves off from them?
7. Where do you stand in regard to Mandatory Reporting of allegations of sexual abuse?
8. Have you all along concealed from the members of the Sathya Sai Organization the good standing, both within the Sai Baba and the wider community, of various individuals and families who have come to you and your leadership colleagues with serious accounts that Sai Baba has touched the genitals, and indeed in some cases done things like getting boys and young men to suck his penis – in short, doing what the centermost laws and cultural-ethical mores of many countries unambiguously forbid?
9. Do you see that rank-and-file members Sathya Sai Organization have a right to information that would allow them to make their own minds up about whether to allow their male children to travel to Sai Baba and, in some cases, allow them to be students in his colleges?
10. Did you read, as stated by Glen Meloy, highly detailed, specific documentation from a family well known and respected by many Sai devotees, especially in southern California, for their devotion to Sai Baba?

Refusal to have proper mechanisms in place for the hearing of complaints has put the Sai Organization light years behind today’s demand for accountability. On April 3, 2003, the then Australian head of the Sathya Sai Organisation of Australia, T. Sri Ramanathan, phoned to threaten dire legal consequences for me (he was all bluff and bullying, of course) if I did not “cease and desist”. I suggested that any organisation, including his, is wise to have a workable complaints mechanism, otherwise unaddressed grievances are bound to create problems. He said I was “clouding the issue” and that the only issue was “Swami’s glory”. There was no need, he said, for such a mechanism in the Sathya Sai Organisation, which is “special and different to any other organisation.” It was, he said, “a divine organisation”.

But survivors of abuse will not share their stories with people like Bob Bozzani and others who hide behind smoke screens and do not show them love, respect and understanding – or at least some degree of professionalism.

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