Sathya Sai Baba Cult Fails To Win British Royalty

Read of the Sathya Sai Organization’s failed attempts to associate its image with British Royalty. See also this series of links detailing the organization’s nexus with political forces in the UK facing grave allegations of corruption:  

 

 U.K. Exposure: Sathya Sai Global Cult’s Political Failure

Posted by Barry Pittard on January 7, 2010

 

Some Resources 

 

 A Duke Stops An Emperor. Edinburgh Routs Sai Baba

“Officials of The Duke of Edinburgh Awards and Buckingham Palace were upset by the boasting of those such as Dr G. Venkataraman and Shitu Chudasama about the Award connections. (Dr. G. Venkataraman is Sai Baba’s deputy world head, who also directs Sai Baba’s international 7 days 24 hours propaganda satellite radio service via the WorldSpace International corporation. Shitu Chudasama is the UK Sai Baba national youth coordinator”

UK Guardian On Sathya Sai Baba and Duke’s Awards

 

“Paul Lewis of The Guardian exposed links between India’s most famous and controversial guru, Sathya Sai Baba, and the Duke of Edinburgh Awards. Palace officials, after a slow start, demanded that Sai Baba’s officials take down incorrect information, and the Palace distanced itself from Sathya Sai Baba and his movement”

Sai Baba God Incarnate needs Duke of Edinburgh endorsement?

Sathya Sai Baba lack of awards (Robert Priddy at http://robertpriddy.wordpress.com)

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Prince Edward’s Visit to India

 

Note: Because of massive formal and informal exposure of Sathya Sai Baba and his cult, the international Sathya Sai Organization has had to face major problems of maintaining the organization. We have documented some of its efforts to exploit the British Royal Family, as in the case of the Duke of Edinburgh affair. Much earlier to this, we were, via British Government authorities, able to prevent a meeting between Tony Blair (and his wife) when he was Prime Minister and Sai Baba, at Whitefield, via Bangalore, South India.

 

Although Sai Baba has for decades said that there should be no recruitment and advertizing, since the watershed period circa 2ooo, there have been many attempts to keep the organization afloat. I have written of some of these attempts in the article: 

 

Buckingham Palace Revisited. Are Wily Sathya Sai Baba Emissaries Again Seeking British Royal Approval?

“Will Realpolitik-bent British Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Indian Government exploit Prince Edwards Visit To India? What may Prince Edward’s visit to India portend for Sathya Sai Baba interests? Will there be, again, attempts by his top associates to exploit the British Royal Family for propaganda purposes”?

Tony Blair Was to Visit Sai Baba. Plan Thwarted

 

Indian Media’s Reticence on Top Guru, Sathya Sai Baba, Weakens

 

  

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://www.rfjvds.dds.nl/ex-baba/~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

By Robert Priddy: 

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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 Indian living god, The paedophilia claims and the Duke of Edinburgh awards by Paul Lewis, The Guardian, UK

“A spiritual group whose “living god” founder has been accused of sexually abusing young boys has become an accredited partner of the Duke of Edinburgh award scheme, the Guardian can reveal.
Last night pressure was mounting on the charity to break its links with the group whose followers are devoted to the preachings of 79-year-old holy man, Sai Baba”.

 

When Indian Media Coat Tails Foreign Media. Did Freedom Happen?

Leaving aside, of course, the occasional exception like the mass circulation magazine India Today, when it acted on submissions from networked former devotees in a number of countries, we have not had much joy from the Indian media.  See: 

Exposure of Sathya Sai Baba. Media Source List 

A further breakthrough of sorts occurred when the Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) likewise took seriously our work in regard to the Duke of Edinburgh Awards-Sathya Sai Baba connection.  See:

A Duke Stops An Emperor. Edinburgh Routs Sai Baba

Would that IANS had been on the scene when the range and penetration of its services might have got more news to India of the BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’ (2004). Its own self-perception is that it is: “an independent and integrated media company with no affiliation with any major business house, political or ideological group”. And that it breaks “through the often cliched and stereotyped reporting about India with objective and unbiased news, views and analyses that portray the country, and the region, in a global perspective”.

IANS certainly broke through to many Indian media that had long refused to run with our stories in regard to the Sai Baba cult (whether Indian or international).

Overseas Indians (NRI’s) Can Get News Strongly Suppressed In Indian Media

The situation has long been fraught with irony. We have been able to get so many major quality international media interested in our accounts, while India maintained a steep wall of censorship, so that non-resident Indians (NRI’s) around the world were able to access other points of view about Sathya Sai Baba, and their kindred in India were not .

It scarcely reflects well on an Indian media that only when, for example, a major newspaper like The Guardian ran Paul Lewis’s story The Indian living god, the paedophilia claims and the Duke of Edinburgh awards that there was a response. One had thought a modicum of self-respect had been gained as a result of India’s struggle for freedom.

But, then, we know that royalty sells. Just like sex. Perhaps it was simply an unbeatable combination.

The British Empire fell. But will that of Sathya Sai Baba? See:

The Decline and Fall of the Showman Empire

A Top Indian Editor Says:  Sai Baba Too Powerful To Take On

Like media barons anywhere, Indian media proprietors frequently have the sharpest eye for sales.  This factor is more pronounced in developing countries like India, where corruption and lack of proper regulation are so rife.   An editor of one of India’s top handful of newspapers, who knew of my work, told me privately that Sathya Sai Baba and his people were far too powerful to do anything about. Indeed, his own newspaper had Sai Baba people in plenteous supply from top to bottom, including a Sai Baba power wielder. Of course, he might just as easily have named not a few other powerfully influential gurus to whom the power brokers of India have so chronically and for so long run. Travel anywhere in India and you find, when you get into frank conversation, that many Indians despair of the grip of these endemic, nepotistic, quite often overtly or covertly caste-ridden power blocs. See:

CNN-IBN Reports Action On Corrupt Indian Gurus

Super Cool Indian Gurus Under Fire

Indian Gurus Stifle India’s Chance To Excel

India A Mature Democracy? BBC Probes

Tony Blair Was to Visit Sai Baba. Blair Canceled

To see how a government in Great Britain, not to mention other countries – in the turning of diplomatic blind eyes – cede to corrupt absurdities within India, see articles below:   

Nonetheless, it was possible for well-wishers of our movement of exposure to get Tony Blair cancel his visit to see Sathya Sai Baba at his Whitefield (near Bangalore). See: 

Flag Follows Trade Abetting Indian Government Corruption

British Labour and Tory Whips Suppressed Motion On Sai Baba

Tony Blair Was to Visit Sai Baba. Plan Thwarted

Ashok Bhagani – Footsying With Top Blair Minister?

 

UK Guardian On Sathya Sai Baba and Duke’s Awards

Directly after the November 2006 article in The Guardian (UK), The Indian living god, The paedophilia claims and the Duke of Edinburgh awards by Paul Lewis, an historic Indian media feed seachange started to happen.

Paul Lewis article in The Guardian (UK) Exposed links with Duke of Edinburgh Awards

There were many successful IANS (Indo-Asian News Service) feeds to Indian media (and a few overseas) which referred to this article, with some added input from IANS Staffer Sudeshna Sarkar who followed up on the story, and filed from London. (See Resources, below).

HRH The Duke of Edinburgh

His Royal Highness’s officials had to act on top of a ‘politically’ not very experienced or competent UK Duke of Edinburgh Awards CEO, Peter Westgarth – see HERE. They were slow off the mark. However, after very high level representations from our side, the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme trustees and Prince Philip’s Private Secretary, Brigadier Sir Miles Hunt-Davies KCVO, CBE,

realized that a serious matter was at hand. Questions were also raised by some powerful citizens, including a former Home Minister, Tom Sackville. The Duke of Edinburgh Awards required of Dr G. Venkataraman, head of Sathya Sai Baba’s international propaganda apparatus and deputy world chairman of the Sathya Sai Organization, that an official Sai Baba website take down the triumphant – but absurdly mistaken – information that the Duke of Edinburgh Award had been awarded to Sai Baba himself. Venkataraman complied.

Guardian Article and IANS News Agency Feed Loosen Indian Media Censorship on Sathya Sai Baba

This IANS feed broke decades’-long silence from from an Indian press which (with a rare notable exception such as India Today in December 2000) almost exclusively has censored news adverse to the extraordinarily powerful and influential Sathya Sai Baba. The Telangana separatist issue, in which vast conflicting interests were involved, was the next blow to Sai Baba’s virtual immunity to criticism in the Indian media. He spoke publicly about this hot topic, whereas in years past he has avoided comments concerning political issues. Why, after all, would he want to alienate huge number of followers who have many political suasions? More recently, however, he has been making increasing errors of judgement. See Sathya Sai Baba Continues To Ail

Sathya Sai Baba’s Promise of Moon Darshan Fails

This marked media change was yet again seen in early October 2007 in the wide Indian press coverage of reports that Sathya Sai Baba had promised a great divine miracle, subsequently cancelled when clouds appeared, in which thousands of his devotees gathered at his private airport, creating terrible traffic snarls and potential danger to human life and limb. This immediately followed an announcement in the evening via his close aide and chief translator Professor Anil Kumar, that Sai Baba would miraculously show the universal form of God (or vishwarupa darshanam) in the moon. But both Sai Baba’s own vision AND the moon itself that night were clouded over! (Sai Baba’s gesture, though unfulfilled, is redolent of the type of vision Sri Krishna gave to his chief disciple Arjuna as recorded in the Bhagavad Gita).

Again, it was the upstart news agency IANS which was aggressive in getting its feeds accepted in India.

Significantly:

• Many NRI’s (non-resident Indians) freely are able to read news and views highly critical of Sai Baba in other countries around the world. A mere glance at the dozens of overseas media that have carried articles adverse to Sathya Sai Baba gives an idea of how exposing it is for Indian media that has normally imposed a heavy blanket on information critical of him
• New generational influences are arising in Indian media far more inclined to secularism, and that what with the arrival of a rising ‘star’ news agency like IANS, Satha Sai Baba and his semi-feudal, ancien régime servitors and minders now face some tough challenges. New generations of movers and shakers are gradually emerging out of the grip of the gradually fading, but still rife, gerontocracy of the Indian power echelons.

Resources

The Indian living god, the paedophilia claims and the Duke of Edinburgh awards

Paul Lewis, UK Guardian. Saturday November 04 2006. Page 3 of the Top section.

“Tom Sackville, a former Home Office minister and chairman of Fair, a cult-watching and victim support group, said: “It is appallingly naive for the award scheme to involve young people and the royal family with an organisation whose leader is accused of paedophilia.

‘Parents who plan to send their children on this month’s pilgrimage … should be aware of the danger their children are being exposed to.'”

A Duke Stops An Emperor. Edinburgh Routs Sai Baba

“Officials of The Duke of Edinburgh Awards and Buckingham Palace were upset by the boasting of those such as Dr G. Venkataraman and about the Award connections. (Dr. G. Venkataraman is Sai Baba’s deputy world head, who also directs Sai Baba’s international 7 days 24 hours propaganda satellite radio service via the WorldSpace International corporation. See Shitu Chudasama HERE. Shitu Chudasama is the UK Sai Baba national youth coordinator”.

TRS students wing attack Satya Sai temple over Telangana issue

“While addressing a gathering of devotees at his ashram in Puttaparthi in Anantapur district yesterday, Sai Baba had opposed the division of the state and said overall development was possible only if the state remained united.

The TRS leaders condemned his remarks and demanded his apology for hurting the sentiments of Telangana people”.

Sai Baba To Be Seen In Moon? But Where Was Moon?

“It is interesting that so many devotees have assumed that the vision apparently promised by Sai Baba via his chief translator and close servitor Professor Anil Kumar to many thousands of devotees gathered at his Puttaparthi ashram would entail seeing the form of Sai Baba on the moon. If they had consulted their timeless sacred classic, Bhagavad Gita, Chapter 11, they might have recalled that the vision granted by Sri Krishna to Lord Arjuna (vishwarupa or vishvarupa darshana) was of a very different character. It was not the form of Sri Krishna -who was right beside him! – but a cosmic vision of enormous range and depth”.

Further articles at https://barrypittard.wordpress.com on the moon darshan issue

Sai Baba Fails To Appear In Moon, IANS Reports

‘Moon Mission of Sathya Sai Baba’. Re Merinews Article

Sai Baba Fails To Grant Great Moon Vision. Endangers Crowds

Is Indian ‘Godman’ Sai Baba’s Moon Waning Still Further?

Robert Priddy writes on Moon darshan issue at http://robertpriddy.wordpress.com

Hundreds see Sai Baba on the moon

Sai Baba appearances on the moon

Sai moon miracle again

Sai Baba on the Moon videos

Long-awaited photo of Sai Baba in the moon

Sai Baba on the Moon – photo for his birthday?

Deceiving ‘devotee’ makes bogus image of Sai in the Moon

Oops! Apparently Sai Baba DID appear on the moon?

More Sathya Sai Baba Moon Madness

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Further Resources

The Sathya Sai Organisation’s Deception and Propaganda Exposed – by Robert Priddy and Barry Pittard. Part One Part Two Part Three

Petition For Official Investigation Into Sathya Sai Baba Cult (Article on)

Some prominent ex-devotees of Sathya Sai Baba

Posted by robertpriddy on June 28, 2009

Witnesses (An alphabetical list linked to testimonies)

Puttaparthi and Misconduct of Sathya Sai Baba’s Officials

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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

 Subscribe to Call for media and government investigation of Sathya Sai Baba

Subscribe in a reader

A Duke Stops An Emperor. Edinburgh Routs Sai Baba

HRH The Duke of Edinburgh is pictured before and after his harrowing linking with Sathya Sai Baba

It is intriguing to find that a mere Duke can stop an Emperor in his tracks.

To their considerable cost, the “secret swami” – as the BBC (see HERE for video footage and other important links) has called India’s and the world’s would-be Emperor Sai Baba, the core leaders of the Sathya Sai Organization know too well the stark factuality of the following.  Rank-and-file members cannot be expected to be told the facts. (The details below, including sharing some direct sources, I shall confirm for well-reputed, bona fide investigators, such as media and academics or their supervised thesis students):

1. Officials of The Duke of Edinburgh Awards and Buckingham Palace were upset by the boasting of those such as Dr G. Venkataraman and Shitu Chudasama about the Award connections. (Dr. G. Venkataraman is Sai Baba’s deputy world head, who also directs Sai Baba’s international 7 days 24 hours propaganda satellite radio service via the WorldSpace International corporation. See HERE. Shitu Chudasama is the UK Sai Baba national youth coordinator.
2. Superiors to Peter Westgarth, the Director of the Duke of Edinburgh Awards, were of the view that he lacked, in this issue, both judgement and experience
3. When matters were finally taken in hand, both Awards and Palace dropped connection with the Sathya Sai Organization
4.  The official, Puttaparthi website – that is to say, a Sai Baba website senior to all other Sai Organization websites – was asked by the Royal authorities to take down the embarrassing and untrue material. The request was promptly complied with
5. Advice was received from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, with a view to both avoiding any blowbacks in Anglo-Indian relations and further embarrassment to the Royal Family. The advice was:  drop them but not publicly.

6. Legal advice was also canvassed

Click on Link to see related story by Paul Lewis in The Guardian – The Indian living god, the paedophilia claims and the Duke of Edinburgh awards

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