Sai Baba 80 or 81 Still in the eye of the storm

The report “The Indian living god, the paedophilia claims and the Duke of Edinburgh awards” by Paul Lewis in The Guardian of November 4, 2006 is very important. Let me congratulate Paul Lewis, and all those who were responsible in getting this out.I shall not go into the report as such. That can be read online. All the same it is important to draw attention to its sub-titles “Sexual abuse accusations against group's leader”; “80th birthday invitation to hundreds of youngsters”.

The report starts with the following news:

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.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.

About 200 young people will fly to India in two weeks' time on a humanitarian pilgrimage run by Sai Youth UK, a division of the Sri Sathya Sai Organisation. The teenagers and young men earn their Duke of Edinburgh awards for humanitarian work, chiefly distributing medical aid.The trip coincides with Sai Baba's 80th birthday and has been arranged, organisers say, after he gave a divine commandment for the UK's Sai youth movement to visit him for the occasion.Later it adds:

Large numbers of young men have travelled from across the world to study alongside and meet the guru. His supporters say their encounter was spiritually enriching. Others, including participants in a BBC programme, The Secret Swami, two years ago, accuse him of abuse, claiming he massaged their testicles with oil and coerced them into oral sex.

The report will certainly help in severing the connection of the UK charity foundation, and making readers sit up and think. But there are larger issues which only sociologists, non-believers and those engaged in critical thinking can address.

The first is why India continues to be a land of cults and cultism. This is mainly because of the Westerners reaching India in search of the exotic and instant bliss or nirvana. It is they who make or break fake godmen like Sai Baba; for many Indians despite their obscurantism and superstitions do not have the kind of money the Westerners have to anoint the Babas and usher them into extravagant ashrams in developed countries.The report adds:

Sai Baba has never been charged over the sex abuse allegations. However, the US State Department issued a travel warning after reports of "inappropriate sexual behaviour by a prominent local religious leader" which, officials later confirmed was a reference to Sai Baba.In India cases of sex abuse, etc., against those through whom the gullible seek bliss have started emerging only recently.

The reasons are not far to seek: India is a land of eroticism as I have shown in one of my blogs; India’s legal system has a long way to go in addressing issues of justice and fairness in the country; and as I know except for some rare cases sexual issues have not figured prominently notwithstanding the fact that there are any number of sex abuses in the country; what is worse, the so-called high-profile godmen enjoy a lot of political patronage.

Though there was an attempt on Sai Baba’s life a few years ago the media did not come out with a detailed report.The Guardian’s expose of Sai Baba, though important, is probably one of the several exposes.

When late Dr. H. Narasimhaiah, Vice-Chancellor of Bangalore University constituted a committee on rationalism and took on Sai Baba about three decades ago, The Indian Express proprietor, Ramnath Goenka was the first to defend Sai Baba, glorify him as an avatar of Krishna, and ridicule Narasimhaiah’s rationalism using the front page of the newspaper.If Babas thrive in India and abroad and people throng them it is important to go into the reasons. With the advent of ICT and the related cyber-spirituality, it has become even more difficult to do away with bliss-peddlers.

Last year websites of a number of Indian newspapers were full of advertisements on Sai Baba. When these advertisements appear even on the website of a supposedly credible newspaper like The Hindu people are swayed more by impressions, images and visuals than by reason.To Sai Baba’s list one has to add other bliss-peddlers like Kalki and Ravi Shankar. The role of the Indian media has been in deifying them rather than exposing them as charlatans.I have dealt with these issues in my article Religion under Globalization, which is reproduced with additional information in my latest book Religion, Caste and State.

(C) Author