6 August 2012 Kerala Commentary
Ashrams are not all clean. Death of a brilliant Bihari boy in Kerala.
P.S.Remesh Chandran.
Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum.
News reports coming out daily and published in news papers indicate that people attached to ashrams and other religious centres are equally atrocious and wicked as people outside these establishments. Fill up the blanks in this news and a new universal picture will emerge. If someone goes to this kind of an institution said to be dispensing holiness and conducts some kind of attack there, either on person or on building, according to available press reports, he would not be treated as a flower. Instead he would be brutally beaten by the followers of that cult, crushed to his almost death and thrown out, got arrested by police and possibly sent and shut in in an asylum. That is the natural course of action everywhere and there is no need or occasion to believe otherwise. Satya Sai Baba is considered, and in fact is founder of the largest free hospital in Asia and need be respected at least for that single achievement. He was the person who provided the greatest number of persons in the dry South India with free water. He was a real holy man anyway. But even his ashram witnessed violence, blood and death. The supposedly divine person referred to in this news also is famous for running a very large and good hospital in Ernakulam in Kerala though not free. Since this person is not living alone and is surrounded by a parasitic retinue, it cannot be said that her dependents are alien to brutal resistance to hostile intruders. It has to be assumed that the first beatings were given by a few disciples who get free food and lodging, parasites common to any ashrams in the world and skilled to attack without leaving visible marks. A few years back, when government raided the famous Sivagiri ashram in Varkkala, most of the people housed there then were revealed to be terrorists, anti-national elements and criminals. We cannot blame Narayana Guru, Satya Sai Baba or the Mother mentioned here for anything like this. It happens, and it is these criminals, disguised as disciples and speaking fluent English, with beautifully trimmed moustaches and well-tailored flowing robes, who order beating, suppression of evidence, telephoning very important persons requesting help, becoming successful in getting the intruder arrested and admitted in asylums and finally eliminating enemies ingeniously and framing charges on wrong persons or institutions. Did anything the like happened in this ashram? Why did this educated young boy from Bihar go to that place in the first place? Is he the tip of an iceberg? Will we have to see a few criminal disciples being prosecuted for stories not yet unfolded? There are thousands of incidents like this reported from ashrams in India which were considered till then as abodes of tranquillity and peace. We can mention dozens of criminal names associated with ashrams, reported to us by news media in the last two or three years. There is no holiness in killing. In the modern day India hospitals do not kill but ashrams do.
9 Aug 2012 Kerala Commentary
Latest news reports suggest that this young man was beaten everywhere, in the ashram, in the police station, in the jail and in the hospital. Now every reporter, news paper, television channel and government officer wish to establish that the ashram, police station and the jail were clean and the mental hospital was the only rogue institution which caused the death of this helpless young man. People’s comments in various news articles in this matter point out a few things. Sathnam Singh had been living in the ashram for nearly one month, which fact the news media was very reluctant to report, a fact which alone would have enlightened on the reason for his leaving his native state Bihar, going to Kerala and staying in an ashram. Was this intelligent young man after some investigation? Did he actually come across some information on the possibility of some danger to the mother? Even if he was a little mentally disturbed, it will not diminish his intelligence but would only magnify and sharpen it. If he had been mentally disturbed, it would have been noted by ashram authorities and he got admitted in a hospital far earlier. If people like Mr. MD. Ismail from Johannesburg who claims that he was present at the ashram then can be believed, Singh rushed to the spiritual leaders’ seat without any weapon in his body, and according to his supposed words, was trying to protect the leader from some kind of imminent harm. If what he said was true, what might have been the harm that would have come to the leader? Let us all remember the shameful, ugly and horrible fight over the assets of the venerable Satya Sai ashram after his passing away. No ashram which is having immense assets in India and abroad is free from future man-taking and fight for wealth. This particular ashram also has immense wealth, notably a famous medical college and hospital where securing a single medical seat allegedly costs one crore rupees. It also possesses a famous television channel with a very good turn over besides many other hospitals, schools and charity institutions. If something happens to mother, the fight over these assets would be the ugliest Kerala has ever seen in its history. Who the leading fighters for the assets would be needn’t be wondered about. Their faces are daily being shown in television news now since the young man’s death. Like Oswald’s shooting minutes after President Kennedy’s shooting to avoid trial and to prevent ugly things from coming out as someone commented, why can’t this also be a similar incident, considering the value of the assets involved? Who will believe that the enormous influence of a lucrative medical school and television channel does not shape the course actions are following? Are people with schematic brains and thoughts, with looks at immense fortunes and with looks of innocent saints, actually playing god, dispensing life and death? It is time the security of this mother be tripled by the state authorities.