Sai Baba’s Mission: Words and Facts
by Serguei Badaev
Date 10-07-02
Document date: 08-07-02
Copied from: http://www.saiguru.net/english/conclusions/commentaries-Serguei.htm
A lot
of people who consider themselves the followers of Sathya Sai Baba have some
special expectations connected with him. These are expectations of a new era
of “Golden Age”, an age of justice,
peace, love and righteousness. According to Hindu views this Golden Age is
going to come after quite a dark age of wars and moral decline that we are
living in now and that is called Kali Yuga.
Proclaiming his mission of Dharmasthapana, that is the restoration of
righteousness on earth, Sai Baba has repeatedly emphasized that his main
concern is to improve the situation in
Though Sai Baba proclaimed his mission as early as in 1940, it is still unclear
what time intervals are implied, when we can expect the coming of the Golden
Age of peace and prosperity. Sometimes Sai Baba mentions some changes for the
better but his words are often rather vague and simply contradict each other.
Below there are a number of statements by Sai Baba written down by his ardent
American follower J.Hislop and published in his books.
(1) (J.Hislop. Conversations with Bhagavan Sri Sathya
Sai Baba. SSSBB&PT,
Hislop: Swami, these young college students who are in
Swami’s college here, they have a first-class external education - highest
examination scores and so on. And they are also building an inner character of
strong morality. Will not these students become the leaders of
Sai: That is the purpose of Swami’s college.
Hislop: Then in 20 or 30 years we should look for a
great change in the Indian nation.
Sai: Twenty years? In ten years.
Hislop: But Swami, in 10 years they are still in their
late twenties. People come to power in the late thirties, in their 40’s and 50’s.
Sai: In
(This conversation took place between 1968 and 1978)
(2) (J.Hislop. Conversations with Bhagavan Sri Sathya
Sai Baba. SSSBB&PT,
Sai: Countries are like carriages. The engine is God.
The first carriage is
According to the astrology of ancient times, the change
in world conditions to be brought by Swami’s influence will come in about 15
years (this conversation was in December 1968). This was predicted 5600 years
ago in the Upanishads. The coming of Baba, the Sai Avatar, which includes the
three incarnations is all forecast quite clearly. People born in this present
generation may consider themselves quite fortunate.
(3) (J.Hislop. My Baba and I. SSSB&PT,
SAI: Crime has become very bad in
JOHN HISLOP: Swami, this is not particular to
all over the world. How will it end?
SAI: To the good. In a few years, all will be
peaceful.
JH: But Swami, it is getting worse, and it is the Kali
Yuga (a world
period of diminishing virtue).
SAI: No. It is not as bad now as it was. It is like in
the ocean. There
is a time of high waves, and there may be some peak
waves that crash
heavily on the shore, but this is followed by a calm
and peaceful sea.
[…]
JH: We are fortunate to be alive so that we may see
this peaceful world.
SAI: You will all see it. Even the old men will live
to see it.
(Interview of 1978)
(4) (J.Hislop. My Baba and I. SSSB&PT,
SAI: In all countries there is a rapid deterioration
of the human quality.
JOHN HISLOP: When will it change for the better?
SAI: Soon there will be a change.
JH: When is soon, Swami? Twenty years? Ten years?
SAI: No. Now. Already there is some slight improvement
in India. One
cause of the general deterioration in the world is
rapid communication.
This allows advertising and publicity to have a strong
influence on
people. Your American election is an illustration of
how the leaders are
television actors.
JH: Swami, there is no evidence of a change for the
better.
SAI: If there is a change, it will be a universal
change. Not local. It
will occur every place.
(Interview of 1980)
Those changes which Sai Baba talks about and which are expected by his
followers obviously have to be reflected in social and economic indicators of
India, if they are really taking place or have happened already. If they are
going on and not complete yet there should be at least a visible trend, some
dynamics that in comparison with other countries will imply a presence of a
powerful systemic factor influencing all spheres of Indian life. Taking into
account all the above-mentioned, I felt confused that the world media which
recognised a long time ago an effect of economical miracle in some countries of
the third world have not been able to recognise any serious changes or unusual
trends in the development of India.
I
decided to analyse international statistics to clarify this question. For
comparison I have taken such countries as Pakistan and Bangladesh, which are
historical and cultural neighbours of India, as well as another country from a
different region (Indonesia), which is among the 10 countries with the most
numerous population and geographically quite close to India. Sampling these
countries I have used very general considerations and my intuition (as I am not
an economist) so I think my choice of these countries might be disputable. I
could find data only for the period of 1970-1988. So those who are interested
in continuing this analysis up to the present time should launch their own
inquiry. Only in the case of literacy was I able to find data up to 2000
published by UNESCO.
Among
economic indicators I have chosen a GDP (Gross Domestic Product) per person. This
reflects economic standard of life in a society. In India this indicator is
very low. In 1988 it was 335 USD per person, and in a world list of countries
India occupied 121st position after Pakistan and Indonesia. For recent years no
trend demonstrating a possibility of any economic miracle has been detected
yet.
The
next important indicator is military expenditure. This indicator, especially
for developing countries, reflects the moral maturity of a society and its
relationships with neighbours. Military expenditure is a part of GDP that
otherwise could be spent on social programmes. In India it is about 3% of GDP
and in 1988 was 8.2 billion USD. Apparently, this expenditure is partly
explained by military opposition to Pakistan. All these years India kept a big
army (1,362, 000 people in active service in 1988) that was about three times
as big as the Pakistan army (481,000).
Another
indicator is population. The demographic problem is very acute in India. The
rate of growth of population in India and Indonesia is very similar (from 1970
to 1988 - 148% and 147% correspondingly), but many socio-economic indicators of
Indonesia are much better than their counterparts in India.
An
indicator which reflects the cultural development of a country is its level of
illiteracy. Although in all countries presented in the table the level of
illiteracy was diminishing over these years, only Indonesia managed to decrease
the level of illiteracy from 27.4 million in 1970 to 19.2 million in
The
last indicator is the infant mortality rate, that is the number of infants who
died during their first year per 1000 born in that year. This indicator reflects
the state of medical care and women’s status in society. In India the figure
was very high and even in 1988 it was 98 infants per thousand. Every person who
has ever visited India has been able to notice that questions of sanitation and
hygiene have still not been solved. It is worth noting that this indicator for
countries presented in the table correlates very well with GDP per person, that
is, the higher GDP per person, the lower infant mortality rate.
Statistical data are taken from “Comparative World Data” by G.P.Muller. John Hopkins Univ. Press, 1988. For year 1988 data are taken from “Economist Book of Vital Statistics”, Times Book, 1990. Illiteracy data are taken from www.unesco.org.
|
Indicator |
Years |
India |
Pakistan |
Bangladesh |
Indonesia |
|
GDP/person (USD) |
1970 1975 1980 1988* |
206$ 214$ 229$ 335$ |
- 253$ 293$ 384$ |
- 121$ 138$ 179$ |
270$ 350$ 460$ 473$ |
|
Military expenditure (billions USD) |
1970 1975 1980 1988* |
3,243 4,137 4,453 8,247 |
- 1,202 1,412 2,649 |
- 0,077 0,179 - |
- 2,259 2,084 - |
|
Military Man-Power (thousands in active duty) |
1970 1975 1980 1988* |
1550 1670 1104 1362 |
390 502 467 481 |
- 100 71 102 |
358 260 250 284 |
|
Population (millions) |
1970 1975 1980 1988* |
539,08 600,76 663,60 796,60 |
56,47 70,90 82,14 105,41 |
69,77 78,96 88,68 104,53 |
119,47 135,67 150,96 174,95 |
|
Indicator |
Years |
India |
Pakistan |
Bangladesh |
Indonesia |
|
Illiteracy Rate % (millions) |
1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 |
59,1 (250,6) 55,3(265,8) 51,5(279,0) 47,9(289,5) 44,2(299,3) |
72,1(34,2) 68,5(39,6) 64,5(43,9) 60,6(47,3) 56,7(51,7) |
70,7(33,7) 68,0(36,4) 65,2(39,8) 62,2(44,3) 59,2(49,6) |
30,7(27,4) 25,2(25,9) 18,4(21,7) 16,3(21,6) 13,0(19,2) |
|
Infant mortality rate (per 1000 children aged under a year) |
1980 1988* |
129.1 98 |
131.2 108 |
139.6 118 |
98.7 84 |
Conclusions
Despite the fact that India, as it is believed by Sathya Sai Baba’s followers, since 1940 has been under supervision of Sai Baba, Kali Yuga Avatar, who has been successfully conducting his mission there, it has not had any distinct influence on those socio-economic parameters which are internationally considered as indicators of standard of living and prosperity in a society. In contrast with the low level of economic and social development India spent huge sums of money on military programmes, including expenditures on creating and testing nuclear weapons which Pakistan possesses as well.
From a social point of view India can be considered as a country with a high percentage of illiterate population, and a far from satisfactory level of medical care, sanitation and hygiene, which accountable for such problems in the country as leprosy, regular cholera outbreaks, people dying of starvation and water deprivation. The moral and cultural problems of India are also quite acute. They are: the remnants of the caste system, discrimination against women and corruption that has infected all levels of Indian society. For example, the former Prime minister of India N. Rao, who is a follower of Sai Baba, has been accused of corruption and is now in prison.
When faced with these statistical data, it is very hard to guess that the spiritual, social and economic development of India has been guided for several decades by the Divine Will of the Avatar, i.e. the Divine embodied in a human form. It is especially hard if we take into account that other countries - in our analysis, Indonesia - manage to deal with those problems much more successfully without claiming such Divine guidance.
So, it is extremely difficult to see any beneficial influence of Sai Baba on Indian society in general or are we to assume that it is going on somewhere on a subtle plane and has not been manifesting itself yet in thoughts, words and deeds for India’s inhabitants. Therefore, if we can’t see any signs of distinctive improvement in the social and economic life of India from 1970 till 1988 as a result of Sai Baba’s mission, it is hardly reasonable to expect to find it in the world as a whole.