TOWARDS PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY AND DUE INVESTIGATION: A
FORMAL OPEN APPEAL TO 'THE PRASHANTHI COUNCIL'
Date: 10-18-03
Document date: 10-17-03
By: JuST Working Committee
Email:
justseekers@hotmail.com
Copied from:
http://www.saiguru.net/english/articles/100prashanthicouncil.htm
The JuST group (Just
Seekers of Truth), representing the 32 original signatories of the
Public Petition for Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and
His Worldwide Organisation, has always been open for discussion of
its contentions with any officials of the Sathya Sai Organisation or
other accredited representatives of Sathya Sai Baba. In this
connection, the recently-extended working committee of the
international JuST group - most of whom appear among the 32 original
signatories - would draw attention to the recent formation of ‘The
Prashanthi Council’.
The official
Australian Sathya Sai Organisation website announces the formation
of this ‘Prashanthi Council’, which sidelines Indulal Shah from
exerting further influence over the overseas branches. In a letter
there, Dr. Michael Goldstein announces that he is the international
leader of the ‘Prashanthi Council’, which will control all Sai
Organisation matters outside India. Dr. M. Goldstein proclaims “…
the Council will be a resource for intervention in difficult
circumstances where the sanctity of the Divine Name or the welfare
of the Sai Organisation can be affected".
The "divine name" and its protection
Dr. M. Goldstein has
made implicitly clear that "the sanctity of the Divine name" has
been affected. Dr. Goldstein wrote in 1997, after seeking SSB’s
guidance: “... On matters regarding misuse and abuse of His Name,
Swami said, 'the greatest devotion is protection of the Name'". (Sanathana
Sarathi, Sept. 1997, p. 248). While 'protection of the Name' is a
vague direction, it was then uttered in the context of exposing
imitators of SSB and those who claimed special authorities or powers
as mediums or 'channels' of SSB or who tried to collect money using
his name. However, Sathya Sai has many times boasted that his name
cannot be impugned and is the guarantee of success in all
undertakings, while its sanctity could never be affected! For
example, in 1993 (before the exposé by former devotees began in
earnest), he said: "In the world today, Sai's name and achievements
are getting known the world over. To counteract this and to diminish
it by some means or other, envious persons are resorting to certain
types of propaganda. These propaganda campaigns will not affect My
reputation in any manner. My purity is the root cause of the glory
of My name" (p. 257 - Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. 26). Since 1993, these
words have come to sound hollow now that he evidently permits and
needs the ‘Prashanthi Council’ to protect his name.
Now,
however, the ‘Prashanthi Council’ is to "intervene"
so
as to protect SSB's name.
The word 'intervene' has the connotation of interference, or to
interpose in a lawsuit etc., and is conceivably intended as a veiled
threat to critics of SSB. Intervention aimed at stopping the
documentary film
'Seduced
by Sai Baba'
was tried three times recently in a Danish court by
the businessman devotee, Jørgen Trygved, without any success and
subsequently he tried through Denmark’s top lawyer to pressure the
head of Danish Broadcasting into a retreat, with resounding failure.
Dr. Goldstein and his collaborators are also worried about the
"welfare of the Sai organisation," since their ‘Lord God Sathya Sai
Baba’ cannot single-handedly protect his organisation from its
faults.
The above-mentioned
International Petition was issued just over one year ago to support
alleged victims of sexual abuse by Sathya Sai Baba and to request
official investigation into murders in his quarters while he stood
by, declining to exert his undoubted authority. The Sathya Sai
Organisation response was to make serious counter-accusations and
verbal attacks upon the various injured parties. In substance, JuST
petition signatories ask that he and they observe the ethics
embodied in his 10 principles and 9-point ‘code of conduct’ and
adhere to his advice that all should live in accordance with the law
of their own country.
Concerning alleged "propaganda
campaigns"
In actual fact, many
of his critics do not use ''propaganda'' but ask
the great majority
of pertinent
questions that he and his secretive collaborators ignore and fail to
answer. Leaders in the Sathya Sai Organisation do not reply to mails
addressed to them by people with critical questions or complaints
about the organisation or its leadership. This organisation
always publishes exclusively positive information about itself and
Sathya Sai Baba. Criticisms of him are neither addressed nor
refuted, but suppressed. The ‘Prashanthi Council’ does not invite
any form of correspondence or contact by anyone (unless perhaps by
certain high office-bearers or other leaders in the Sai movement to
whom their email addresses or home addresses may be given). The
policy is to withhold from ex-followers, as far as is feasible,
office-bearers' e-mail
addresses. Among the various countries or regions of the
organisation, many office bearers’ and members’ addresses are kept
secret. The SSO has never had a publicly open channel for
communication. Outsiders, and even the SSO members, can hardly find
a way to ask the SSO a question or write a letter and hope to get
any official answer. Even official web-sites of the SSO seldom give
the option of feedback, except to a webmaster who is not accountable
for the SSO's actions. The channels of contact are few even for
members and many can attest that answers to any serious questions
from those lower down the chain of command to those directly above
are frequently either ignored or, when answers are actually
forthcoming, they are usually either evasive, irrelevant or direct
the questioner to carry out self-examination, etc.
Interventions by the ‘Prashanthi
Council’
M.
Goldstein proposes "intervention in difficult circumstances". The
action of Mr. T. Ramanathan, Central Coordinator in Australia, who
on
the Australian website has issued defamatory threats
(click
here to view an example)
on
provably wholly trumped-up grounds against Mr. Barry Pittard, is
obviously known to the ‘Prashanthi Council’. Unless or until they
publish a denial, the JuST group will presume that this threat
represents one such “intervention” and takes place under the
auspices of the ‘Prashanthi Council’. Of course, Mr. Ramanathan
cannot proceed with any threatened litigation for he has based his
case on sheer guesswork and false assumptions and so lacks any
evidence of any wrong-doing by Mr. Pittard. On the contrary, Mr.
Ramanathan is guilty of unwarranted defamation of character by his
published allegations. Let him and the ‘Prashanthi Council’ beware,
for JuST has ascertained that these have now been recorded by a
justarius publicus as formal evidence.
In fact, public and
media scrutiny of the Sathya Sai Organisation’s handling of the
allegations that Sathya Sai Baba is a serial paedophile and
is
implicated in a
number of other crimes, and scrutiny by the organisation’s rank and
file membership, are exactly what the apex leaders have laboured for
so many years to prevent. Therefore, in any modern nation where an
unbiased judiciary and freedom of speech prevail, public litigation
by any Sathya Sai Organisation officials would serve to open the
Sathya Sai movement to the greatest scandal. “Difficult
circumstances” for them indeed. Writings about SSB on the Internet
will be impossible to expunge, for - if removed from one place - the
same sites will simply reappear in toto elsewhere. One lesson the
Internet teaches is that no one can any longer suppress or control
information and points of view that have already entered the public
sphere, for anyone who wishes to copy and republish entire websites
will do so in response to any attempted censorship measures. Such
open, investigative interchange as we suggest should be welcomed –
otherwise, the Sai movement will remain in the secretive cultish
position into which it has withdrawn thus far and so will never be
able convincingly to refute the onerous evidence.
The need for openness and
truthfulness
So far, neither the
'omniscient' Sathya Sai Baba nor any of his leaders in the Sathya
Sai Organisation nor the ‘Prashanthi Council’ has been willing or
able to provide a shred of evidence to prove the falsity of any of
the allegations. Nor have they answered any of the hundreds of
serious, critical views put forward on SSB's teachings, behaviour
and the many glaringly obvious discrepancies between his words and
actions. The openness we suggest would be the only possible way of
reinstating Sathya Sai Baba's name in the eyes of the world... but
we frankly doubt that any such attempt will ever occur. The more
publicity officials would give to those of us who ask pertinent
questions and advance undisputed facts, the more evident their
predicament would become to themselves and the world. Should not the
‘Prashanthi Council’
be
informed by the civilised and truth-supportive
principle enunciated by Voltaire: "I may disagree with what you say,
but I shall defend, to the death, your right to say it"? Having
pointed this out, we formally invite the ‘Prashanthi Council’ to
open up to honest and decent, but basically uncensored, public
discussion and investigation of the issues raised by us.
The JuST group would
point out that the current closed character of all SSB institutions
and organisation wholly contradicts their good intentions and
declarations about reforming and improving society. In the open and
pluralistic world, as opposed to a soviet-style control of all
information from the top, organisations without a two-way and
sincere interface with the public cannot have notable success in the
long term.
Approved and signed
by the expanded JuST Working Committee
(Names and means of
contact to the various members of this Committee will be provided on
application as required)