LAW ANIMATED WORLD
Ratnakara Venkata Satyanarayana Raju of Puttaparthi - a barely literate lad of 14 years, proclaiming himself to be an avatara of (Shirdi) Sai Baba, transmuted himself into Satya Sai Baba - has recently celebrated his eightieth birthday amidst pomp and glitter (dhoomdham). His followers today are said to number anywhere between 1-5 crores all over the world, and his floated Sathya Sai Central Trust is said to be the biggest NGO in the world after the United Nations, in terms of reach. Claiming to be God himself, and shunning the challenges by eminent rationalists like P.C. Sarkar, Late Abraham Kovur and Narasimhaiah to stand scientific tests of his much-boasted divine powers, Sai Baba successfully uses his juggling and hypnotic powers to continue to be in the limelight as the most adored Godman of India. A small, remote village of Anantapur District, Puttaparthi, where buses even did not ply before 4 decades, is now converted into a sprawling township, dominated by a majestic Prashanti Nilayam - abode of Satya Sai, where Boeing Jets land with Presidents and Prime Ministers, not to speak of various other VIPs, making a beeline to pay their respects to this remarkable personality, some or many of them even touching his feet. More recently the present Rashtrapati Abul Kalam paid such a visit on the eve of Saibaba’s eightieth birthday.
The Silver side - welfare activities:
Saibaba’s devotees like Chandrababu Naidu, former Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, are euphoric about his virtues and ask us to remember Bhagvan’s philosophy of oneness of all faiths, purity, patience, perseverance and selfless service, sacrifice, self-realization and, above all, love and beseech us to be guided by his sublime ideas. His detractors like the revolutionary balladeer Gaddar call all that bunkum and declare the false Baba only thrives on the ignorance and gullibility of the people at large. However, all have to acknowledge that of late, at least since the last two decades, the Baba and his trust have taken up philanthropic activities in a very big way, said to be unparalleled in the annals of Indian NGOs. Projects have been taken up and finished in record time on a big scale, to provide drinking water to 1.4 lakh people in 900 villages of the draught-prone Anantapur District. They have modernized the 70 kilometer canal providing Krishna waters from Kandaleru reservoir to Madras. A 250 crore super-speciality hospital, where ultra-modern services to patients are totally free, has been built in Puttaparthi in 1991 and after a decade a big hospital for cardiology and neurology set up in Bangalore at Rs. 200 crore, and the hospitals have already conducted 75,000 surgeries, all for free. All these massive welfare activities are said to be silencing skeptics, so much so that some of the beneficiaries are said to have retorted that they did not care even if Sai Baba were to be a fraud since he is better than any politician in the country and they were willing to accept him as God just for the sake of free care, treatment and food he offers in such hospitals. Add to this the many good educational institutions, giving free and higher education, the Baba built or inspired.
The black side of the coin:
But there are bitter critics too who look upon these welfare and philanthropic activities as a shield which Satya Sai Baba (SSB) is using to cover up his gory misdeeds and say that apart from the ordinary magic he practices to deceive the people there are certain other vices that have to be recounted. One of them, and it is almost a confirmed allegation, is that he is an inveterate homosexual enticing young boys to gratify his sexual appetite.[1] It is not as if he acknowledges his position as a gay and claims legitimate. Another serious allegation is that the Prashanti Nilayam has become a haven for a mafia and runs a virtual hundi for all sorts of hoarders, corrupt politicians, etc. It is alleged that around 1993, a German lady was murdered for gain by two unknown persons who were sheltered in the Nilayam and later the case was covered up.
MURDERS IN SAI’S BED ROOM: But all this pales into insignificance before the gory murders perpetrated on 6 June 1993 in SSB’s own chambers. The gist of allegations in a bulky book: “Murders in Sai’s Bedroom,”[2] detailing all the relevant facts, allegations, the court proceedings and the manner in which the entire case was hushed up, and also in the writings of one Robert Priddy,[3] a British national and a former devotee turned critic, is that on the night of 6-6-93 when four persons tried to force their way into the chambers of SSB, the four attendants there resisted and two attendants were killed in a knife battle. A 14-year old student who was with SSB in his bedroom escaped unhurt and he or SSB set off the alarm and ran away. SSB seems to have run away through the first floor balcony to a garage annex nearby. The intruders somehow entered the chambers and shut themselves in. Then it is alleged that SSB, his younger brother Janaki Ramaiah and one Col. Joga Rao discussed among themselves further course of action, by which time the doors of the bedroom were broken open by a mob of locals, some foreign visitors and students, and the four were caught, cruelly beaten up and tied with a rope. At that juncture, “the police … arrived, allegedly led by an inebriated officer.” Janaki Ramaiah is said to have ordered the police, saying: “Vallani kattesinaru, champeyundira..” (“They are tied. Now kill them”). And the police did just that, shooting down all the four at point blank range.
It seems the police later conducted a massive cover-up operation, moved the bodies, rearranged their clothing, etc. - all this to make believe that the shooting was done in ‘selfdefence’. But such First Information Report is said to have been contradicted by the later official investigations. It is alleged that absence of any injuries to the policemen, shooting a hail of dozens of bullets by the police who had not even any knife-injuries inflicted by those young men, the position of the deceased after death as shown by the photographs taken afterwards, the nature of the gunshot wounds of the deceased all conclusively rebut this ‘self-defence shooting’ theory. This is not a surprise since all of us know that our Andhra Pradesh police are experts in staging false encounters. In one such false encounter case of an extremist leader Madhusudan Raj Yadav, our High Court had even ordered a high level inquiry.
And finally without properly inquiring into these gory killings - prime witnesses, including Sai Baba a direct witness, if not participant, in the killings were not questioned; SSB refused to answer any questions from the press or give statements to the police in this regard; he even attacked, in a derogatory and libelous manner, the press people for daring to lodge a complaint with the Press Council of India in this regard; he simply had too much money and clout to cover up the entire matter – the investigations were quashed by the “Indian government in accordance with the ashram’s expressed wishes.” This due to the intervention of the then Home Minister, S. B. Chavan, who had been called to visit SSB as soon as the police cover-up became transparent and the Central Bureau CID took over. Chavan is alleged to have revisited SSB five times more in the following months before they could “rid themselves of the matter through a confidential government order, administered by the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh to close the murder case and suppress over 100 photographs (impounded by K.V. Reddy of the police) and also the CB-CID report.”
We can know about the real cause of this ‘action’ from Times of India (27-10-1993): Ravindra Baba and Vijay Shantaram Prabhu were intensively interrogated by the Nagpur police before being handed over to their Andhra counterparts, who had come here to take them back to Puttaparthi. The details of the interrogation were made available to The Times of India News Service. Prabhu reportedly told the police that he and those shot dead by the police were all staunch devotees of Sai Baba. According to him, a coterie of five persons staying at the Puttaparthi ashram were misappropriating cash and jewellery offerings made by the devotees to the Baba … duped of several lakhs of rupees in cash and kind. When Prabhu and his associates protested against this, the five men threatened them with dire consequences. The names of these five persons have been disclosed to the Nagpur police. Prabhu said that he finally took up the matter with the godman, who expressed his anguish over the development but said he could not initiate any action against the inmates unless there was concrete evidence. Prabhu knew the room where the loot was stashed before being taken outside the complex. He, along with a few other devotees, planned to immobilise the persons by using chloroform. It was also decided to burst crackers somewhere in the complex in order to divert the attention of the guards... However, the moment the men with the key to the room were pounced upon, they raised an alarm. The coterie was alerted. It was then made to appear that an attempt on the Baba’s life has been made.[4]
There are yet some press reports informing that at least three of the assailants were staunch followers of the Viswa Hindu Parishad and when the VHP leader Ashok Singhal visited the Baba and requested him to render support to the Ayodhya Ram Mandir cause, Baba curtly rejected saying all that was political foul play and also humiliated Ashok Singhal, which might have spurred his followers to embark on an action ‘to do away with the Baba.’ But not much reliance can be placed on this version, and the Baba himself categorically rejected such suspicions.
We think the only motivation seems to be the young men’s zeal to fight corruption, and their fury at the supposed ‘duping of the Baba by the coterie of five persons (with Janaki Ramaiah at the head)’. Even SSB has later admitted that they had not intended to kill him. It is only to shield SSB and his cohorts that these killings seem to have been done, with law enforcers acting as law breakers. In like circumstances one Premananda, a fake Baba, was awarded heavy punishment by a Court in Tamilnadu, and the same confirmed by Madras High Court also recently. We ardently wish and hope our Andhra Pradesh High Court will reopen this entire case and order a comprehensive inquiry to be followed by a just, fair and speedy trial of SSB and other involved persons.
Notes:
1 Here we would like to stand apart from the ordinary
critics of homosexuality as such who recoil with moral
revulsion at the mention of the very word. We have
nothing against homosexual relations between
consenting adults, which, by the way, have been
legalized in many democratic countries now. We are
also firm supporters of justifiable gay (and lesbian)
rights movements, and do not consider such relations
even as a sexual abnormality, but as minor variants.
rights on that basis but is more of his enticing
minor boys in the name of divine will and
worship and making them submit to his sexual
desires, which conduct we strongly condemn.
2 B. Premanand, Murders in Sai Baba’s Bedroom, Pub. by
the author, 11/7 Chettipalayam Road, Podnadur-
641023, Tamil Nadu, India [Rs. 400/-; Abroad $40/-].
3 Go to www.saipetition.net and follow up links
4 These were two suspects who escaped from the scene of
action and later surrendered to Nagpur Police, fearing
their liquidation in case they surrendered to or be
arrested by the Andhra Pradesh police.
