Nexus Magazine, Duncan Roads: Sai Baba fraudulence and abuse

from NEXUS Magazine (2000) 
Shame, shame

Sai Baba is being exposed as a pedophile.
As a former believer I have always dismissed rumours of Sai Baba’s sexual impropriety as ‘tall poppy syndrome’. However recent testimonials made available to myself caused me to dig a bit further. To my horror I discovereda pattern of sexual abuse of young men and boys, including rape. I have spoken with so many people from many countries. The rumours are not rumours, they are truth. I am shocked. I am running an article exposing this shoddy ‘guru’. You can expect the mainstream media to follow hot on the heels of our article. What horrifies me the most of all, is that most of the administrative hierarchy already knew of this, but turned a blind eye in order to maintain ‘status’, prestige, and basically EGO.

Shame on you all! You will be exposed and the truth will come out. There are now many more men and boys coming forward, many more than you think.

Shame on you. Petitions are circulating calling for the public closure of Sai Baba centres until the matter is cleared up.Is your centre acting thus?

I await your reply. No reply will be reported in my magazine also, and readers will no doubt draw their own conclusions.

Shame on you!
(Duncan Roads, Editor Nexus Magazine) (also posted at http://www.geocities.com/the_sai_critic/shame.html – no longer available Document date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 23:50:28 +1000

August 2000 Nexus Magazine also published  the following :-

FRAUD, FAKERY AND MOLESTATION (from Nexus Magazine, Volume 7, Number 5, August-September 2000)

“It is fair to say that Sai Baba is a highly revered spiritual leader, whose life and message has inspired millions of people throughout the world to turn Godward and lead more purposeful and moral lives. The stories of his “miracles” are many and legendary in their telling and retelling. Scores of famous Westerners have added their own exciting synchronistic accounts of how Sai Baba saved them from certain death by “appearing” before them at crucial moments. Accounts of Sai baba-related manifestations and materialisations are also widespread, adding to the air that Sai Baba is literally the reappearance of God on Earth.
Unfortunately, this is where the fairytale ends.

A growing number of boys and men are coming forward with allegations of sexual harassment, sexual abuse and rape. And now that attention has been focused on the Swami, one finds many more accounts of faked miracles, suspicious deaths, massive financial fraud, weapons and explosives being found in the ashram, an assassination attempt, and yet more cases of paedophilia and homosexual abuse.

With news of these events and other incidents, the seeds of doubt have been sown in many minds. How is it that Sai Baba’s own brother-in-law died of rabies? Why did Baba need to be hospitalised for a ruptured appendix and a broken leg? Why does he travel in Mercedes cars and require heavy protection? Why does Sai Baba have to wave his hand in circles before producing anything? Does his occasional transvestitism and derision for women really illustrate the male-female principle of the universe?

It is possible we will never find the real truth to many of the above rumours and allegations, with the exception of the sexual abuse cases. We have extracted the following accounts from just three of the many testimonies now emerging. We have also spoken to many former long-term devotees who have now left the organisation.

For those wishing to pursue this matter further, we suggest as a starting point that you get onto the Internet and visit http://www.myfreeoffice.com/saibabaexposed/ [that site has been closed and replaced by http://www.sathyasaivictims.com

Let me emphasize that this information does not reflect one or two disgruntled devotees “who did not get enough attention”. It reflects the fact that many, many boys and young men have been sexually abused by someone in whom they gave their total trust. Their silence was maintained because the victims knew that no one would believe them.
I hope this article can rectify that situation somewhat.

Duncan M. Roads (Editor)
Excerpt only. See the whole shocking testimony by known, reliable persons:-   Terry Gallagher’s testimony  Hans de Kraker’s testimony   Jens & Gurprit’s Sethi’s testimony

This led to greater publicity, and another spate of resignations from the Sathya Sai Organizations branches, particularly in Australia. The integrity of Duncan Roads, the editor of Nexus Magazine, is revealed as one reads of his initial reluctance to publish a ‘negative article’ about a person revered by so many of his magazines readership. However after doing some substantial personal research and becoming convinced of the truth of the testimonies he courageously went to print, regardless of the consequences. This report includes an email from Duncan Roads to the author outlining his process prior to printing and his observations of the consequences after printing.

Duncan Roads was attacked by two fanatical Sathya Sai Baba supporters see here and here who distorted almost everything Roads writes as inaccurate, false etc., (see http://www.saisathyasai.com/baba/Ex-Baba.com/nexus-magazine-duncan-roads.html) as they did always did with every single criticism of Sai Baba for sexual abuse, murder involvement, fraudulent materializations and all critical statements about him or the Sathya Sai Organization, however weighty the commentator (eg. the BBC, the Daily Telegraph, The Guardian and countless other respected media). They have attacked Duncan Roads for publishing others’ opinions of quite other issues than Sathya Sai Baba (AIDS, anti-Semitism, USA corruption and a long list of other items)  and smear him with their typical  tendentious spin for opinions he does not himself hold. The ring leader troll charged Duncan Roads with not having investigated any of the sex abuse claims personally, but – in another context (see here), Roads has clearly stated:-

“It is worth mentioning that while I was investigating the claims against Sai Baba, not one representative of the movement denied the claims. NOT ONE!!!! Instead, they sought to tell me that ‘all the good Sai Baba does, outweighs the bad’.“

A Sai troll who writes massive blogs and web pages against every critics of Sai Baba and many other gurus falsely claimed that Roads asserted in his magazine:- There are “many, many” boys and young men who are coming forward with allegations of sexual harassment, sexual abuse and rape. However, ‘many, many’ is not what Roads wrote!  Summaries of each of the most shocking testimonies can be found here
and see many youth have come forward in public here. Further, as a trusted activists on the exposé work concerning Sathya Sai Baba and all his cover-up connections, numerous young men have contacted me and/or Barry Pittard in strict confidence stating that they were sexually abused by Sathya Sai Baba. (see example)

Their accounts are often most revealing of details of his methods, and each has its unique stamp of authenticity. We have checked their identities in many instances, yet some are so worried about repercussions for themselves or members of their families (some of whom live in Prashanthi Nilayam or Puttaparthi) that they naturally were unwilling to give confirmable details about themselves. Knowing that four devotees were murdered in cold-blood in Sai Baba’s apartment in 1993, this is probably a most wise precaution. Other reports – by Dr. Naresh Bhatia – a self-confessed sexual partner of Sathya Sai Baba – many, many boys have been misused by Sai Baba. Further, a former student has posted a list over 150 students through he collected from those who claimed to know they were abused by Sai Baba. (Prof. G. Venkataraman reports that he has spoken to some of them, who said they did not know their names were on the list. To a man who denies totally that Sai Baba is anything buy the Creator of the Universe and is totally pure, what else would they say? At least one student has informed us that Venkataraman knows of the pedophile activities reported of his guru-god, so he is a very dangerous person to confide in at all!).

Sathya Sai Baba engages in “occasional transvestism”  and that he derides women. These truth-twisting denials are found at http://www.saisathyasai.com/baba/Ex-Baba.com/nexus-magazine-duncan-roads.html

Yet, by contrast, there are many accounts of Sathya Sai Baba’s dislike of women, and he is known by all visitors to the ashrams to give far, far more time to males than females – both at darsan and in interviews. That he practised transvestism to a considerable degree (and was long known as ‘Radha’ in Puttaparthi when he went everywhere with his boyfriend, Krishna who shared his bedroom for some years) is an established fact. See some of the evidence here