V.K. Narasimhan – shattering revelations on the murders

V.K. Narasimhan was quite a national figure in journalism before he came to Sathya Sai Baba, having held many editorial chairs. He had a reputation for having put his life on the line for the truth about the 1975 Emergency, and so he was initially VERY important in helping various influential Indian circles to accept Sai Baba…. for VKN knew all the leading figures and had attended college and subsequent activities with Presidents and Prime Ministers. He was a Mylapore Brahmin (as was R.K. Narayanen, a friend of his also of that highest caste). He began to mix with the Indian elite since he was released from prison as a follower of Gandhi before Indian Independence. He became a central figure for visiting plenipotentiaries at the ashrams, still wondering why Sai Baba was so kind to him.

Unassumingly, Narasimhan constantly helped satisfy Sathya Sai Baba’s insatiable appetite for social and political influence.  In his role as a kind of mediator for Sathya Sai Baba he actually became something of a genuine devotee in his latter years. VKN was, however, most skeptical about the Sathya Sai Organisation and its inflated claims under its former International Chairman, Indulal Shah., most of which he considered largely  a front for spiritual go-getters who only wanted Sai Baba’s approval and ‘blessings’.

The most shocking information I ever received was from VKN – in January 1997 – was how Sai Baba’s multi-millionaire younger brother, Janaki Ramiah  had – after lengthy negotiations with the Puttaparthi police – blackmailed them into executing the four intruders (armed with knives) who were holed up in Sai Baba’s bedroom apartment.

No one closely involved in that notorious episode dared to tell what they know. However,  Narasimhan told me many details in private and that he was present when Janaki Ramiah was congratulated for the results of his blackmailing activity by the former Home Minister of India, S.B. Chavan, and who replied, “Dead men tell no tales”, upon which these two laughed heartily! Narasimhan was very disturbed,  lowering his voice to a whisper when he told me. Though I tried my utmost to explain this away and somehow clear Sai Baba of any involvement, the evidence was finally too overwhelming.

V.K.N. also told me how Sai Baba put him under strong and repeated pressure to lie about the embezzlements of the secretive Sathya Sai Central Trust unearthed by the press in 1993 after the murders. Though he argued his case, he had seen no way out of the repeated demands and wrote an article clearing the Sai organisation in the newspaper where his son was then the editor (The Tribune, Chandigarth). His former newspapers – The Hindu and the Indian Express – had refused to publish his (false) testimony.  (See here) (Not entirely without relevance is the fact that his son, V.N. Narayanan, was later sadly disgraced throughout the Indian press, having directly plagiarised materials for his column from Brian Appleyard of the Sunday Times That cost him the editorship of the Hindustan Times and his previous prestigious career in journalism.

Will India clean up its Augean police and political stables?

The infamous case of Mrs. MacKeown’s daughter Scarlett’s murder in India, is yet another in a long list of police cover-ups by notorious corrupt police forces and politicians in that country. Doubtless it was only the very brave persistence of Scarlett’s mother against massive harassment from crooks, police and governmental authorities and the subsequent international outrage caused the Indian Home Minister, Mr. Shivraj Patel, to allow Mrs. MacKeown’s appeal for an audience. He is a long-term devotee of Sathya Sai Baba, the self-proclaimed God Incarnate and Father of Jesus set an example for top level governmental cover-up in 1993 after four youths were executed by the Puttaparthi police in cold blood in the Godman’s bedroom while he stood by. The present Home Minister’s considerable initial reluctance to help Mrs. MacKeown reminds of the Sai baba cover-up. The entire matter – involving blackmail of the police into executing four devotees by rifle which was led by Sai Baba’s younger brother Janakiramiah – was buried without any completed investigation or court process! The Government (led by Sai devotees Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao and then Home Minister S.B. Chavan) stopped a CBI investigation.
British Government Authorities Fail their Citizens Abroad at will. The kind of corruption up against which Mrs. MacKeown has had a huge struggle without any active support by Britain>’s Foreign and Commonwealth office. That it washed its hands of the matter shows a most disgusting failure of the UK Government. They appease Indian authorities on any such issue of justice due to their desire to keep India friendly for economic and other reasons. (A classic example being the suspension of Metropolitan Police investigations of Sathya Sai Baba when contracts for Hawker jets were to be signed by the Indian PM Vajpayee, as Sai devotee who defended his Baba on every such occasion. See this article. Scarlett’s case was clearly suppressed by Indian authorities on economic grounds, the bad publicity it would have caused for Goan and other Indian tourism. The whole issue has backfired on them because they cannot treat foreigners in the same way they do many of their own citizens who are denied their legal rights and cannot defend their human rights. Here is a transcript of Mrs. MacKeown’ words on Sky News – UK 2 April 08)
(see http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,30200-1310763,00.html?f=rss)

1. INTERVIEWER: Sky News Centre Presenter: “Alex Crawford said you found some very high level contacts, even with the Gandhi family?
2. MRS.MACKEOWN: Yeah, the National Congress of Women came down – very powerful women. They took a letter from me back up to Sonia Gandhi. I think that helped enormously to put pressure on the government to finally OK this. They were sort of dragging their feet over it a little but I was a bit sceptical because the Home Minister himself had to put his signature on the paperwork. I think he had no choice in the end really.
3. INTERVIEWER: You were getting a fairly rough ride in some places and some criticism saying, well, that you shouldn’t have left Scarlett on her own.
4. MRS. MACKEOWN: Yeah, I think that was the government that kept repeating that message because – as far as I was concerned – I’d answered all the questions about how I left her – and she wasn’t actually left and she certainly wasn’t on her own. I think the government were just putting negative messages out there to try and take the point away, really, from the fact that she was murdered and that the police horrifically had tried to cover it up.
5. INTERVIEWER: You must think an awful lot about the events of that time and how it might have been different?
6. MRS. MACKEOWN: Yeah, I do. This is why we pushed for the CBI inquiry because I want the policemen that covered it up prosecuted as criminals because of what they put me through. It was already horrific enough event despite having to deal with the things I had to deal with because of them.

Comment on the above interview: Mrs MacKeown’s complaint against the Home Minister (who is the top representative of the Indian Government in criminal matters) is stated mildly. The harassment that these officials exercise over people when they believe they can rule high-handedly is known to everyone who has had to deal with them. Take as a classic example of ministerial conceit and aggressiveness the former Minister of Education M.M. Joshi when interviewed by the BBC about Sai Baba (a classic example – see transcript and video clip! )

That the Home Minister spread moralising slanders about Mrs MacKeown shows how it works. The Indian Government were doubtless worried what admission of such a horrendous kind of murder might to do its tourist trade (and doubtless the considerable rake offs for permits and official paperwork their officials take, a practice which is standard (illegal) practice in India, but which is kept as far as possible hidden from foreigners). Further details on the case are found at:
The pathologist who carried out the first, disputed, post-mortem on British teenager Scarlett Keeling has been suspended.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ It was only the determination of Mrs MacKeown a mother-of-nine, to prove Scarlett had been murdered – and not drowned, as police claimed – that led to a second post mortem examination which found she had been raped and killed. It showed her body was covered in bruises and there was insufficient water in her lungs to have drowned. Tourism minister Francisco Pacheco said: “This is a clear case of murder and it has gone out of proportion because the police tried to cover it up.

“Ms MacKeown, 43, said she had been threatened. Police have agreed to protection. She has accused police and Goan officials of covering up the true nature of her daughter’s death and has moved to a secret location on the advice of her lawyer. Ms MacKeown said locals told her to “get out of here” during her high profile campaign to unearth the truth. “It’s very easy for people to get at you around here,” she said.
“We’ve heard that some people aren’t very happy with us. The beach is deserted, half the shacks have been closed, a lot of people are losing business.

From ‘The Times of India’
PANAJI: The National Commission for Women has held that Goa police investigations into the rape and murder of British teenager Scarlett Keeling were “completely misleading”.
In its preliminary report on the teenager’s death, Commission member Nirmala Venkatesh said “police are trying to hide the facts of the case and close it. We will never allow this to happen.”
Venkatesh claimed that Scarlett was injected with morphine. “She was raped by four to five persons by gagging her mouth. There are nail marks on the body and several marks which indicate that more than one person was involved in sexually assaulting her,” she said.
“Police investigation in this case was completely misleading and evidence in this case was destroyed by police themselves,” she said.
The NCW member said that they will continue to fight for justice and will brief Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi on the police attitude in this case. From the BBC:
Ms MacKeown has alleged that links between police officials, politicians and the drugs mafia are hampering the probe into her daughter’s death. After visiting Goa, India‘s National Commission for Women accused the local police of destroying evidence. The beach bar where Scarlett was before she was murdered has been pulled down. The commission also said there had been a delay in producing a medical report that could mean evidence of rape had been lost. It also repeated the allegation that Goa‘s police were trying to protect someone involved in Scarlett’s murder.

From BBC1: Kishan Kumar, the senior Goa Police officer leading the investigation into Scarlett’s murder, told BBC News it was almost complete. He said: “To keep the Goa Police clear and say that we have nothing to hide, we have recommended that the Central Bureau of Investigation [CBI] take over the probe. “I had admitted to initial lapses in investigation, and we have suspended one policeman already. But now our investigation is on the right track and we have nothing to hide.”
A spokesman for the CBI said it had not yet received a request from Goa‘s state government.

India’s prophesied future world leadership?

The total transformation of India as an engine, not only of economic growth, but also as a shining moral example to the peoples of the world which would regenerate them all and introduce a new Golden Age has frequently been promised by Sathya Sai Baba, such as to the credulous Dr. J. Hislop of the USA. Sathya Sai Baba is India’s top living religious figure, who is worshipped by most of India’s Prime Ministers and Presidents since Indira Gandhi up to the present day (see some of Sai Baba’s preposterous claims here!).

Judge for yourself whether Sai Baba’s prophesies are proving to have ANY results. Consider how India has developed a major nuclear arsenal and a huge military machine – a threat to its neighbours. Does this give India the moral high ground? So much for the much vaunted non-violence policy and the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi, on which most of India’s fame rested once! The social and economic inequality in India, despite its considerable present wealth, equals or surpasses anything on the globe today… and it denies many basic human rights to many of its minorities. Is this morally defensible?

We read; “India has had nearly 60 years free of famine, growing enough food for its 1.1 billion people. Yet nearly 40 percent of its vegetables rot in warehouses before reaching market. The country has a space program – yet 30 percent of the population lives on less than $1 a day; 78 percent on less than $2.” [Christian Science Monitor]. This leading US newspaper also comments on how much has been written about the incredible strides India has taken since 1991, when it opened up its markets to foreign investors and slashed regulations. A 6 or 8 % growth rate for a decade has made India attractive to investors, and the outsourcing and high-tech industries. However, the reverse side of this coin is that this economic progress is NOT benefiting 80% of India’s population. It is reported that “a growing number of foreign diplomats, Indian academics, and businesses warn that the booming growth will fizzle unless India acts soon to spread the benefits to a wider population and boost investment in roads and airports, electricity and water, and basic education.” One might mention the lack of public toilets throughout most of the cities and villages (except the open spaces, that is!) and the incredibly low levels of hygiene for the vast majority of Indians (which also stops any really effective tourist growth). What my friend V.K. Narasimhan famously wrote once still applies, the vast majority of the population have no social support of any kind, other than the sunlight!

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Public Petition for Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and his Worldwide Organization
View ex-follower signatures
(Spanish version PETICIÓNPÚBLICA PARA INVESTIGACIONES OFICIALES)

Sai Baba: Prayer, not environmental awareness?

If Indians do worship the earth, what effect does it have? It can’t be measured in any scientific way, of course. Everywhere across the globe, the earth is being over-exploited, and particularly in developing countries. Unfortunately, this is unlikely to be affected one iota by praying to the earth… that is a superstition prolonged by religionists like Sai Baba from the era when there was no natural science and one could only believe that deities like Indra ruled the rain and thunder… and so forth. It is the government and many Indian corporations which control of major industry, agriculture and the whole environment in India. They cannot be “worshipping the earth” in any appreciable way (or praying to the ‘earth mother’ (Bhoomidev), for the land is being raped and polluted on a huge scale by the activities under their regime. The situation has doubtless not improved since international companies were allowed to engage in the Indian economy, but then the economy has improved beyond recognition since the Narasimha Rao government opened the country up more. It is material need and corporate greed that drive over-exploitation and the destruction of eco-systems.

Sathya Sai Baba’s contribution to raising awareness of ecological issues is minimal and mostly as ill-informed as the above quotation – claiming that the inner significance is lost on “foolish scientists”. What kind of illumined inner significance has his vague prattle about “reflection, reaction and resound” and example of echoes in mountains? Sheer empty talk, compared to the knowledge science now has of the inner workings of genes, the origins and causes of nearly all natural phenomena, of stars billions of light years away. Science alone has traced ‘natural reactions’ in a comprehensible way… not Sai Baba, who continues to flaunt his ‘otherworldly’ vaguenesses and his ignorance of science, as already shown here (and more to come!).

Is India a Moral Engine and Social Ideal to Emulate?

     

The statement that Bharat (i.e India) is the engine that alone is capable of drawing all other countries after it towards a moral world is among the least convincing of Sathya Sai Baba’s many wild prophesies. It expresses a chauvinistic nationalism of a kind like ‘India Uber Alles’, but it absurdly bases this (in the above quotation) entirely on the fact that the decline in the practices of sacred rituals (yagnas and yagas) is the main cause of all the troubles of humanity. Anyone can see that this is definitely not a winning formula, not least because surely at least 90% of the world’s population who are not very traditional Hindus will simply ignore it. To emphasize strictly Hindu rituals as the key to world regeneration is hardly a way to spread ‘universal religion’, as Sathya Sai claims to do. On this day, the 60th anniversary of Partition, Muslims can hardly be enthused by this religiously-divisive claim, which may well have contributed ideologically to the eventual tearing down of the Ayodhya mosque and the agitation to replace it with a Hindu temple.

How could a Country with so many well-known social and ethical failings guide the world?
For decades I admired much about India and its people, which I still partly do. But I became more and more aware – through personal experience and learning about India that I had been badly misled by all the propaganda of its rulers and politicians, and not least also that spread by Sai Baba as a confidence builder for India (in which I rather wanted to believe and hoped was true). I now say that, had India been the original home of democracy, human rights, women’s rights, social justice, equality, fraternity and liberty, then this would have been credible. But it is falling down on every one of these precepts. The non-violence movement of Mahatma Gandhi was truly admirable, but it was a flash in the pan which passed away with him while millions of Hindus and Muslims slaughtered each other in the late 40s. The intensity and number of massive wars of the most brutal and destructive nature which India has undergone speaks against the claim that it has ever been any kind of Utopia. This is known to have been so ever since the time of Krishna, when the Mahabharata war was no picnic but a vast killing field. There were gigantic ravages under Emperor Ashok – literal mass genocide until there was hardly anyone left to kill. India was then subject to the ghastly horrors of the Mughal invasion which destroyed much Hindu culture in the north. In the wake of all this, wars between local kingdoms continued until the British subjugated much of the sub-continent. From Independence onwards, India has fought wars against Pakistan (also China and Tamils) and there had been continuous internal strife between Hindus and Muslims, the State and indigenous peoples and minorities of all kinds to this day. As almost every visitor to India soon discovers, criminality and corruption are rife today, which is often so in societies where there is large scale extreme poverty.

Yagnas and yagas have so far failed India
India has evidently not improved because of the practice of ritual prayer and offerings (Yagnas and Yagas…). It is generally regarded today the world over as a mad idea of fanatical religionists that a countries’ ills are due to non-observance of Divine will, prayers and sacrifices etc.!  India has declined morally, according to Sathya Sai Baba’s repeated harangues in many discourses. He sets up the same old story of India having been the cradle of mankind as a place of harmony and light (indicated by the ancient name ‘Bharat’).  But there is simply no evidence of there having been a ‘Golden Age’ in India, except in the imaginings of priests and moralists and in texts similar to the Bible’s Garden of Eden myth. That India once was the perfect spiritual land – a moral paradise – as Sai Baba preaches – is a kind of deception based on wishful thinking more than any historical fact that has survived. India has no doubt ever had all the problems that have plagued humanity since time immemorial, but which modern civilisation has at last begun to defeat.

It can be confidently concluded that Sathya Sai Baba suffers from a variant of serious cognitive derangement that can fitly be called ‘mythomania’. As to the current state of affairs on humanitarian morals in India, I have already briefly summarised some of the dire calamities which prevail there. (See here)