Reply to Manoj Das – by Bireshwar Choudhury (2)

[This is the second and final part of Bireshwar Choudhury’s reply to Prof. Manoj Das’s response to Sricharan Singh’s “Manoj Das has Sold his Soul to the Devil”. See the previous posting to read the first part of Bireshwar Choudhury’s reply. The text of Manoj Das's response is indented and in italics while Bireshwar's reply is without indentation and in Roman.]

“Sricharan Singh” has repeated that old old lie about the Ashram lawyer saying at the Krishnanagore court that the Mother did not understand Savitri! The lawyer said nothing of that kind. He has also given a statement challenging this allegation against him. Still the drum-beaters of that lie do not stop. Years ago when two small groups of people distributed leaflets against me on this issue, I was surprised that while these people believed somebody from far who transmitted that blatant lie as a gift for them, they did not have the patience or a bit of respect for truth to ask me about it though I was amidst them, an inmate of the Ashram like them. They even sent a lawyer’s notice to the Trust to expel me from the Ashram on this account. 

By and by it became clear to me that all they wanted was to create an atmosphere of hatred against me. But what for? It remains inexplicable to him. I was for a while representing the Ashram in the courts where several cases were filed against the Trust because it brought out a revised version of the Master’s epic, Savitri. It was ‘revised’ in the sense that errors (typographical, punctuation, omission, words not properly deciphered in corrected proofs, etc) were removed through years of study and scrutiny. When, as a purely academic exercise a booklet was published by the Ashram Archives listing the changes, it suddenly struck a gentleman to drag the Trust to the court alleging that it had tampered with Sri Aurobindo’s writing. (What may sound incredible to many, he even discovered an unknown nephew of Sri Aurobindo and made him go to court and suggest by insinuation that he was the copyright-owner of all the works of Sri Aurobindo, not the Ashram. By implication, all the earnings from the works of the Master over the past years were his!) 

 I was convinced that the Revised Edition of the epic is the most authentic one. Once again it is a matter of common sense that the Ashram had no reason to alter a single word of Sri Aurobindo. On the other hand it had a responsibility to see that error-free versions of His works were available before the copyright period expired. That is what Ashram did despite the illogical and superfluous commotion made by some people. (Manoj Das)

Things always seem inexplicable to Manoj Das whenever he courts a controversy, as if the people who are against him are inexplicably bad and he himself is inexplicably good! The Savitri revision controversy has rocked the Ashram for a decade or two, and even now there are senior scholars of the Ashram who are not satisfied at all with the way it has been handled by the Trustees. R.Y. Deshpande was part of the team that finalised the Savitri revisions and he says that even Nirodbaran (on whom the final decisions depended) expressed his unhappiness over some of the revisions. Deshpande himself was extremely unhappy over some of the revisions suggested by the Archives editors. The late Jugal Kishore Mukherji, former head of the Higher Course of the Ashram School, wrote a fifty page letter to Amal Kiran on these revisions and some of his suggestions were accepted by Amal Kiran! Why was Jugal Kishore Mukherji disgusted with the whole affair? If after all this discontentment, Manoj Das still finds things inexplicable, then I will simply call him a hypocrite! Even here, I will throw him a challenge which R.Y. Deshpande has long been insisting upon: Make all the Savitri manuscripts public. Put them up on the Net for all to see and judge for themselves the legitimacy of the revisions of the Archives editors. Moreover, after the Peter Heehs controversy, who is going to trust the Archives editors?

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Reply to Manoj Das – by Bireshwar Choudhury (1)

Manoj Das has replied at great length to the article, “Manoj Das has Sold his Soul to the Devil” by Sricharan Singh. The fact that his reply is interminably long and touches upon all the major controversies he was involved in, shows that the arrow shot by Sricharan Singh has found its target. This is exactly what Sricharan wanted to do, having no other method to counter the proud professor. Right now, Manoj Das and the Trustees backed by wealth and power are all-powerful and have the administrative power of the Ashram in their hands, so what else can poor Sricharan Singh do except condemn Manoj Das for his outright betrayal of Sri Aurobindo!

Manoj Das has requested the editors of this site to publish his long exercise in verbosity. We have consented to his request only after giving our own point of view on the issues raised by him. He has also suggested that Sricharan Singh should do some introspection. I can only say that it is time that Manoj Das himself introspects a little instead of repeating the same old arguments like a parrot in his self-defence. I quote below passages from his letter (in italics and with indentation); these are followed by my comments (in Roman and without indentation).

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A Suggestion For Introspection – by Manoj Das

[The following is Prof. Manoj Das’s long response to Sricharan Singh’s article “Manoj Das has Sold his Soul to the Devil” published on this site on April 15, 2013. This is followed by Bireshwar Choudhury’s reply to Manoj Das in the very next posting on this site.]

Dear Editors, 

Trusting your legend that your forum is   “committed to objective, academic, respectful and honest discussions”, I send this submission to you, hopeful that you will publish this to justify the announcement. I would have ignored the provocation referred to below had the provocateurs not started distrusting it as independent leaflets.

Please refer to the provocation bearing the title “Professor Manoj Das has sold his soul to the Devil”. Only those who are Devil’s confidants or are members of Devil’s inner circle, could know about this secret transaction. Since the author(s) of the article, “Sricharan Singh” and/or those scholars who constitute this identity belong to that privileged class, they also know that their lord had awarded the highest imaginable punishment to me. Hence they should spare themselves the exercise of inventing and heaping on this unfortunate soul more and more lies, distortions and exaggerations as punishment. They do not presume to improve upon the Devil’s action against me!

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An Analysis of the Preface of Peter Heehs's "Sri Aurobindo: A Brief Biography", OUP, 1989

MURDERS IN THE LAND OF THE NAÏVE — 1

Peter Heehs wrote two biographies: Sri Aurobindo: A Brief Biography, OUP, 1989 (Bio-1), and The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, CUP, 2008, (Bio-2). He also planted a life-sketch of Sri Aurobindo in an anthology of Indian saints, maybe to test the tactic used in Bio-1 and imply Sri Aurobindo’s rank among them. This part of my article scrutinises Bio-1’s Preface, the second will scrutinise that of Bio-2. The third part will compare a few of the facts and interpretations in both vis-à-vis relevant facts from what Peter calls variant accounts.

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Preface of Sri Aurobindo: A Brief Biography, 1989, (Bio-1)

This is a masterpiece of well-sculpted elusiveness. Peter’s full positions on specific points are cut up, altered, implanted in unrelated arguments or explanations. To unravel a full position and weave the pieces in an unbroken paragraph, I had to repeat and remerge them with their soul-mates in several passages. In the section “Peter’s attitude and approach”, his text is in Italics and mine in Roman, hoping to make the overall reading smooth and comprehensible.

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Fall From Grace? ― Outlook, issue of March 12, 1997

Once known for its spiritual atmosphere, the Aurobindo Ashram today faces internal dissent and charges of sexual excesses

By A.S. PANNEERSELVAN in Pondicherry

The spiritual curtain has lifted on the Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Pon­dicherry. With its net assets over Rs 500 crore, a flourishing business in leather goods, computers and hand-made paper, and a premium on its brand equity, the ashram's spiritual con­cerns seem to have been abandoned in favour of more materialist pursuits. And now the internal discontent is threatening to spill over outside as a section of its inm­ates have decided to settle matters in court.

The legal battle has been joined by polit­ical parties and human rights organisati­ons who are demanding a full-fledged probe into the activities of the ashram. The PMK, the Samata Party, the Samajwadi Party, both factions of the DK, the BSP, the Dravida Peravai, the CPI(ML) and the Peo­ple's Union of Civil Liberties have called for accountability and democratisation of the insular institution. While the political parties are interested in the ashram beca­use of its growing economic clout (it emp­loys about 3,000 people in its various divi­sions) and its huge real estate holdings (more than 70 per cent of the old French buildings near the beach), the discontent within has emerged over the spiritual devi­ation that has taken place in the ashram over the last two decades. Labour exploita­tion, tax evasion, sexual excesses, sexual violence, paedophilia and laundering of public funds are some of the crimes the ashram has been accused of perpetrating.

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The Sri Aurobindo Ashram Inmates’ Association – by Bireshwhar Choudhury

It all started in November 1996 when Bailochan Parida and Narayan Swain formed the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Inmates’ Association in order to protect the interest of the inmates of the Ashram. Things had sufficiently gone wrong by then to warrant the formation of an association within a spiritual community. Harikant Patel was the Managing Trustee, Manoj Das Gupta was next in command though he was the driving force from behind even then. Parou Patil had died in 1996 making way for Dr Dilip Datta to become a Trustee and make a mess of the future administration of the Ashram – the legal harassment of the inmates of the Ashram began with Dr. Dilip Datta.

When the Inmates Association wanted to register their association, the Puducherry Registrar told them to get a No Objection certificate from the Ashram Trust. Meanwhile, the Ashram Trust acted with extreme high-handedness. Four members of the Association, Bailochan Parida, Srikant Jivarajini, Dilip Agarwal and Kamal Dora, were expelled from the Ashram in January 1997 because they had dared to form an association. They were immediately debarred from taking food in the Ashram Dining Room. The henchmen of the Trust then swung into punitive action. Dilip Agarwal’s room in the Laundry was locked from outside while he was sleeping inside – he had to escape through the window. Kamal Dora’s room at the Lake Estate was literally ransacked and his personal belongings thrown out – a criminal case was filed against those who had raided his room. Srikant Jivarajani was threatened at his residence and told to vacate the house. Only Bailochan was spared because he stayed in his own house.

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Professor Manoj Das has Sold his Soul to the Devil ― by Sricharan Singh

Most of us know Christopher Marlowe’s drama “Doctor Faustus”. Doctor Faustus was a very famous Professor in Germany. Within a short time, he surpassed all the other professors in knowledge. But the thought came to him that in spite of his present status he was still a human being. So he wanted to achieve extraordinary powers by learning black magic and go beyond ordinary human beings. When he was thus contemplating, a good angel came and tried to dissuade him from going ahead with his plan. But an evil angel lured him into it and he listened to his advice. Dr. Faustus then met Mephistopheles, the assistant of Lucifer, the Lord of Darkness. Mephistopheles told him that he could achieve miraculous powers with the help of Lucifer on one condition. The condition was that he should forsake the Divine and sell his soul to Lucifer. Then by the power of Lucifer, he would be able to fulfil any ambition and indulge in all the enjoyments of life for 24 years. But after that, he would have to live forever in eternal hell. As instructed by the evil angel, Dr. Faustus signed the pact with his blood. For 24 years he enjoyed power, prestige, wealth and sex to his heart’s content. Then came the time to go to eternal hell.  At this point, the good angel advised him that, even if he had committed an unforgiveable blunder, yet the compassionate Divine would forgive him if he repented for his misdeeds and prayed to Him for His help. Dr. Faustus tried his best, but he could neither repent nor pray to the Divine, and finally had to go to eternal hell.

A similar professor named Manoj Das joined the Sri Aurobindo Ashram as an inmate.

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The Ashram Trust’s Notice on Sri Aurobindo’s Relics – by Sridharan

The Ashram Trust has recently put up a notice on the enshrining of the Relics of Sri Aurobindo in the April issue of Mother India. [See below] The notice vindictively targets a particular person (whose name I would not like to mention here), while warning others not to do the same. What heinous crime did this person commit? He enshrined the relics of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother at a Sri Aurobindo centre with which he is connected. This was supposedly done without the permission of the Trustees – I say supposedly, because apparently the Managing Trustee himself gave permission for this particular installation! But why is the Managing Trustee objecting to it now? Because this person has bravely stood up against the mismanagement of the Trustees! Now is not the Managing Trustee getting too personal in his behaviour towards fellow disciples? After all, he is the Managing Trustee of Sri Aurobindo’s own Ashram and one would certainly expect more equanimity from him! I quote below from the Trust’s notice and make my comments.

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The Curious Case of Peter Heehs, Indian Historians and Media

Nearly two months back, on the 15th of April [2012], the Indian media swayed with ecstatic joy singing paeans of Justice and liberalism. Why, what happened? Did the Supreme Court pass orders to hang Modi or was Sri Sri Ravi Shankar sent to an asylum in the forests of Africa or had US moved a resolution in UNHRC for s in Gujarat, Kashmir or Assam or had the Govt of India declared Ramachandra Guha as The Jewel Of India? No, a new star from the west had risen on the horizons of India and Indian Civilization, a star that had outshined Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Paramahansa, Vivekananda, Sri Aurobindo and for that matter anyone whom millions of foolish Indians had been calling as Avatara till date. A new discovery was made, a discovery that has outsmarted Newton and Archimedes and that is supposedly to change the very destiny of India. This discovery happened after 40+ years of research work in Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry. Once the discovery was made, as is the convention, it was sent to scientists who have authority over the subject like Ramachandra Guha, Ashish Nandy, Sagarika Ghose, Arnob Goswami, Nidhi Razdan etc and finally on the 6^th of Feb in the esteemed CNN-IBN Laboratory for the Decimation of Indian Spirituality and Spiritual Leaders, it got the approval from the senate and Peter Heehs, the scientist, got acknowledged all over the world. The magnitude of the impact of this discovery can be gauged by seeing the effusive reception with which the Historians and Indian media received him in jubilant chorus on 15^th April. Since then pantheons of India’s vibrant democracy have written a plethora of articles enlightening how this discovery shall change the course of world. The more I have been reading these articles, the more my respect for these guys has been increasing, and now you see it has reached its boiling point and is finally bubbling here in this article. 

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Trustees Provoke Attack on the Ashram

For the last few days all schools and businesses in Pondicherry have been closed on account of the State-wide bandh called by political parties in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry. Pranab-da, in his capacity as head of the Department of Physical Education, used to ensure that in such situations the security of the Ashram was foremost and its Inmates and its school students protected. Now that he is no more, and the present corrupt Trustees are in full charge, the priorities have changed.

Recovering from a double hernia operation, Manoj Das Gupta (Managing Trustee) announced from the comfort of the Nursing Home that the Bandh did not concern the Ashram and the school and other non-commercial activities would go on normally. While the entire territory of Pondicherry remained shut down for the last two days, the Ashram school and other departments continued to function without concern. The Police security around Government buildings was tight, but entirely absent around the Ashram premises.

This dangerous decision of the Trustees invited a vicious attack yesterday on the Ashram main building. A group of political activists barged into the Ashram at about 12.10 pm, broke flower pots, furniture, windows and went up to the notice board shouting slogans and breaking things. Fortunately they stopped short of the Samadhi.

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DattaGate: Exposing the Corrupt Trustees of the Ashram!

Dilip Datta’s latest deal is the most novel so far and suggests how skilfully the Ashram finances and properties are being diverted and subverted by the Trustees. On the face of it there are two apparently unconnected events: 1) Ratnadeep Datta and his wife bought another plush house in Pondicherry, and 2) an Ashramite was assigned a new house in the Ashram. Nothing strange apparently until you realise that the Ashramite was the same person who sold the house to Ratnadeep Datta and his wife Jyotsna and that the sale of the house was at a price far below its market value. Now the skeletons come tumbling out!

Let us review the sequence of events as they occurred:

1. On 13.13.1974 one Michèle Mercier, a French citizen living in the Ashram, purchased a plot of land of 1800 sq.ft. and later built a large three storeyed building named “Abhiseka” situated at 9, Padmini Thottam, Kuruchikuppam, Puducherry 605012.
2. She lived there all of these years even after she was formally admitted into the Ashram as a permanent Inmate. It is a large house, more than sufficient for an entire family to live in, and certainly more than enough for one person. But having no income, and with maintenance costs increasing, she found the house too big to manage.
3. In 2009, she approached the Ashram Trustees with the offer to donate the building to the Ashram in exchange for a smaller house closer to the Ashram main building. Instead Dilip Datta allegedly made a counter offer: she could sell the land to his son for a low price, and keep the money while still getting herself premium accommodation assigned from the Ashram! She readily agreed.
4. Dr Dilip Datta, head of the Ashram’s medical section, told her that Huta D Hindocha (the Mother’s confidante) was quite ill and would not survive much longer, and promised to assign Michèle her house as soon as she passed away.
5. Miraculously and to the great consternation of “Dr Death”, Huta continued to live against all medical odds. Several times she was hospitalised in a private hospital in critical condition, but each time she bounced back miraculously and returned to complete the work assigned to her by the Mother. Throughout, Huta refused to go to the Ashram Nursing Home because of her dangerous experience with Dr Dilip Datta. (A few years earlier, “Dr Death” had wrongly diagnosed her as having pneumonia and gave her heavy doses of wrong medication for three months that broke her health for good. She never recovered from that wrong treatment and refused to have anything to do with Dr Dilip Datta after that.)
6. Finally, in early October 2011, under pressure of other doctors of the Ashram, Huta agreed to shift to the Ashram Nursing Home. Once more in the care of “Dr Death”, she did not return alive.
7. Even while Huta was receiving treatment in the Nursing Home, Dilip Datta gave the go ahead to his son for purchase of Michèle’s house. But Michèle Mercier had been disappointed too often. She wanted some guarantee for her interests to be protected. What if, she asked, Huta did not die now? What if, after completing the sale, she was not given the house that she wanted? Dilip Datta agreed that she could sell half the house to begin with and transfer the other half after shifting to her Ashram assigned premium accommodation.
8. On 12^th October 2011, while Huta was struggling for life at the Nursing Home, Michèle Mercier signed the sale deed transferring 50% of the “undivided share” of her property to Dilip Datta’s son Ratnadeep Datta and his wife in a sale deed that is unprecedented and quite anomalous. (More of that later.)
9. On 17^th November 2011, Huta D Hindocha passed away in the Ashram Nursing Home. According to her Will, her body was brought back to her house and kept on her bed, surrounded by the Mother’s Treasures and her life’s work done under the Mother’s guidance. Dilip Datta and Ratnadeep Datta were not among those who came to see her off.
10. A few months later, Michèle came to Huta’s house and demanded that the house be handed over to her. She said, “I have been waiting for this house for the last 5 years!”

So what is wrong with the sale deed by which Dilip Datta’s family has purchased Michèle’s house? Plenty! This deed of sale does things no one in her right mind would accept – it binds Michèle to complete loss of privacy and loss of control of her entire house even while selling only half of it. It prevents her from selling the other half of her house to anyone else except Dilip Datta’s family members. It allows Ratnadeep Datta to own the entire house for good while only paying for half of it and that too at a price well below market rates! Strange, wouldn’t you say? [extract -- read full article below]

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Customer Review of the "Lives of Sri Aurobindo" by Peter Heehs in Amazon.com – by Mark R.

Kinda boring and tedious - more anthropological than biographical, June 14, 2011

This was a difficult book to get through, by any means, even though I am generally intrigued with the topic itself. Readers should know going into this book isn't much uplifting at all, it is more about the minutiae of Sri Aurobindo's life (and the accuracy of that minutiae seems to be in question by many, including the Sri Aurobindo Ashram itself).

What struck me was that the writings of Sri Aurobindo are fascinating and quite inspiring; however this book is so heavy on details and lacking in spirit that it seemed as if I was reading about another person, almost a facsimile. I shrugged it off, since the book seemed like more of an anthropological study of a man, digging up all kinds of trivial details about his life. However once I finished the book, I felt like I had 'read about his clothes, but not the man himself.' 

While I am not in a position to research the details of the original source documents to ascertain if the author's account is accurate, there is an over-arching tone in his writing that reveals that the author seems to be more concerned about revealing as many "facts" as possible, without really appreciating them.  It is a very dry study, almost stripped of all life and inspiration.

Perhaps it is part of the common trend nowadays, to "humanize" people of inspiration and accomplishment, by focusing more on the trivial than the meaningful -- and what is meaningful is reduced to bland analysis. It is almost as if there is an effort to take Sri Aurobindo down a notch, or knock him off his pedestal. I wish I had known that before struggling though so many tedious pages.

If you are looking for a book that highlights and appreciates Sri Aurobindo's various achievements, this is not the book for you. If you want more of a dry, anthropological study, you're in luck -- there are endless pages to read.

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