On
the 25th of August 2017 the Pondicherry Police whisked off Manoj Das Gupta in a
Police jeep around 7 a.m. from the Ashram Dining Room, where he had gone to
collect his breakfast. The Police took him to the station for questioning with
regard to the rape of a minor girl by a minor boy committed in the premises of
the Ashram School on 21 July, 2017. Manoj Das Gupta happens to be the Managing
Trustee of Sri Aurobindo Ashram and the Registrar of the Ashram School, which
is a powerful and influential position to hold in Pondicherry, so it is
extremely surprising that the Police dared to treat him like a common citizen. He
was even made to undergo the utter humiliation of waiting in the Police Station
for two hours and told to come the next day for interrogation. The next day he
was accompanied by Dr. Dilip Datta (Trustee and head of the Ashram Medical
Services) and Matriprasad Satyamurthy (Secretary of the Ashram Trust) to the
Police station. The same week writer Manoj Das (Sahitya Academy award winner
and recipient of Padma Shri) was summoned to Chennai and interrogated by the
Intelligence Bureau. All of a sudden the long delayed karmic hand has caught up
with the actions of this nefarious group of the Ashram and the fortress of
invincibility they had built up in the public domain over the last twenty years
seemed to fall like a house of cards.
Showing posts with label Manoj Das. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Manoj Das. Show all posts
2 Sept 2017
7 Aug 2017
Two Shocking Incidents – Anirjeet
The following post, dated 6 August, 2017 on indiatoday.in with the title “SC rejects plea of woman ‘abused’ at Puducherry’s Aurobindo Ashram” is highly misleading, even going by the report that follows underneath.
On 28 July 2017, Chief Justice Khehar dismissed the impleadment petition of
Hemlata Prasad in the Writ Petition filed by Gayatri Satpathy & Others against
the Ashram Trustees in August 2014 for a number of complaints, including sexual
harassment of minors, death by medical negligence, shady land dealings and other
financial irregularities. The Chief Justice however granted the liberty to
Hemlata Prasad to “initiate proceedings if the applicant is so advised in her
own right”. In other words, the Chief
Justice did not reject her plea of being abused but instructed her to file it
separately on her own. So while the title gives the impression of the Ashram
Trustees coming out clean in the eyes of the Supreme Court, the actual content
of the story should hardly make them comfortable, especially when the Centre (MHA
is a party to the Writ Petition) has “favoured an independent inquiry into
the affairs of the Ashram”.
In the meanwhile two more shocking
incidents have come to light in the Ashram, which should make the Ashram Trustees
literally squirm in their seats and regret why they ever sat on them.
17 Oct 2016
Timeline of the Controversy
1978
Nirmal Singh’s rejoinder to Peter Heehs on the birthplace of Sri
Aurobindo. According to Peter Heehs, Sri Aurobindo was wrong about where he
was born.
12.02.1984
Appointment
of Manoj Das Gupta as Trustee of Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust after the passing
away of Nolini Kanto Gupta. He was recommended as Trustee by Nolini Kanto
Gupta through a dubious note signed (or made to sign) in his last days and
left in the custody of Pranab Kumar Bhattacharya. We do not know why Nolini
did not give the note to Padmanabhan Counouma, who was then the Managing
Trustee of the Ashram, and why he did not recommend Manoj Das Gupta earlier through
a formal meeting of the Board of Trustees. Manoj Das Gupta’s policy of not
rocking the boat even when the boat is about to be wrecked, as in the controversy
over the Lives of Sri Aurobindo by Peter
Heehs, makes him undoubtedly the most vehemently criticised Trustee in the
history of the Ashram. He is also known to protect the guilty and punish the
victims or those who have raised the alarm.
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24 Nov 2015
The Mahabharata in Sri Aurobindo Ashram – by Sampdas
This
has reference to an interesting write-up titled The Bhishmacharya Complex
in Sri Aurobindo Ashram (posted on this site on 25 October, 2015). The write-up
has touched the crux of the matter; to me and a large number of followers of
the Mother, the legend of the Mahabharata looks as being re-enacted at the
Ashram, with variations in content and scope. While the ancient epic is largely
a legend and a symbol, when we ponder on the present state of affairs in the
Ashram, it looks that today’s Mahabharata is for real.
25 Apr 2015
Sampdas on Jayantilal Parekh’s Article on Sri Aurobindo Ashram
It is
no surprise then that the Wellwishers
of the Ashram Trust, knowing too well which side of the bread is buttered, have
no qualms about keeping quiet when Sri Aurobindo himself is derated, but take
up cudgels and loudspeakers on behalf of the Trustees. The guidepost for them is that those who
question the wrong actions of the Trust are necessarily heretics and their
actions are blasphemous. However, on their part, they are prone to take the
easy path of “we see no wrong, we hear no wrong, we speak no wrong” on the
actions of the Trust. They expect that wrongs against the Divine and sadhaks be
not addressed at all by chanting the rhetoric, “the Trustees can do nothing
wrong and people should accept everything that they do with the non-questioning
maxim of conduct that “thou shalt not think or reason or question the Trustees
even if they are wrong.” Their fundamental fallacy owes to the misplaced
identification of the administrative outfit of the Ashram Trust with the Ashram
itself. [extract – read full article
below]
15 Dec 2014
Quo Vadis? by Sampdas – Response to Ritwik Banerjee
Apropos “An Earnest Appeal” by Shri
Ritwik Banerjee, let it be noted that there are disciples and devotees of Sri
Aurobindo and the Mother – both within the Pondicherry outfit and outside – who
are very much perturbed by the manner in which the Masters are denigrated by a
handful of influential persons, possibly encouraged and egged on to such
vicious efforts by those who are close to the Trustees of the Ashram. On the other
hand, the silent majority are perhaps hapless witnesses to it – counting their
day to day rations – since they have no other go if they are thrown out of the
Ashram. The junta that rules now has the leverage to muzzle dissent into
submission by denying food and medical facilities to those who owe allegiance
to Sri Aurobindo and The Mother, and who dare to protest against atrocities not
only against human beings but against the Divine as well. The protestors on the
other hand appear to have been carrying on their crusade as a sacred duty to
ensure that the Masters are not denigrated in the very Ashram which bears the
name of the Pioneers of the New Age.
There are many like me who share the
concern for the need to cure this festering wound in time so that it does not
become a gangrene threatening the very
fundamentals of the spiritual endeavour of sincere disciples and devotees.
12 Dec 2014
An Earnest Appeal – by Ritwik Banerjee
Dear
Sir & Madam,
I don't know who or
who has not has read the last mail/forwards on the subject. Even a single
response on any point can ensure some peace of mind to its sender. Kindly let
all Aurobindonians know your response thereby on the following counts:
1) Are The Golden
Chain Fraternity & its work maintained by Ashram in any manner?
2) What are its goal
& agenda?
3) Do you agree with
a biography of the Master published in 2008 by the Columbia University Press?
Was it warranted?
4) Don't you think
its author has spent four decades in the Ashram with you in some way betraying
the Ashram?
6 Dec 2014
On Manoj Das’s Clarification with Regard to the Seashore Chit Fund Scam – by an Inmate of the Ashram
We, the devotees of the Mother and
Sri Aurobindo in Odisha, read on 28.10.2014 in the Odiya dailies about Shri
Manoj Das’s clarification “Kinchit hatachakita jane lekhakara prashna o pratibedana”
[a befuddled writer’s question and
submission] regarding his involvement with the scam-tainted Seashore Chit Fund.
Since we feel sorry for such a famous writer like him getting involved in such
dubious money matters, and as we found some discrepancies in the submission of
his position to the dailies, we request him to provide further clarifications.
Besides, since we are associated with Sri Aurobindo Ashram for a long time, the
magical word craft of Shri Manoj Das cannot sway us enough to lose sight of the
reality staring at us.
Here are the following
discrepancies: -
2 Nov 2014
Strange are the Ways of the Divine! – by Sampdas
Apropos the news about Shri Manoj Das and
the Seashore Chit Fund scam reported in this site on the 28th and 29th
of October 2014, I felt that by Divine Providence the Orissa Seashore Chit
Bounty got channelled back to the flood victims near the Seashore in Orissa.
Prompted by my inner voice, I went through the self assessment given by Shri
Manoj Das in his reply dated 17 September 2014 to the column titled The
Enemy Within in the journal Organiser (dt 21 Sep 2014).
What he wrote angrily there perhaps can be
utilised with minor modifications to reflect on the current theme about Sri
Manoj Das (MD in short).
While Shri MD in his rejoinder to the Organiser
has claimed to be living in Sri Aurobindo Ashram for a little over fifty years,
the tail piece in the site wellwishersofsriaurobindoashram which
republished the same rejoinder, mentions that he has been an inmate of Sri
Aurobindo Ashram in Puducherry since 1973. It is not clear how 1973 to 2014
adds up to 50 years! But possibly Sri Aurobindo’s line in Savitri, “Which less than zero grew and more than one”
has been used in the computation.
29 Oct 2014
Why did Manoj Das keep mum in June 2013 with regard to the Seashore Chit Fund scam?
[It is not
that Manoj Das did not know earlier about the chit fund scam of the Seashore group, the
literary wing of which he was the adviser and for which he received one lakh
rupees a month. Now he throws up his hands imploring the Heavens for justice
and donates all that he has received to the Odisha Chief Minister’s Relief
Fund, but what did he do when the Seashore group was publicly exposed as early
as June 2013, one and a half year ago? Why did he keep mum at that time? And
why did he continue to receive his honorarium? And why does he now create such
a big scene as if he never knew anything about it? The following post, written
by Subhas Chandra Pattanayak on 17 June, 2013, shows the nexus between writers
like Manoj Das and corrupt business tycoons, who use the services of the former
to establish their own credentials in the general public in order to draw unsuspecting
investors to their fraudulent companies. – Bireshwar]
Posted on June 17,
2013 by Subhas Chandra Pattanayak
Subhas
Chandra Pattanayak
Eminent journalist Prasanta Patnaik
has, in his column in Sanchar, exposed such a thread in the matter of economic
offenses committed by Prasant Das and his Seashore group of companies that
every Oriya who prides in his/her language, writers and scribes, feels ashamed.
28 Oct 2014
Manoj Das and the Seashore Chit Fund Scam
[Manoj Das is in the news again for the
wrong reasons. This time it is for his association with the scam tainted chit
fund company run by the Seashore group in Odisha. As usual he has pretended ignorance
and donated the money that he received from the Seashore group (10 lakhs) to
the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund. But is not that simply an eyewash to
exonerate himself? Who will not “offer” or “donate” the money when the law finally
catches up on him? We reproduce below some of the news items that have been
posted on the web. – Bireshwar]
10 Oct 2014
Reply to the Rejoinder of Manoj Das to the Organiser – by Bireshwar Choudury
Manoj Das is the proverbial
professor who has sold his soul to the Devil. So his staunch defence of the
corrupt Trustees of Sri Aurobindo Ashram does not come as a surprise. He will
keep on perorating praise for them because of very selfish ends such as getting
the Ashram Trust to pay for his costly medical treatment – he has recently
undergone knee replacement surgery and radiation therapy in corporate hospitals
unlike the other inmates of the Ashram who are sent to Government Hospitals for
medical treatment. He is also the official spokesperson of the Ashram Trust from
which he derives enormous benefit from the point of view of publicity, which he
cleverly uses to climb the ladder of literary fame. We have recently come to
know that many of his stories have been actually picked up from various
anthologies, so he does not even deserve the awards that have been bestowed on
him.
4 Oct 2014
Shiva Responds to Manoj Das's Rejoinder to the Organiser
Shiva’s Hearty Greetings
To Padamshree Prof Manoj-Das-ji
For His Characteristic Tosh Against the Author of “The
Enemy Within”
You dismiss Mr Chari’s
“The Enemy Within” as a “vomit” of the “nasty and naked lies fed to him by
unauthorised hostile elements” – as if Mr Chari had no other sources within and
outside for this thesis.
You claim he “swallowed” this
“dirt” because he has “never visited the Ashram” – as if by a single visit one robotically
“imbibes the spirit sublime dominating its air” and knows all about Sri
Aurobindo, Mother, Their Yoga, Their Ashram.
But you are yourself a proof
that even after “over fifty years” here one can swallow “nasty and naked lies”
fed by elements hostile to Sri Aurobindo, Mother, Their Yoga, and Their Ashram!
For instance:—
18 Jul 2014
Reply to Manoj Das’s Letter to Niranjan Naik (2) – by Bireshwar Choudhury
Manoj Das suffers from an uncontrollable itch to
put down his critics. It would have been so much better had the writer’s itch
channelised itself in a more fruitful manner in his own realm of creative writing. But
I have been told that from the last decade or two his literary creativity is
ebbing in inverse proportion to his mounting desire to be honoured by all sorts
of awards. The last big award he successfully managed to canvas for was the
Padma Sri award, accorded by the Govt. of India in 2001. Now I suppose
he is eying for the Padma Bhushan and the Padma Vibhushan. But what is he doing
at Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Puducherry, and how does the Ashram help him in his
enterprise?
No, he has certainly not thrown fame
to the winds to attain the Supramental Transformation or even to achieve a Yogic
poise! If he had really done so, why would he rush out for a fresh round of
self-promotion each time he receives an invitation from literary circles? Why would he criticise other awardees who
have outshone him in literary output and perhaps deprived him of the award that
he might have won instead? And why is he so keen on saving his reputation which
has recently plummeted in his home state of Orissa after this site published
the less known details of his activities in Pondicherry?
11 Jul 2014
Reply to Manoj Das’s Letter to Niranjan Naik – by Sripad Singh
Dear
Mr. Das,
I have read your letter of
15.06.2014 to Niranjan-bhai (Niranjan Naik). As you have requested him not to say
anything about you, I am interested to reply to your letter because I am
thoroughly conversant with the facts of the controversy. Also the nature of
your letter demands an answer.
On 10.05.2013 in your article “Last
Appeal”, you had said that you will not to write anything more on the present
controversy in the Ashram. As you frequently break your own promise and baffle
the common devotees and disciples of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, an answer to
your letter is therefore badly needed. All your letters like the present one
are factually wrong, unsubstantial, discordant, irrelevant and full of unnecessary
emotion.
12 May 2014
GURU NINDA ― by Niranjan Naik
[There is a story
behind this article. It was originally written in Oriya for the November 2008
issue of Navaprakash by Niranjan
Naik, who was its editor for the last 38 years. The Peter Heehs controversy had
erupted around mid-August / September 2008, shocking the devotees and disciples
of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. The question that figured most prominently in
their minds was how an Ashramite could insult the Guru. Niranjan Naik answered
the question indirectly in his article without mentioning any names. The
November 2008 issue was printed and even bound at the Ashram Press when the
matter was brought to the notice of the Ashram Trust. The Managing Trustee, on the advice of Manoj Das,
immediately ordered the scrapping of the article and 9700 copies of the
magazine had to be redone. The cover pages were torn and the pages of the
article were shredded to bits. Luckily, a few copies of the article were
preserved, xeroxed and distributed in Orissa where it elicited a highly
favourable response. It is in the light of this event that readers of this site
should judge the dubious public statement made by the Ashram Trust in 2012 with
regard to freedom of speech and belief in Sri Aurobindo Ashram.
The story does not
end there. Niranjan Naik was later removed from the editorship of Navaprakash in
January 2011 under pressure from Manoj Das. His daily work of carrying the letters and offerings of devotees in Orissa to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s rooms was abruptly taken away from him by Manoj Das Gupta. Even now,
he constantly faces harassment by the henchmen of the Trustees in spite of
lodging two police complaints. This
is the mundane reality of the present Ashram administration. – Bireshwar]
13 Mar 2014
Peter Heehs’s Attempt to Withdraw the Ban on his Scurrilous Biography of Sri Aurobindo ― by Sricharan Singh
The Trustees of Sri Aurobindo Ashram
are once again trying to reactivate the effort to denigrate Sri Aurobindo in
the eyes of the public. The effort had been quelled earlier, but this time they
have taken the help of Manoj Das, the well-known Odiya writer and inmate of Sri
Aurobindo Ashram.
An American inmate of Sri Aurobindo
Ashram by the name of Peter Heehs had written a biography called The Lives of Sri Aurobindo in May 2008,
which was published by Columbia University Press. The book portrays Sri
Aurobindo and the Mother as very ordinary human beings who lived very ordinary
lives. The Government of Odisha in its wisdom had banned the book in India
through a Gazette Notification on the 9th of April 2009 before the
Indian edition could be published. Therefore Indian readers were fortunately
saved from this distorting book, which is a deliberate and malicious attempt by
a foreigner to denigrate our deeply adored national and spiritual leader.
Recently Peter Heehs has filed a
complaint in the Odisha High Court challenging the Gazette Notification of the
Odisha Government.
24 Feb 2014
Objectionable Extracts from Wendy Doniger's book, Hindus: An Alternative History – Bireshwar Choudhury
Wendy Doniger, who of
late is very much in the news, is the intellectual grandmother of Peter Heehs.
Wendy Doniger begat Jeffrey Kripal, who did his “research” on Sri Ramakrishna
for his P.H.D. dissertation under her guidance at the University of Chicago.
Jeffrey Kripal wrote the blurb on the back of the Lives of Sri Aurobindo (2008) by Peter Heehs, who gave a soft copy
of his book to his “venerable guide” prior to its publication – Kripal’s book
on Esalen (2007) contains references to the MS of the Lives. Esalen is an institution founded by Michael Murphy, who is
more or less in the same business of misinterpreting spirituality. He in fact
paid for the trips of both Richard Hartz and Peter Heehs to America in order to
attend a conference in California. This is the lineage of the so-called
scholarship that we are presently dealing with, and of which most of the disciples,
followers and intellectual admirers of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother are totally
unaware. Now that Wendy Doniger, the grandmother of falsehood (she has a
veritable brood of children who have followed the path of outright denigration and
erotic misinterpretation of Hinduism) has been exposed and her publisher Penguin Books has capitulated to a humble
headmaster (hats off for Dinanath Batra, the octogenarian hero and his courageous
lawyer Monica Arora), it is time that the followers of Sri Aurobindo rethink and take stock of the situation at the
Ashram: Why did the Managing Trustee of the Ashram encourage Peter Heehs in his
denigration of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother? Why did Manoj Das, the award
winning writer justify this incomprehensible action of the Managing Trustee,
who will certainly go down in history as perhaps the only Trustee who has gone
against the interest of the spiritual institution he was entrusted with?
Meanwhile, it is
time to rejoice a great victory for all those who stand for the spiritual values
embodied in Hinduism. We publish below a few objectionable extracts from Wendy Doniger’s book,
The Hindus: An Alternative History in order to give the readers an idea of her so-called
scholarship and the academic tag attached to her erotic misinterpretations of the
sacred symbols of India. The extracts along with critical comments on them are
part of an online petition that was circulated for canvassing against her book.
The petition at one point of time fetched 11009 signatures as opposed to the meagre 3500 claimed by a group of
leftist scholars fighting for her cause. The full petition, which also has a
list of factual errors, can be accessed at:
16 Feb 2014
The Literary and Literal Manoj Das ― by Sricharan Singh
Has Manoj Das any occult or
spiritual vision of these forces or are these only the products of his fertile
literary brain? In this context, the remark of the respected Odiya sadhak late
Babaji Sri Ramakrishna Das, who had a profound occult vision, is worth
mentioning. About 35 years ago, when a sadhak went for some work to Babaji’s
room near the Ashram, Babaji asked him, “Have you seen who has come to my room
just now?” The sadhak replied, “Yes, I saw Manoj babu was going out.” Then
Babaji told him, “When that person entered my room, I saw a dark force entering
my room.” The sadhak was astonished. But after 35 years he found out how true
was Babaji’s vision! [extract, read full article below]
2 Feb 2014
Dr. Kartikeshwar Patra (ex-M.P. from Balasore) replies to Prof. Manoj Das
(Translation of the Original in Odiya)
Aum Sri Ma
Respected Sir, 20.12.2013
My regards. After receiving
your letter and speaking to you on the phone, I felt inspired to reply to you. Therefore
I thought that first I needed to let you know about a few things. Often one
does not know what the truth is. So one does not hesitate to call the truth a
lie because one tells lies out of fear of society and one even resorts to lies
in the name of God. As Bacon says “Lie faceth God, shrinketh from mankind”.
Your letter is coloured with lies in order to shake my conviction. Therefore,
once again I appeal to you, please tell me – those who are revengeful towards
others, are they real sadhaks? You have not answered this question. Why have
they refused to put me up in the Ashram guest-houses? This too you have not
answered. What offence have I committed before the trustees?
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