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 Matriprasad Satyamurthy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Matriprasad Satyamurthy. Show all posts
2 Sept 2017
15 Dec 2015
The Necessity of Proper Procedures in Sri Aurobindo Ashram – by Baikunth
It
is therefore high time that some proper procedures are introduced in the
current administrative setup of the Ashram without, at the same time,
paralysing it with procedures as we see in various Government institutions. It
is true we have made a parody of democracy in our country, but that cannot be a
justification for not introducing basic democratic structures in the Ashram. It
is also true that spirituality and democracy may be incompatible, but in the
present predicament of the Ashram when the Integral Yoga has become an excuse
to enjoy the ordinary life at other people’s expense, it is time to put in
place a few checks and balances on the unlimited powers of the Trustees to
prevent the most arrogant human errors in the name of divine justice. [read full article below]
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.
6 Nov 2015
On the Visit of BJP President Amit Shah to Sri Aurobindo Ashram – by Sampdas
It
is both comical and ironical that the Ashram Trustees first took the BJP President,
Sri Amit Shah, to the Samadhi of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and then to the
Archives Cold Storage, where their manuscripts are preserved. It is ironical because the very
supporters of the denigration of Sri Aurobindo posed as earnest
followers of the Master in front of powerful politicians. At the same time, it
is comical that those who insolently tamper with the writings of Sri Aurobindo
are introduced as the ones who reverentially preserve his writings. [read full article below]
25 Oct 2015
The Bhishmacharya Complex – by A Concerned Ashramite
The situation of the old guard of the Ashram is the same as that of Bhishmacharya, who was unable to use his
mighty bow in the service of dharma and was forced to fight on the side of adharma
with an anguished conscience. This inability and helplessness to stand for the
truth, this forced loyalty towards the powers that be, and the apparently
virtuous stand which actually facilitates falsehood is what I call the
Bhishmacharya complex!
[read full article below]
[read full article below]
13 Sept 2015
BJP President Amit Shah’s Visit to Sri Aurobindo Ashram – by Bireshwar Choudhury
The Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, while
pretending to be above politics, has taken full political mileage from the recent
visit of the BJP President Amit Shah to the Ashram on 25 August, 2015. A casual
bystander reported to us on how the Trustees accompanied by their Secretary
Matriprasad Satyamurthy (the Ashram’s best sweet-talker and accomplished sycophant)
went out of their way to please Mr. Shah, fawning over him every second of the
thirty-five minutes flat he spent in the Ashram main building.
19 May 2015
Did Sri Aurobindo Lie in the Uttarpara Speech? – Extract from Jugal Kishore Mukherji’s Letter
[The following extract from Jugal Kishore Mukherji’s first letter to the Ashram
Trustees in June 1986 shows that Matriprasad Satyamurthy (the present secretary
of the Ashram Trust) has been colluding with Peter Heehs for a long time. Peter
Heehs was then editor of the Ashram’s Archives and Research magazine in which
he first published his “great discoveries” on how Sri Aurobindo was a coward,
on how he played a double game with the British police, on how he lied to the
public with regard to instructing his lawyer Chittaranjan Das who defended him
in the Court, etc, etc. This particular extract deals with the last distortion
– that Sri Aurobindo continued to give advice to Chittaranjan Das in the
Alipore Bomb Trial despite what he said in the Uttarpara speech on having left
everything to God during his year-long confinement in Alipore Jail! – Bireshwar
Choudhury]
At times, in the
pages of our Journal Archives and
Research, accounts of events given by some sundry persons are made use
of in order to prove Sri Aurobindo wrong!! Sri Aurobindo’s own
spiritual statements are controverted and are sought to be proved false –
and that, too, on the authority of our young friend MATRIPRASAD! Too
strange to believe? – Yes, so is it. Let me explain.
3 May 2015
Matriprasad Satyamurthy’s Remark on a Controversial Take on Sri Aurobindo’s Life – by Bireshwar Choudhury
This is with regard to the news story titled “Bengal minister’s Aurobindo
play sitting on a time bomb / Controversial Take On Guru’s Exit From Freedom
Struggle” published in The Times of India
(Mumbai edition) on 25 April, 2015. The controversial take is stated in the
following manner:
“Did Rishi
Aurobindo ‘run away’ from the freedom movement?”
“Standing behind prison bars, Hemchandra bursts out in
anger: “You (Aurobindo) have saved yourself but history won’t forgive you.” In
another scene, Aurobindo’s brother Barin says: “Why did I tell my brother’s
survival lies only in mixing religion with politics? Little did I know he’d
give up politics and take refuge in religion.”
18 Dec 2014
Tension prevails in Pondy
The
Times of India
Tension
prevails in Pondy after three of a family commit suicide; protesters attack
Aurobindo Ashram
Bosco Dominique,TNN | Dec 18, 2014, 03.39 PM IST
Sisters evicted from Aurobindo Ashram: Three including mother commit suicide
ABP Live
PTI
Thursday, 18 December
2014 02:47 PM
Puducherry:
An entire family - five sisters and their parents - jumped into the sea here
this morning, a day after they were evicted from the famous Aurobindo Ashram.
Two of the young
women and their mother have died, the police said, while the father and three
other daughters were rescued by fishermen and have been hospitalized.
The family is from
Bihar. The five sisters had been staying in the residential part of the
Aurobindo Ashram for several years; their parents lived near-by.
The trust that
runs the ashram had 10 years ago accused one of the sisters of
misconduct. Earlier this month, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the
trust and said the sisters should vacate their rooms within a week; if they
refused, the court said, the police should evict them.
Yesterday, they
warned to kill themselves if they were moved out, but later were escorted out
by the police after extensive talks.
11 Sept 2014
Sridharan Replies to Matriprasad Satyamurthy on the pro-Ashram Trust Nexus
Refer to the Well-wishers’ posting of August 30, 2014 “The Pro-Ashram Trust
Nexus!” in reply to our “Connecting the Dots between the pro-Ashram Trust Nexus
– Sridharan” (July 28, 2014), which in turn was a reply to the Well-wishers’ “Connecting the
dots between the anti-Ashram nexus” (July 4, 2014).
I will not waste my time with the shameless
jingoism and empty rhetoric of this particular posting on the Well-wishers’ forum, which is mainly due
to the fact that the site is fully backed by the present authorities of the
Ashram. Let me come straight to the distinction between the Sri Aurobindo
Ashram and the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust that we have always insisted upon. The
Well-wishers’ forum is so overawed
with the importance of legalities that they seem to forget that the Ashram is
supposed to be a spiritual institution. (This is typical of Matriprasad
Satyamurthy – secretary of the Ashram Trust, who always talks legal when you
want to engage him with spiritual issues. He once told a newcomer to simply
enjoy life at the Ashram instead of trying to practise Yoga!) When did we say
that the Ashram and the Ashram Trust are two different legal entities? The
Trust was of course created by the Mother to take care of the Ashram properties,
but only the Mother is authorised to induct and evict persons from the Ashram.
According to Clause 7 of the Trust Deed, this matter is left to her “absolute
discretion” and no other clause qualifies any other Trustee to undertake this
responsibility in her absence! In fact the Ashram Trust Deed, drafted in 1955
shortly after the de facto transfer of Pondicherry to the Indian Union, is framed
for the period of her lifetime. Even the possibility of her demise is not
mentioned in the Trust Deed and no future contingent arrangements are envisaged
in it with regard to the guidance and administration of the sadhaks of the
Ashram. For more information on this aspect, read the following article posted
on our site. (“Misconceptions about the Ashram Trust Deed.”)
29 Aug 2014
Response to Govardhan Dave – by Sridharan
Govardhan Dave is perhaps at his illogical best in the recent posting of
19 August 2014 on the Well-Wishers’ forum. Logical analysis was never his
strong point, but what concerns me is that he is also an ignoramus on life in
Sri Aurobindo Ashram and on the stormy events that have recently occurred there.
What is more disconcerting is that he proceeds to write a factual analysis of
the controversy with this half-knowledge and with his half-baked mind. This
double deficiency makes him indeed a dangerous disseminator of wrong
information which gullible strangers might readily believe. Hence I will take
the trouble to rebut him instead of dismissing him as a harmless nincompoop who
is being used by the Well-Wishers’ forum to shoot over his shoulders. I quote
below his so-called analysis with my comments below.
22 Aug 2014
Who is Gaining from Legal Battles? – Sridharan
The Well-Wishers
of Sri Aurobindo Ashram Forum is active again. This Forum can be considered
as the unofficial mouthpiece of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust with Matriprasad
Satyamurthy (secretary of the Ashram Trust) and Richard Hartz (controversial
editor of Sri Aurobindo’s publications) hiding behind pseudonyms and spewing
hatred at what they call anti-Ashram elements. Let me remind you once more that
we had made a clear distinction between the Sri Aurobindo Ashram and the Sri
Aurobindo Ashram Trust in our last response to this forum. Therefore the
Ashramites who have filed this “new case” are not against the Ashram but the Ashram
Trust, which runs the Ashram in the most irresponsible manner. Their demand is
to revamp the present administration through a Government intervention without
which no structural changes can be brought about in the governance of the
Ashram. The changes will ensure transparency and accountability, the utter lack
of which is the hallmark of the present setup. The introduction of some democracy
into the highly autocratic functioning of the present Trustees would also be a
welcome measure. All these demands are fundamental to any institution in modern
times and, if the excuse for not conceding to them is that the Ashram is a
spiritual institution and not a secular one, then show me these “highly
spiritual disciples” among the present Trustees who can guide the Ashram to its
spiritual destiny!
28 Jul 2014
Connecting the Dots between the pro-Ashram Trust Nexus – Sridharan
The Well-wishers
of Sri Aurobindo Ashram website which follows closely our site has recently
done some “remarkable investigation” and announced how it has “connected the
dots” between the so-called anti-Ashram nexus. Let me first remind these “highly
intelligent sleuths” that Sri Aurobindo Ashram (Pondicherry) is different from
the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust (Pondicherry). The Ashram Trust was created by
the Mother in 1955 for protecting the assets and properties of the Ashram,
whereas Sri Aurobindo Ashram spontaneously began in 1926 when Sri Aurobindo
gave “the spiritual and material charge” of his disciples to the Mother after
the Siddhi Day. The Ashram is the spiritual institution and the Ashram Trust is
only a legal body, whose administration has at first gradually and then rapidly
deteriorated in recent times after the passing away of its Gurus. A section of
the Ashramites are extremely unhappy with the corrupt and dictatorial
functioning of the Ashram Trust and have therefore gone against it in various
legitimate ways. They have not gone against the Ashram itself nor do they want
to destroy the Ashram from the face of this earth, as the supporters of the
Ashram Trust would like the ignorant public to believe. The solution to this
rudderless present situation of the Ashram without any spiritual heads, or
rather with the present Trustees who always get into loggerheads with anybody
who differs from them, is an alternate system of fair and democratic
governance. If this is difficult to understand and highly objectionable, then I
think we have to set the clock back and go back to pre Magna Carta days.
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