A Shady Property Purchase by the Ashram Trust

[The following is R.K. Selvarajan’s complaint filed with the Inspector of Police (C.I.D.) on 18 February, 2003 regarding the fraudulent sale of three of his properties to the Ashram Trust by his son Murugavel. The Ashram Trustees connived in the deal with the son so that he could sell the properties to the Trust without the knowledge of his father. When the matter was reported to the C.I.D., Manoj Das Gupta had to file an advance bail petition to prevent his arrest and was made to sign a bond of Rs 5000/ for his release.  The then Ashram lawyer P.P. Raghavachari had warned him of the consequences of this shady deal, but the Trust did not listen to his advice and went ahead with the purchase only to land into deep trouble and disrepute. – Bireshwar Choudhury]

COMPLAINT  FILED UNDER SECTION 154 OF C.R.P.C.

Sir,

I am residing in the above said address, I have leased out my house properties bearing Door No. 12 & 13 at Goubert Avenue (Beach Road), Pondicherry, No. 13 at Saint Louis Street, Pondicherry, and No. 3, Lai Bahadur Shastri Street, Pondicherry to Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Pondicherry for a monthly rent of Rs. 10,000/- in total for the said premises. The premises has been let out to the said Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust 30 years back.

I further submit that on 26.06.2000 I have received a reply letter for my letter dated 20.06.2000 from one Harikant C. Patel who is the Managing Trustee of the said Aurobindo Ashram Trust, stating that they came to know from reliable sources that I had donated the properties which are all under their occupation as a tenant in favour of my son S. Murugavel by a registered donation Deed. After receipt of their said letter, I was shocked and gave reply to the said Managing Trustee that I had not donated the properties which are under their occupation to anybody and I also informed them not to rely upon unreliable sources of information. I had also asked them to continue the existing Landlord tenancy relationship.

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The Crooked Registrar of the Ashram School – by Banamali Mishra

Manoj Das Gupta, the Registrar of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram International Centre of Education and other members of the School Committee along with their advisers have been adopting the most crooked means to save themselves from contempt of Court. This is in reference to Radhikaranjan Das’s case which was filed in Pondicherry Court last year in June 2012. The Registrar and the School Committee know too well that the verdict of the case was in Radhikaranjan’s favour, that is, to completely restore his classes in the Ashram School. The Court Order had created fear in the mind of the Registrar as there was already a contempt of Court pending in his name. The Court had passed an Order in December 2012 not to stop Radhikaranjan’s classes, which the Registrar had blatantly disobeyed. He knew the consequences of a violation of a Court Order, so he wanted to create a false impression of having complied with it in the school session starting on 16 December, 2012. He gave Radhikaranjan a note telling him to fix his classes with the Higher Course students and yet prevented him from taking any classes. How did he do it?

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Analysis of the Preface of P. Heehs’ The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, CUP, 2008 (Part 3) – A Zombified Disciple

Murders in the Land of the Naïve – 5

Peter Heehs wrote Sri Aurobindo: A Brief Biography, OUP, 1989 (Bio-1), and The Lives of Sri Aurobindo, CUP, 2008, (Bio-2), and a life-sketch.[1] My attitude and approach to Bio-2 Preface is empowered by its own diktat: Biographers must take their documents as they find them…, paying as much attention to what is written by the subject’s enemies as by his friends, not giving special treatment even to the subject’s own version of events. Accounts by the subject have exceptional value, but they need to be compared against other narrative accounts, more important, against documents that do not reflect a particular point of view. I take this preface at face value, compare it against other narrative accounts and facts that do not reflect its version of events, and analyse it with its device – critical openness of a seeker of truth. In the resultant exposé, Lives of Marcher, ‘Marcher’ is a fusion of his forebears Catherine Mayo (1867-1940) and William Archer (1856-1924), though Marcherism – degrading the Sanatana Dharma and vilifying the greatest children of Mother India, was born centuries before Mayo-Archer. Peter Marcher Heehs first encountered Sri Aurobindo in 1968. To encounter means to meet face to face, defy, oppose, confront. Of the too few exposed Marchers, ours alone continues to thrive at his subject’s expense. But its entire credit goes to his Daemon, a special emission of “the falsehood of the mental, vital and physical Powers and Appearances that still rule the earth-Nature”.[2]

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Response to the Auroville Today Report on Ashram Affairs (2) – by Sridharan

I come now to the second part of the article on Ashram affairs in the Auroville Today issue of October 2013. The writer quotes one Mr Govardhan Dave in support of his own pre-determined ideas on the present state of affairs in Sri Aurobindo Ashram.

Auroville Today: The attacks, obviously, have no longer anything to do with the book The Lives of Sri Aurobindo. “One can reasonably assert that it is not the controversial book of Peter Heehs, but the move to remodel the constitution of Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust that constitutes the hostile attack on Her Work,” wrote Govardhan Dave, a senior and scholarly disciple of Sri Aurobindo who was in close touch with Ambalal Purani and considered to be M.P. Pandit’s right hand man in Gujarat.

A word on Mr Govardhan Dave’s background would not be out of place here. Mr. Dave’s claim of being the right hand man of M.P. Pandit in Gujarat and the left-hand man of A.B. Purani amounts to practically nothing. Dave is presently embroiled in a court case over the possession of a School in Gujarat. The Sri Aurobindo Society had actually stepped in to offer financial aid when the School managed by Dave was running in loss, but it withdrew when the court case filed by the latter threatened to entangle it further. Finally, it is clear that the Auroville Today editor is simply using Dave to fire from behind his shoulder rather than take him as an authority on the internal affairs of the Ashram, which he is certainly not. The first posting on Dave’s site is in fact dated December 2012 whereas the movement against the Trust had started long back in August 2008, first with regard to Peter Heehs, and then in other matters relating to the general administration of the Ashram Trust in August 2012, when an enquiry on the Ashram Trustees was sought from the Puducherry Collector. So where was Dave all these years and why did he not pronounce his opinions earlier? I wonder if he is at all familiar with the present state of affairs in Sri Aurobindo Ashram!

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Reply to Samir Sarkar – by Bireshwar Choudhury

[Samir Sarkar, son of Kalu Sarkar, objected to the publication of the letter of Kalu Sarkar to Manoj Das Gupta on this website. The following is a reply to his letter by Bireshwar Choudhury.]

Samir Sarkar: Dear Administrator,

I write to you on behalf of my father, Kalu SARKAR, after having consulted him.

I know that my father was disturbed a few years ago in regards to Peter Heehs' book. Most of his opinion was built on hearsay. Having said that he DOES NOT subscribe to the views in the above letter any longer. 

Bireshwar Choudhury: Dear Samir, first of all, why should you write on behalf of your father Kalu Sarkar? Why cannot he speak for himself? He is after all the son of a revolutionary who faced the wrath of British rule in pre-independent India! He should not withdraw a statement that he undeniably made when the Peter Heehs issue rocked the entire Ashram community in the year 2008. Moreover, you seem to be patronising your father, pooh-poohing him like an excitable kid, who had gone berserk in a state of emotional frenzy. This is exactly what the Managing Trustee said and did at that time with those who rightly and bravely reacted against Peter Heehs’s derogatory book on Sri Aurobindo. He also put on an air of “dignified silence” and pretentious samata, when he was actually dictated by other compulsions. Can you also be more explicit about how your father does not subscribe to the views that he had expressed earlier? If he now thinks that Peter Heehs should be given the Nobel Prize for literature for the Lives of Sri Aurobindo, let him say so himself, and we will publish his statement on this very blog! He might now withdraw his criticism of the Managing Trustee, but that does not exonerate Peter Heehs. His harsh criticism of Manoj Das Gupta was made in relation to the Peter Heehs issue, so the two cannot be easily separated! Finally, it has come to our knowledge that it was because of the admission of his grandchild (meaning your child) that he stopped roaring like a wounded lion and started whining like a cat waiting for its daily quota of milk. If this is right, shame on him and shame on you!

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Kalu Sarkar’s letter to Manoj Das Gupta

[The following is a letter of Kalu Sarkar, son of the famous revolutionary Sudhir Sarkar, and brother of Mona Sarkar. Kalu Sarkar expresses in this letter exactly what most Ashramites feel in the depth of their hearts but cannot utter due to the fear of reprisal from the Managing Trustee of the Ashram.]

The man if he does not stop short  and abandon his way of error, has eventually the Asura full-born in him, and once he has taken that enormous turn away from the Light and Truth, he can no more reverse the fatal speed of his course because of the very immensity of the misused divine power in him until he has plumbed the depths to which he falls, found bottom and seen where the way has led him, the power exhausted and misspent, himself down in the lowest strata of the soul-nature, which is Hell. Only when he understands and turns to the light, does that other truth of the Gita come in, that even the greatest sinner, the most impure and violent evil-doer is saved the moment he turns to adore and follows after the Godhead within him. Then, simply by that turn, he gets very soon into the sattwic way which leads to perfection and freedom. 

(Essays on the Gita – Sri Aurobindo)

Att: Managing Trustee

1. This is in reference to your letter to X without a name, without a date and without a signature. If you want everybody to love you, why don’t you practise the very first prayer the Mother has given us behind every notebook of our institution, to be straightforward, honest, frank and honourable children. It is the heart that speaks the Truth and the Truth comes out from these noble qualities.

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Response to Auroville Today Report on Ashram Affairs (1) ― Sridharan

The Auroville Today report on Ashram affairs in the issue of October, 2013 is a “thoroughly researched” (!) presentation of facts by a lawyer who has been given the job of defending the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust. He has therefore necessarily presented only one side of the story and has left out all the events and documents that are not compatible with his whitewashed picture of the Ashram Trust. The foundation of his thesis is predetermined: the Trustees are angels fallen from the sky and those who are protesting against them are hostile forces attacking the Mother’s work. In that case, Auroville should also be considered as part of that falsehood because the Mother had originally given the task of building Auroville to Sri Aurobindo Society and not to those who rebelled against it and brought about a Govt. intervention! Navajat Poddar has indeed been so much demonised by Aurovillians that I would now like to believe that he was the Mother’s instrument! Why don’t the Aurovillians don’t even mention him as the man who first proposed Auroville to the Mother, who then used him as an instrument to execute it? It is high time that he should be given due credit for his role.

I will quote below some of the salient passages in the Auroville Today report and give my response.

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A Comparison of Sexual Assaults – Bireshwar Choudhury

While the whole nation follows the discussion on the Tarun Tejpal sex scandal, have the Ashramites forgotten that far more serious incidents have happened at Sri Aurobindo Ashram? Or will they still pretend like Manoj Das Gupta (the Managing Trustee) that nothing untoward has ever happened in the Ashram? I quote below the statements of two victims of alleged sexual assault: (1) that of the young Tehelka lady reporter who accused the chief editor of Tehelka, Tarun Tejpal, of sexually assaulting her, which led to an unconditional apology by him and the decision to recuse himself for the next six months; and (2) that of a young Oriya lady who was molested by one Mukesh Shah in one of the guest houses of Sri Aurobindo Ashram. The emotionally shattered victim went weeping to the concerned authorities of the Ashram, but no action was taken on Mukesh Shah because he happened to be one of the key henchmen of the Trustees. Instead the lady was told by the Managing Trustee to either bear with or concede to the sexual solicitations of the Guest House manager or to go back to her native place, because this was the unalterable way of life at the Ashram!!! I suppose this is one of the finest examples of Manoj Das Gupta’s remarkable administration of the Ashram Trust!

The comparison between the two statements below is striking. In fact, the sexual offence of Mukesh Shah is far more serious than the alleged sexual misconduct of Tarun Tejpal.

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RAJ TV Programme in Tamil titled “KOPPIUM” (17.09.2013) ― English Translation

The Disclaimer at the beginning states that their intention is not to smear anyone but to inform and awaken people regarding emergent issues.

The Compere opens the video mentioning that for reforms in the life of society, great people and Gyanis make efforts and establish institutions to enable people to live in accordance with their ideas and ideals. After the lifetime of such savants, it is however doubtful whether those who manage the institutions in subsequent periods have the same sense of dedication to the high ideals or function with the noble idea of service to others.

One such institution which is presented in  the present episode  is  the world renowned Sri Aurobindo Ashram at Pondicherry (Puducherry) wherein there are allegations of misdeeds by the Ashram Trustees, including  horror stories  of sex torture meted out to  female inmates by addicts and the institution  being under the control of a secret mafia.

Sri Aurobindo (whose original name was Aurobindo Ackroyd Ghose) was a great freedom fighter and veritably can be called the Maharishi for the Freedom struggle of the country. He turned to spirituality and said that true freedom is not merely on the political front but in spirituality. The Ashram, which came into existence during his lifetime, became the centre for spreading his message of spiritual ideas to people and to serve the purpose of progress in their spiritual life.

It is a fact that the Ashram in Pondicherry has been in existence for many years now and people from near and far (from within the country and from other countries) have come and settled here after surrendering all their property, wealth and riches to the Ashram. The followers of Sri Aurobindo have no caste differences, no differences on account of religion, no prejudices with regard to gender, no bias towards people hailing from different countries. In a sense, all are followers of Sri Aurobindo without any differentiation. Such a prestigious institution which is renowned all over the world is presently being mentioned as a place where there is sexual harassment of inmates, violation of human rights, embezzlement of financial resources, and alienation of real estate properties of the Ashram by the henchmen and their principals who manage the affairs of the Ashram.

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RAJ TV Video ― Sex Scandals @ Aurobindo Ashram (Koppiyam, 17 September, 2013)

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The Bat Policy – by Banamali Mishra

I am reminded of a story that I had heard in my childhood. As a child I enjoyed the story and found it very funny. As I grew up and acquired a little knowledge of biology, this story became interesting to me in a different light. Now with advancing years I sometimes look back and think how many human beings, though evolved, are still like bats in many respects.

Let me not keep you in suspense. I will recount the story now.  Many millenniums ago, long before human beings came into existence, prehistoric birds, animals and dinosaurs ruled the earth with their might. There were constant fights among them to gain supremacy. It was clear that animals were the kings on land and birds had unchallenged supremacy in air. Once there was a big fight. The huge strong birds carried large stones up in the air and dropped them on the animals, killing many of them. They swooped down on the small animals and carried them away. It was clear that the birds were winning the battle.

The bat had not joined the power struggle. It was a fence-sitter. It was unable to decide whether it was a bird or an animal. Seeing the obvious victory of the birds, it joined the side of the birds and fought against the animals. The birds asked him, “Why did you join us?’’ It replied, “Because I am a bird and I fly. The animals don’t fly.’’

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Sridharan Replies to Arpit Agarwal of SAICE forum

I have picked out this particular passage of Arpit Agarwal in a never-ending competition in insulting Alok Pandey that took place on the SAICE forum, because there is in it a modicum of decency, and the argument (whatever be its worth) is well stated. This is truly exceptional in a forum which is usually busy with mud-slinging at the lowest level of verbal exchange. I wonder how Arpit Agarwal, who happens to be the site’s moderator, bears with all the sound and fury that rages therein. I can only compare his attitude with that of parents who leave their five year old wards in a closed room and let them fight, shout, laugh and weep to their hearts’ content while ensuring that they don’t beat each other black and blue by occasionally peeping into  the room and exercising a word of caution. Arpit Agarwal has done the same; he has peeped in at the right time when things were going out of control in the forum and raised a point which is very pertinent, though I certainly will not agree with it. The point that he has made is with regard to the reason (or rather lack of reason) for not going against the Trustees of Sri Aurobindo Ashram even if they are in the wrong. I quote passages from his letter dated 21.10.2013 to Ashit Kumar Mitra (of Kasser Trust, or is it "Cusser" Trust?) regarding Alok Pandey; these are followed by my answers:

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