Supreme Court considers probe into Aurobindo ashram harassment allegations

Daily Mail Online India

By Harish V. Nair

Published: 22:39 GMT, 13 August 2015 | Updated: 00:14 GMT, 14 August 2015

At a time when several self-proclaimed godmen, godwomen and ashrams are making news for wrong reasons, the Supreme Court has hinted that it might set up a commission headed by a retired high court judge to probe complaints of sexual harassment filed by women and child inmates of the famous Aurobindo Ashram in Puducherry against its members. 

The panel may also probe several other irregularities, including misappropriation of funds.

A bench headed by Chief Justice of India H.L. Dattu said this on Thursday after hearing suggestions made by Gopal Subramaniam, counsel for the ashram. 

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Battle for Indian History: How to fight it, and how not (part 1) – Virendra Parekh

1 – A history in service of rulers

Indian history is a battlefield. Hindu nationalists fight off invading colonial canards and Marxist mumbo jumbo of materialistic interpretation of history. Secularists, alarmed by the saffron surge, sound shrill warnings against communalization of history writing. Stalinist activists masquerading as historians girdle up to resist intrusion of sundries (i.e. anyone outside their clique) onto their turf in media, academia and research institutions. Muslim scholars resist attempts to portray Islam and Muslims as villains. Academic historians raise their hands in despair at politicization of the past to serve current needs. And the new generation just wonders why there is so much fuss over an age that is dead and gone.

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Sri Aurobindo was a Terrorist, says Peter Heehs – by Krish Patwardhan

Sri Aurobindo was a Terrorist, says Peter Heehs, in his book Nationalism, Terrorism, Communalism – Essays in Modern Indian History, published by Oxford University Press in 1998. The fourth impression of the book was published in 2011 and the present administration of Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust, Pondicherry, has been quietly sitting back enjoying the vilification of Sri Aurobindo by an American inmate of the Ashram. 

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Reply to Benimadhav Mohanty – by Bireshwar Chowdhury

Yesterday Benimadhav Mohanty took a nasty swipe at a friend of mine who (along with many others) had the gumption to take on the Ashram Trustees when they shamelessly supported the denigration of Sri Aurobindo in his own Ashram by Peter Heehs.  As we all know, the crisis in Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, still continues, and perhaps by the end of this month the Supreme Court of India will give a major judgment in the Enquiry Case pending against the Ashram Trust. It is in this backdrop that I am replying to Benimadhav Mohanty who made the silly accusation of “self-aggrandisement” on those who have stood up to the Trust instead of whimpering down like puppies, as most Ashramites have done, to the insidious threats of the Ashram Trustees

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Campaign to censor Rajiv Malhotra proves that Dinanath Batra was right – by Govind Nishar

The attack against Rajiv Malhotra is being portrayed as a kind of revenge for the court case against Wendy Doniger’s book “The Hindus” that led to its withdrawal from the Indian market. The implicit assumption behind this view is the hypothesis that had Doniger’s book not been withdrawn, Rajiv Malhotra’s enemies in the US & India would have rolled out the red carpet for his books. No proposition could be further from the truth.

The coordinated attack against Malhotra, initiated by followers of Sheldon Pollock & led by Richard Fox Young, an internet troll consumed by an anti-Malhotra obsession, has come at this time solely to prevent the launch of his forthcoming book “The Battle for Sanskrit” which has the explosive potential to seriously hurt future funding & thus endangering the work of those who Malhotra refers to as “American Orientalists” and who he has exposed as seeking to dominate global discourse about the ancient traditions of the Hindus.

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Indian Culture and Hinduism – by Prof. Kittu Reddy

Indian culture has been from the beginning and has remained a spiritual, an inward-looking religio-philosophical culture. Everything else in it has derived from that one central and original peculiarity or has been in some way dependent on it or subordinate to it; even external life has been subjected to the inward look of the spirit.

(Sri Aurobindo, CWSA, Vol. 20, The Renaissance of India, p. 108)

It is this inward-looking religio-philosophical culture which goes by the name of Hinduism.

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Sri Aurobindo and the Hindu-Muslim problem – By Prof. Kittu Reddy

There is widespread belief among a certain section of intellectuals and historians – both Indian and abroad – that Sri Aurobindo was responsible for the partition of India and the consequent blood letting and other problems that followed. The reason given to justify this position is that Sri Aurobindo during his active political career stressed heavily on Hinduism and on Hindu nationalism and this provoked a natural and inevitable reaction among the Muslims; this reaction led ultimately to the formation of Pakistan. [extract]

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S Gurumurthy: Indians Hate Hindus

Gurumurthy on how Indian scholars have been guided and influenced by Western thinkers who did not even visit India!

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Rajiv Malhotra on Hinduism (2)

Freedom to Choose a Personal Path (Svadharma)

In most dharmic traditions, each individual has a unique ‘svadharma’ (personal dharma) or purpose in this world. This is based on his or her ‘svabhava’ (character) as shaped by past karma and gunas and on the context or circumstances of the person’s life. Buddhists have the notion of’upaya’ (skilful means), which becomes the basis for mutual respect between those who are different. In the Jain tradition, principles of relative and multiple perspectives of truth, combined with the inherent uncertainty in knowledge, serve as protection against dogmas and universal absolutes. All of this demonstrates that dharmic spiritual practices are diverse, eclectic, and adaptable by communities, families, and individuals, and for specific circumstances.

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Rajiv Malhotra on Hinduism (1)

Freedom from History and Institutional Authority

In Hindu traditions, the state of consciousness of Jesus is achievable by each one of us and is not dependent on belief in a specific deity or historical event or institution. Nor do we have to die in order to achieve this state of consciousness; we can do so while living in this world, just as Christ presumably did. ‘Dhyana’, ‘jnana’, ‘tantra’ and ‘bhakti’ are some of the do-it-yourself methods and techniques that do not rely on external authority. There is no church, pontiff or central authority. Rather, numerous incarnations, prophets, saints and spiritual methods over several millennia have kept the traditions alive with fresh interpretations. As Sri Aurobindo puts it:

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Hijacking Sri Aurobindo – by Rajesh Patel

The religious culture which now goes by the name of Hinduism … gave itself no name, because it set itself no sectarian limits; it claimed no universal adhesion, asserted no sole infallible dogma, set up no single narrow path or gate of salvation; it was less a creed or cult than a continuously enlarging tradition of the Godward endeavour of the human spirit. An immense many-sided and many-staged provision for a spiritual self-building and self-finding, it had some right to speak of itself by the only name it knew, the eternal religion, Sanatana Dharma…. (Sri Aurobindo, 1919)

Of recent years there has been an academic controversy amongst the more scholarly followers of Sri Aurobindo on the subject of whether he should be considered a Hindu and whether his teachings could be classed as Hinduism.

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Did Sri Aurobindo Reject Hinduism? – Certainly not!

It is to Dara [1] that Sri Aurobindo wrote the following letter in the thirties, dissociating his Ashram from Hinduism:

The Ashram has nothing to do with Hindu religion or culture or any religion or nationality. The Truth of the Divine which is the spiritual reality behind all religions and the descent of the supramental which is not known to any religion are the sole things which will be the foundation of the work of the future.

(Bulletin, Feb 2001, p 72)

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