The
Trustees of Sri Aurobindo Ashram are again busy at their job of helping Peter
Heehs malign Sri Aurobindo in the public domain. A week back Peter Heehs
challenged the gazette notification passed by the Orissa Govt on 9 April, 2009
proscribing the Lives of Sri Aurobindo and
thankfully sparing the Indian readers from its derogatory content on Sri
Aurobindo and the Mother. The move to lift the ban on his book has obviously
the backing, the full support and blessings of the Ashram Trustees, for
otherwise how could you expect Peter Heehs (who is an impudent dud in legal
matters) to move the High Court of Orissa by himself? The Trustees will surely
deny their connection with it, as they have always denied in every embarrassing
issue related to their ham handed administration. But how long can they pretend
not to back Peter Heehs while doing everything on heaven and earth to keep him
happy? How long will they publicly pretend to be neutral and circumspect while
risking the displeasure of the entire Sri Aurobindonian community by their actions that betray their real intentions?
27 Jan 2014
26 Jan 2014
STATEMENT OF (THE LATE) P.P. RAGHAVACHARY UNDER SEC. 161 of Cr. PC
I
was assigned with the Ashram’s legal work as in-house lawyer from about January
1998. I was attending to Ashram’s legal matters usually along with senior counsels
Sri R. Padmanabhan and
Sri C.S. Narasimhan. Approximately
during September-November 1999,
Manoj Das Gupta Ashram Trustee,
Purushotham Iyengar and Matri Prasad who are like secretaries to the Trustees
(actually there is no designation or hierarchy in the Ashram
as such except
for administrative responsibility as a departmental head or a Trustee)
approached me and informed me that we have to meet Harikant C. Patel, the then
Managing Trustee, with regard to some purchase of properties. I went along with
them to Harikant C. Patel who was in the Ashram Nursing Home in the beach road
due to hip-bone fracture. Harikant started the meeting and told us that there
is one building known as ‘Ragavan House’ on the Junction of St. Louis Street
and St. Gilles Street. He said it is a place where Sri Aurobindo lived and
Ashram has been enjoying the property as a tenant for the last about 30 years.
That the Ashram now desires to purchase the house. Purushotham Iyengar
mentioned that the house owner one Mr. Selvarajan is not willing to sell the
house since so many years and asked me as to how to go about it.
21 Jan 2014
BAIL ORDER OF MANOJ DAS GUPTA
IN THE COURT OF THE PRINCIPAL
SESSIONS JUDGE AT POND1CHERRY
PRESENT
THIRU M. CHINNAPANDl, B.A.. B.L.,
PRINCIPAL SESSIONS JUDGE
MONDAY, THE
11th DAY OF OCTOBER, 2004
Cr. M.P. No.
1301 / 04 in Cr. No. 2/2003
MANOJ DAS GUPTA (A- 4)
S/o Narendranath Das Gupta Petitioner/Accused - 4
Vs.
State rep. by
S.H.O. CID P.S.
Pondicherry thro' PP Respondent/Complainant
This petition coming on this day for hearing before
me in the presence of Mr A. Bakthavachalam, Advocate for the petitioner. Thiru K. Shanmugam Public Prosecutor for
the State, upon hearing both sides and after perusing the case records, this
court passed the following:
13 Jan 2014
Former HC judge dead – The Hindu, 13 January 2014, Kochi
Former judge of the Kerala High Court T.L. Viswanatha
Iyer died here on Sunday. He was 82.
Mr. Iyer, who was ailing for some time, died at a
private hospital here. The funeral was held at Ravipuram crematorium.
Mr. Iyer was appointed judge at the High Court of
Kerala in September 1986 and held the post till 1994. After retiring, he
practised law at the Supreme Court and was designated a senior advocate at the
court in 1994. Last year, the former judge had been appointed enquiry officer
to look into the allegations of sexual harassment of women and children at the
Sri Aurobindo Ashram in Puducherry.
He is survived by his wife R. Vijayalakshmi and three
children. People from various walks of life paid their last respects to the
jurist. Former Supreme Court judge V.R. Krishna Iyer; Chief Justice of the High
Court of Kerala Justice Manjula Chellur; current and former High Court judges,
and Advocate General K.P. Dandapani, were present.
Staff Reporter
6 Jan 2014
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.
29 Dec 2013
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?
21 Dec 2013
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]
14 Dec 2013
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!
9 Dec 2013
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!
4 Dec 2013
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.
29 Nov 2013
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.
23 Nov 2013
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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