Dr G.
Venkataraman, a former adviser to India's Defence Research and
Development Organisation, is the Deputy Chairman of the
Prashanti Council. Its
Chairman is Dr Michael Goldstein, who says
“… the Council will be a resource for intervention
in difficult circumstances where the sanctity of the Divine Name or the
welfare of the Sai Organisation can be
affected."
The Exposé -
ever growing from strength to strength - can surely be no other than
that which creates such “difficult circumstances."
You
can hear Dr Venkataraman Radio Sai (which he heads) and read him
in Radio Sai Listener's Journal. The following excerpts are from that of
March 1, 2004:
http://www.radiosai.org/Journals/Vol_02/05March01/03_Spiritual_Blossoms/02_
Reflection/reflection.htm
“…when
there is misstatement in high quarters, we do make a quiet effort to set
the record straight. Let me give two examples. A couple of years ago,
the London Times wrote something nasty about Swami. Now the Times is not
only the leading newspaper in Britain but one of the leading newspapers
of the world, that is held in high esteem everywhere.”
Comment:
Yes, The Times of London is held in high esteem. This is because
of its historic commitment to journalistic ethics and no doubt, too, the
stiff exactitudes of its legal department. Famously, it bases its
articles on the most careful research. Dominic Kennedy, who led The
Times of London's investigation into some of the allegations
against SSB, is one of the world’s most senior journalists, and was
rightly very demanding of those of us former SSB devotees who presented
evidence to him from around the world, as have been many other of the
world’s major media organisations who have researched our submissions.
(For a media list – albeit increasingly in need of updating, soon to be
remedied, see my article Sathya Sai Baba Exposé. An Update):
ex-baba/engels/articles/barryexposeupdate.html
In a 'Letter from International Chairman' (September
18, 2001),
addressed to Sai centres around the world -
http://www.saiguru.net/english/sai_org/shah-missive.htm
- Venkataraman's close colleague, Indulal Shah,
used a conscienceless appeal, when world coordinator, to widespread
prejudices about the media. He says, “Devotees
however must be careful in interacting with the media, which has a
strong propensity for sensationalism. A whiff of scandal always
helps their sales and therefore they do not even pause to verify the
truth.”
We may all
have felt this type of prejudice, but truthful individuals know that it
is a sweeping generalisation. The deeply cultic Sai leaders and devotees
will do anything but face what is actually being said in these many
articles by such outstanding writers as Dominic Kennedy, Mick Brown,
Michelle Goldberg, etc.
How
would Shah know that the media former devotees have consulted "do not
even pause to verify the truth"?
He speaks of
“these canards,” and of the tremendously many and honourable former
devotees he says, “History
does not forgive such perfidious individuals who can stoop so low as to
find fault with the divine itself.” Shah, like Venkataraman,
Goldstein and other key leaders, omits what he knows is the truth – that
many individuals and families for years in perfectly good standing with
the Sathya Sai Organisation have brought their shocking stories to Sai
organisation leaders. How betrayed they were, and continue to be! Shah
calls such accounts “malicious allegations that are innately false and
devious.”
Lesson
to be drawn: let former devotees be in no doubt that these are
desperate men (hardly a woman among them, either!), fighting to salvage
something from the terrible wreckage that their leader’s perverse ways
have brought upon their so-called “divine organisation.”
http://www.saiguru.net/english/sai_org/shah-missive.htm
Venkataraman continues,
“Clearly
if it writes or publishes something incorrect and inappropriate, we have
a duty to place the correct facts before it so that its readers do not
get wrong ideas.”
Comment: So
much for his guru's many statements that there is no need to defend him,
such as "These propaganda campaigns will not affect My reputation in any
manner. My purity is the root cause of the glory of My name" (p. 257 -
Sathya Sai Speaks Vol. 26).
Constantly, Sai officials attempt to suppress the facts – the typical
ploy of cults.
In
2003, leading
Sai Organisation figures Thorbjörn Meyer (Central
Co-coordinator for Europe and Co-coordinator for Russian-speaking
countries) and
Jørgen
Trygved (Chairman
of the 'Sai international school' fund board)
hired the
most expensive lawyers in Denmark (respectively,
Harboe
Wissum and
Dorrit Enge) in
months-long efforts to prevent the
broadcast of a documentary detailing allegations against Sai Baba of
serial sexual molestation of young males and the faking of miracles.
Thorbjörn Meyer also failed to intimidate the Danish radio and
television corporation’s supremo, Christian Nissen. Similarly, the then
Australian head, T. Sri Ramanathan, tried to stop (with tactics that
included legal threats) Australia’s multi-cultural radio and television
broadcaster, SBS, which screened an
English version of the Danish documentary on Thursday February 12, 2004
"Seduced by Sai Baba": http://www.saiaustralia.org.au/release/185.html
In
fact, this is the right of reply that the Press is supposed to offer. So
many of us wrote letters to the Times but believe it or not, the Times
simply refused to publish any one of our letters.
As
a man of the world, Venkataraman surely knows that newspapers – ever
more so leading ones – are deluged with letters. If they were not, there
would be tidal wave of words akin to his own prolixities.
In
fact Air Chief Marshall [Retd.] Nirmal Suri, an ardent devotee, was in
London at that time and he personally went to the office of the Times
and tried to talk to them; but they did not even bother to meet him. So
much for a decent and free press!
Comment:
(A little bird tells me that they tried the same stunt with the BBC).
Unfortunately for the likes of Venkataraman, Suri, et al., the scene has
switched from India, where most of the media is afraid to publish
anything adverse to Sathya Sai Baba. In the West, the Sai antidemocrats
have a much harder time of sweet-talking, threatening or cajoling
editors and journalists (not to mention police, judiciary,
politicians...).
Venkataraman would not be honest enough to reply to queries – which,
famously SSB’s leaders are not. But if he swallowed a truth-drug, he
would have to say that for him and his cohorts “decent and free press”
means only those newspapers which publish unquestioningly what the Sai
Organisation wishes to see published.