India ignores complaints against ‘paedophile’ godman

Lapido Media stringer Vishal Arora's year-long investigation into the Sathya Sai Baba cult which is the cover story of the June issue of The Caravan monthly reveals that not a single complaint of sex abuse against the guru has been investigated.

He speaks to families behind charges of paedophilia and deception against India’s most influential guru who claims to be God Almighty, and whose devotees include the President of India and the founder of the Hard Rock Cafe.

His first-person account of five days spent at the godman’s ashram, together with follow-up interviews with journalists and former officials of the cult have earned Arora the wrath of the organization which has ‘outed’ him as a ‘Christian convert’ on a US-based website.

Sathya Sai Baba, the 84-year-old guru, is no stranger to the UK. In 2002, the House of Commons called for advisors to warn British visitors to the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh ‘about the possible danger to their male children of individual audiences with the guru’.

Despite allegations, devotion to Sai Baba is a growing movement with an estimated 10,000,000 adherents worldwide in 1999. It was estimated there were 4,000 followers in the UK the same year. There are 113 Sai Baba centres throughout Britain and over 50 major centres in the US.

Arora’s article investigates ‘allegations of sex abuse, murder and deception’. The story, titled ‘The Land of Illusion’, juxtaposes the accusations with the massive following of Sathya Sai Baba around the world.

Just this week, the government of the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, the abode of Sathya Sai Baba, announced plans to start a helicopter service for the guru’s followers, according to a report in The Deccan Chronicle daily on 17 June.

The state government also announced its plan for laser light shows for Sathya Sai Baba’s birthday celebrations and ‘world spiritual meetings’. Andhra Pradesh is ruled by the left-of-centre Congress Party, which also leads the ruling coalition at the Centre.

On February 26, 2002, a resolution of the House of Commons stated: ‘That this House, mindful of the many accounts and witness statements of the sexual abuse of the male children of devotees by the Indian guru, Sai Baba, calls upon the Foreign Secretary to use the Travel Advice for India page of the Foreign Office Website to issue guidance to British families intending to visit the Ashram of Sai Baba about the possible danger to their male children of individual audiences with the guru.’

The US Department of State and its Federal Bureau of Investigation; the German Office of Prosecutions; the French Sûreté (Security) and the British Home Office, have also received complaints against Sai Baba. But the foreign agencies have no jurisdiction for crimes committed in India.

Allegations against Sathya Sai Baba hit the headlines in the international media between 2000 and 2004. The ex-devotees sought action against their former guru, but only to face the reluctance of authorities to lodge a single complaint.