SACW | 19 Nov 2004
sacw
aiindex at mnet.fr
Thu Nov 18 22:23:50 CST 2004
South Asia Citizens Wire - 19 November, 2004
via: www.sacw.net
[1] Kashmir: The Road to Peace? (Sachi Cunningham and Jigar Mehta)
[2] India: Death in the Womb: Sex Selection Law
Fails To Check Foeticide (Anna Dani)
[3] India: Astrology and such things are a big market
- Astrology's religious sanction has given this
new priestly class a way to rake it in (S. Anand)
- The Future Is Big (Soma Wadhwa)
[4] India: Big Time Hindu priest in Holy Shit !:
- Kanchi Acharya arrest: Affidavits - full text [PDF]
- Holy smoke! (Sudha G. Tilak)
--------------
[1]
pbs.org
Nov 17, 2004
KASHMIR: THE ROAD TO PEACE?
Sachi Cunningham is a second year student in
documentary film at the UC Berkeley Graduate
School of Journalism. She has an undergraduate
degree in history from Brown University, and has
worked in the film industry in Asia and the U.S.
Jigar Mehta is also a second year documentary
student at the Graduate School of Journalism at
UC Berkeley. He received an undergraduate degree
in Mechanical Engineering from Berkeley. Mehta
worked as a cameraman on the Sundance
award-winning film, My Flesh and Blood.
Kashmir is a divided land. India controls one
part, Pakistan controls the other. It has been
this way since 1947. Pakistan and India have
fought two wars over this beautiful, tragic
highland, and for the past fifteen years, the
Indian army in Kashmir has battled a
pro-independence movement. For Muslim militants
it has become a jihad or holy war.
When we arrived in Kashmir, we saw soldiers
everywhere, peering from the tops of balconies
and peeking out of bunkers on street corners.
There are nearly 600,000 Indian security forces
in the Indian-occupied part of Kashmir, home to
some 8.5 million people. It is the highest
soldier-to-civilian ratio in the world.
We came here because there is, at long last, talk
of peace. India and Pakistan, both nuclear
powers, signed a cease-fire agreement in November
2003 and pledged to go forward with twelve
"confidence-building" measures. For the first
time in fourteen years, the two countries played
a cricket match last spring, and it went off
peacefully. Now they are proposing the re-opening
of Kashmir's main highway, which is currently
blocked at the Line of Control which divides
India- and Pakistan-held Kashmir.
We decided to take a road trip as far as we could
go on this Srinagar-Muzaffarabad Road -- to see
what life is like in the legendary valley of
Kashmir and to ask people what they thought about
the prospects for peace.
GO TO THE STORY
http://www.pbs.org/frontlineworld/fellows/kashmir/map.html
Live Discussion
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A59763-2004Nov18.html
Join FRONTLINE/World Fellows Jigar Mehta and
Sachi Cunningham as they discuss their report
from Kashmir, as India and Pakistan make
overtures toward ending their bitter conflict
over the disupted territory. Friday, Nov. 19, 11
a.m. ET
______
[2]
The Times of India
November 19, 2004 | Op-Ed.
DEATH IN THE WOMB: SEX SELECTION LAW FAILS TO CHECK FOETICIDE
by Anna Dani
The desire for a male child at all costs in India
has now resulted in an alarming scenario. The
child sex ratio for the country stands at 927 in
2001, down from 945 in 1991. But in India all
statistics hide more than they reveal - if we
disaggregate data we find great inequalities both
between states and within states. The more
prosperous states like Haryana, Punjab, Delhi and
Gujarat show ratios which have declined to less
than 900 girls for 1000 boys. Fur-ther
disaggregation of data shows that 70 districts in
16 states and Union territories of the country
have recorded a decline of more than 50 points in
the sex ratio in the last decade.
Where does Maharashtra stand in this shocking
development? The state recorded a child sex ratio
of 946 in 1991; today it stands at 913. The
prosperous sugar belt districts of Kolhapur,
Sangli, Satara, Ahmednagar, along with Jalgaon,
Beed and Solapur, all record child sex ratios
below 900, with Sangli the lowest at 850. Panhala
taluka in Kolhapur district has the dubious
distinction of recording a sex ratio of 796,
similar to many districts in Punjab.
Ironically, the districts which have a high
tribal population, areas chronically beset by all
the ills of under- development as we
conventio-nally understand it, record sex ratios
which are more civilised and egalitarian - thus
Gad-chiroli district stands at a ratio of 974,
Nandurbar at 966 and Gondiya at 964.
The discovery of the ultrasound technique has
proved to be the nemesis of the female foetus in
India. The medical fraternity was quick to see
entrepreneurial opportunities in catering to
insatiable demands for a male child. The portable
ultrasound machine allowed doctors to go from
house to house in towns and villages. The
Pre-conception and
Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of
Sex Selection) Act 1994 (PNDT Act) was a result
of determined action by NGOs against grossly
unethical medical terminations of healthy
pregnancies. But while the Act seeks to regulate
and prevent misuse of pre-natal diagnostic
techniques, it rightly cannot deny them either.
A decade later, we find plummeting sex ratios,
especially in many urban areas of the country.
Unfortunately, scientific inventions to detect
genetic abnormalities, going far beyond the
ultrasound technique, are playing a dubious role.
One needs to spend just half an hour with
infertility experts to be educated on the newest
technologies. The menu is an impressive one -
karyo-typing, which analyses chromosomal
abnormalities and incidentally reveals the sex of
the foetus, a procedure that takes about 11 days
and costs around Rs 5,000; fluorescent in situ
hybridisation, which has 95% accuracy, takes two
days and costs Rs 10,000; comparative genomic
hybridisation, a very recently introduced
technology, requiring only two days; polymerase
chain reaction, the results of which are
available in a day with a cost of Rs 5000; and
pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), where
the results take about a week. PGD is made
available in Thailand for sex selection of
Indians who are aware of the law against such
tests in the country, at a cost of about Rs 1.5
lakh.
All these techniques can be used to detect the
sex of the foetus within four to six weeks of
pregnancy, making abortions a less serious
business than the usual methods that come into
play only 14 weeks after preg- nancy. Thereafter,
abortions not only become medically dangerous for
the mother but acquire entirely different moral
dimensions. The recent technologies do not
automatically lend themselves to this heinous
practice of sex selection. The PNDT Act allows
pre-natal diagnosis only for chromosomal
abnormalities, genetic metabolic disorders and
congenital abnormalities. Similarly, PNDT
techniques on pregnant women are allowed only in
certain
conditions - if she is more than 35 years old,
exposed to certain drugs, radiation, or has a
history of mental retardation and so on.
The law, however, permits ultrasound clinics,
clinics for medical termination of pregnancies
and assisted reproductive facilities as a routine
matter and as a legitimate business. In a
democracy it is difficult to restrict right to
business and livelihood if the usual parameters
are fulfilled. But genetic abnormalities do not
affect more than 2 per cent of a population;
infertility affects about 10-12 per cent of the
population; and abortion ser-vice centres are far
in excess of the small numbers which actually
require such services for purely bona fide
medical reasons.
However, the law also permits abortions for
failure of contraception. In Maharashtra alone,
there are more than 2,700 abortion centres (and
counting) and 3,600 ultrasound clinics (also
increasing daily). State statistics indicate that
more than 1.25 lakh abortions are carried out
"legally" every year. It is a huge challenge for
the government to detect violations of the PNDT
Act, since it is a crime of collusion and by
consensus.
The Indian Council of Medical Research has now
issued guidelines on regulation of genetic and
assisted reproductive facilities. But since such
facilities are not used across the board for sex
selection, it remains to be seen if this has an
appreciable impact on the sex ratio. The
preferred methods will obviously remain the
cheaper and more dangerous ones such as
ultrasound and amniocentesis in the second
trimester of pregnancy. Beyond that, the culture
of deliberate neglect also contributes to
ultimate deaths of older girl children.
______
[3]
Outlook Magazine
November 22, 2004
THE PANDIT PLAN
ASTROLOGY'S RELIGIOUS SANCTION HAS GIVEN THIS NEW
PRIESTLY CLASS A WAY TO RAKE IT IN
S. Anand
After being interviewed for Outlook's report on
astrology, Chennai's Nambungal Narayanan, who
claims innumerable correct predictions, asked me
with childlike enthusiasm, "When will your
magazine feature this?" "You must tell me that,"
I told him, who had predicted a John Kerry
victory. He replied with sudden confidence, "In
two-three weeks." As I was leaving, he again
dropped his guard: "Please call me when the issue
comes out."
Despite such unwitting lack of confidence, how
and why is it that in India future-telling has
emerged as a far more powerful industry than in
the Christian West or Islamic world? Debunked as
pseudoscience, astrology in the West does not
have the formal sanction of religion.
However, in India, astrology has been a part of
religion. In most Brahminic south Indian temples,
there's a navagraha shrine for the nine planets
(which includes the sun and moon, but excludes
the earth!). There are temples dedicated to
specific planets-for instance, the Saturn temple
Saneeswaran Koil in Thirunallar, Tamil Nadu. The
very word Saturn-saniyan-is used in Tamil as a
curse. Says Meera Nanda, author of Prophets
Facing Backward: Postmodernism, Science and Hindu
Nationalism, "Hinduism has a holistic worldview
where objects in nature and human subjects are
not separate entities but different
manifestations of the same universal
consciousness." Hence the anachronistic
persistence with a geocentric universe, and
belief in planetary influences on humans.
This has led to astrologers emerging as the new
priestly class. "Since there's lots of money to
be made in remedial astrology," says G. Vijayam,
executive director of Vijayawada-based Atheist
Centre, "astrologers today are like the greedy
Brahmins of the Vedic period who barter
other-worldly sacrifices for this-worldly
goodies. Astrology, numerology, gemology and such
like are the diseases of affluence. The poor have
no use for them." Vijayam says the root is in
karma theory which encourages a fatalistic
attitude. "In India, it's one way of making money
without working. It perpetuates ignorance, makes
people docile and robs them of initiative."
Astrology also helps perpetuate the caste system
with its emphasis on match-making. "Astrology
comes in handy to prevent inter-caste marriages
by projecting a scenario of horrific failure,"
says K. Nandan, whose marriage outside caste was
scuttled by his lover's astrology-besotted
family. For the millions seeking solace in
astrology, the appeal is clearly not to reason.
It's about belief, and is part of the Hindu way
of life. Esoteric vedanta for the classes,
populist jyotish for the masses.
o o o o
Outlook Magazine
November 22, 2004
http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20041122&fname=Cover+Story+%28F%29&sid=1
ASTROLOGY
The Future Is Big
It's India's fastest-growing industry.
Insecurity, uncertainty, innovation, technology:
it's present perfect for those catering to the
future-tense.
Soma Wadhwa
Tomorrow, suddenly, is today's fastest growing
business. The future, in India today, is worth Rs
40,000 crore and counting. Literally. It's your
future and mine-health, education, careers,
relationships; the fate of the share investment
your uncle made last week; the outcome of
decisions taken in corner offices of giant
corporations; fortunes to be fashioned, formed,
finished. If karma is a chameleon, the destiny
industry is T-Rex on turbo. There has never been
a more profitable present for Indian
future-tellers.Elderly bare-torsoed men sitting
under trees? Parrots picking cards spread out on
the pavement? Well-thumbed palmistry primers from
Cheiro? Wake up, smell the coffee.
Future-telling and insurance are primed
to be the two growth industries of this decade.
We are talk-ing call centres crammed with
clairvoyants forecasting for those with the
mobiles and the mind to ring in. R&D labs where
newer software, to help the computer calculate
horoscopes more accurately, are in perpetual
make. University-affiliated classes
crowded with wannabe oracles. Swank seminars in
posh hotels, where delegates who refer to
themselves as jyotishpandits, jyotishacharyas and
jyotishmartands make Powerpoint presentations of
their prognoses. Television studios continuously
beaming into homes what the planets have in
store. Astrologers, palmists, numerologists,
tarot-card readers fronted by sleek public
relations executives.
The Indian Future Telling business is on a bull
run threatening to become a stampede. There's an
unprecedented rush of customers, young and old,
men and women, willing to pay whatever it costs
to know fortune's impending intent. Enthusiastic
purchasers of soothsayers' skills, skills that
are being bought to map and minimise the many
risks that riddle life today. And the Future
Telling Industry is repackaging its products
vigorously to cater to this, its expanding, and
exacting, new clientele.
Enter Future Point's hi-tech Delhi office and
savour soothsaying as off-the-shelf retail.
"Your Happy Future is Our Concern," advertise its
brochures. The "products and services" on offer:
consultation sessions, computer horoscopes,
astrological software, remedial gems, yantras,
rosaries, a monthly magazine on astrology and
occultism, a directory of astrologers
and Mewar varsity-affiliated courses on
astrology, palmistry, numerology, vaastushastra.
Arun K. Bansal, "topper in both MSc and MPhil
physics", presides over these operations with his
wife Abha, and spends most of his work hours on
product development, the latest addition in his
portfolio being an astro pocket computer, Leo
Palm-"its usp: making horoscopes in a minute,
anywhere, anytime".
Arun K. Bansal, Cyber Astrologer For this "MSc
MPhil physics topper", powerful computer software
generates predictions that are "authentic,
accurate, accessible".
"Esoteric mumbo-jumbo, panditjis who count on
fingers, newspaper forecasts that divide entire
humanity into 12 types are for pastime and
frivolous curiosity," shrugs Bansal. "Serious
players in the predictions business today have to
deliver services that are authentic, accurate and
accessible. We have to be seen as spiritual
scientists, professionals who not only predict
your future but also tell you how to better it."
Future-telling and insurance, foretells
sociologist Shiv Visvanathan, are primed to be
the two fastest growing industries this decade:
"Because both have recognised the mammoth
marketing possibilities around today's most
urgent human need-the need to feel some control
over life so rife with unexpected variables.
Jobs, businesses, marriages, relationships, are
all more fickle than they ever were, making for
very stressful times. And both these industries
have taken to selling stressbusters by providing
some semblance of certainty in uncertain times".
(2 of 4)
McCann Erickson president Santosh Desai, a keen
researcher of consumer psyche, takes
Visvanathan's point further: "The need to have
control over one's life runs into becoming a
growing obsession with the Self today.Everything
centres around 'My Life' and its perfectibility.
Follows that we now also want to buy information
on our future, to be able to customise and
perfect it".
K.N. Rao, Astrologer-Teacher Rao is advisor to an
astrology institute that began with 40 students
and six teachers in 1987. Today it boasts 900
students and 26 teachers.
That's why future-readers have expanded the scope
of their business, from just prediction to
supplying correctives, says Parveen Chopra,
editor of Life Positive, a spiritual magazine.
"Correct predictions might make for a
future-teller's fame today, but his prescriptives
for a better future make him his fortune."
Because the world is for your asking once those
angry planets are propitiated through the
appropriate yagnas, havans, pujas, mantra
therapies, yantras and gems that the soothsayer
points you to.
Add it all up, and the industry estimates its own
size as around Rs 40,000 crore at least.
So, the right stone on a finger can obliterate
Saturn's ill will? "What's there to disbelieve?"
counters Delhi-based remedial astrologer R.K.
Sharma. "All genuine future-tellers should
Apparently, if India changes its name to
Bharat, it'll be a lot better for all of us.
be able to predict, and heal, the future. Or
else, they are as ridiculous as doctors who know
how to diagnose an illness but not to cure it!" A
pharma graduate, Sharma assigns his clients
prescriptive gemstones to "counterbalance the
malefic effects of planets and stars" after "deep
study" of the clients' horoscopes, "because
prescribing the wrong gem can bring devastating
harm to its wearer, and many amateur astrologers
are wreaking havoc". His success rate? Well, he
had a two-wheeler in 1978, he rides a Toyota now.
Or, a more appropriate measure, he could barely
afford the Rs 11,000 worth of emeralds he'd
prescribed himself in 1978, while today his body
carries emeralds worth over Rs 5 lakh: "My
affluence accrues from the affluence I bring to
others."
Talking of affluence, there's news for those who
thought astrology was, or is, for old-mould
traders: many companies today have future-tellers
on retainers. And the supply side has innovated
to cater to this new corporate demand.
R.K. Sharma, Remedial Astrologer The
Toyota-riding pharmaceutical studies
graduate-turned-gemstone specialist puts his
money where his mouth is. He wears Rs 5 lakh
worth of "energy-enhancing" emeralds on his body.
Meet Mumbai-based "astro-finance specialist"
Pandit Raj Kumar Sharma, known for his
predictions on the euro, the dollar, and bourses
like the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, nyse and
Nasdaq. A columnist in two German financial
magazines, Die Telebrose and DM Euro, Sharma has
conducted seminars in companies like BMW, and is
under contract with various foreign companies for
an annual fee of $4,000-5,000: "I provide them 25
to 30 special services and tips on business
growth. My finance predictions have a 95 per cent
accuracy rate." He claims to have predicted the
Columbia shuttle disaster, the Congress victory
in the last Lok Sabha elections, and Manmohan
Singh's prime ministership.
Nambungal Narayanan, Corporate Astrologer
Narayanan, who predicted MGR's election defeat in
1980, counts Polaris Software, Apollo Tyres and
The Hindu Group among his clients.
Chennai's Nambungal Narayanan, who shot to fame
in 1980 when he predicted that MGR would lose
power, earns the majority of his income now from
companies: he advises them on names, name
amendments and logo designs.
Says software firm Polaris' K. Govindarajan,
senior VP, special projects, "We consult
Narayanan on every new name and design. He is our
friend, philosopher and guide." Other major
clients include K.G. Balakrishnan, CMD of KG
Denim, Oswal Spinning and Weaving Mills and Mehta
Jewellery.Claims Narayanan: "I told Omkar Singh
Kanwar to shorten his company's name Apollo Tyres
Limited to Apollo Tyres Ltd. And I suggested the
name 'Frontline' when The Hindu group launched
their magazine."
Dubbed India's most influential corporate
astrologer in many a headline, Daivajna K.N.
Somayaji is tight-lipped about the company he
keeps. He'll only tell you that he advises
professionals on venture capital, portfolio
management, investment banking, mergers and
international trading.That he's meeting Outlook
in Reliance's Delhi guesthouse, however, does
give some indication of his clientele profile.
And his cellphone never stops buzzing: "Time's
instant today.People don't want to consult the
astrologer for what's going to happen 30 years
later, they want to know what will happen, what's
to be done, three hours away."
Bejan Daruwalla, Ganesha's Man India's most
famous astrologer says he predicted the Kargil
war, the Gujarat earthquake, and the deaths of
Indira Gandhi and her two sons.
Urgent customer needs that are being supplied
through many delivery channels.Star-teller Bejan
Daruwalla of Mumbai recently did live shows in
four metros where he predicted people's future on
stage, on the spot! On a less theatrical note, he
says he prefers to answer questions by email
these days: "Some basic information about
themselves, a list of questions, a demand draft
and I answer in four weeks from the date of
receipt." Charges range from Rs 250 for
suggesting "auspicious mahurat" to Rs 1,000 for
"marital problems/couple compatibility".
Daruwalla's website GaneshaSpeaks.com generates
over 200 demand drafts a day. And the telephonic
astrological service he runs, after having tied
up with leading mobile phone operators, gets
10,000 calls daily. Among Daruwalla's big bulls'
eyes over the years: predicting the Kargil war,
the Gujarat earthquake, and the deaths of Indira
Gandhi and her two sons.
Vivek Dhir, chemical engineer and MBA, runs a
"telecom services company and provides
astrological content to leading cellphone
companies". His office in Delhi is packed with
young T-shirted men who peer into computers while
advising callers on the future. Who are these
recruits? Meet one: Dr Kala, who's done his PhD
on 'The Effects of Planets on Human Life' from
Delhi's Lal Bahadur Shastri Sanskrit Vidyapeeth,
and whose core belief while attending to callers
is that "life has hidden diamonds, and as an
astrologer I should guide people where to dig for
them". Sure, but does it really work for those
who're paying Rs 6 a minute to avail of such
advice? "Well, obviously it does," says Dhir.
"Sixty per cent of those who ring in are repeat
callers."
Amrita Lal, Astro-TV Entrepreneur Calcutta's most
famous soothsayer is so successful that he spends
Rs 50 lakh a year on a TV channel of his own,
dedicated to future-telling.
And if phones never stop ringing, television is
abuzz with the soothsayer's sound bites. In
Calcutta, five local cable channels run phone-in
programmes with astro-palmists and
astro-tantriks. Then, there's the
future-dedicated Fortune Channel, owned by
astrologer Amritalal ("correct name for child: Rs
500; special computerised horoscope: Rs 1,500").
"Roughly 65 per cent of your destiny can't be
changed," he says, sitting in his air-conditioned
office with a large picture of Kali behind him.
"This is linked to your karma in your past life.
But the remaining 35 per cent can be changed, and
a good astrologer can guide you to avoid mistakes
and misfortunes."
Into another kind of cost-benefit analysis,
meanwhile, Mumbai-based tarot card reader and
numerologist Sunita Menon says her show "Kosmiic
Chat" on Zoom channel "presents me with the
unique opportunity of touching the lives of
millions and generating positive vibes". Menon, a
former air hostess, is a celebrity herself, and
that too among celebrities. Gushes film director
Karan Johar: "It gives me peace of mind to
sometimes take an appointment with Sunita and sit
and chat with her for hours." Usual sessions with
Menon though last for an hour at Rs 1,000, and
she meets four to five clients a day.
Sunita Menon, Tarot Card Reader Faithful clients
include Karan Johar and Ektaa Kapoor, who latched
onto "K" on Menon's advice. She charges Rs 1K for
an hour-long session.
It's luck maybe that the future-telling industry
finds celebrity endorsements that corporations
would die for.TV producer Ektaa Kapoor pins her
spectacular success down to her serial titles,
all beginning with 'K'. "Sunita said it'd always
bring me success, and it does. I've booked every
K title I could think of. I also consult the
Jumanis who check my serial titles for numerical
luck." The client testimonials with the
astrologer-numerologist duo, Bansilal and Sanjay
Jumaani, meanwhile, read like a rah-rah list.On
their advice: author Shobhaa De has "a song on my
lips" after adding an A to her name; an extra A
and item girl Ishaa Koppikar's "struggling days
were khallaas"; and actor Tusshar Kapoor's extra
S has spelt stardom "and two awards" for
him.Currently, the Jumanis want Saurav Ganguly to
become Gangoly, Kashmir to be spelt as Kashmeir,
and apparently it'll be much better for everyone
if India changes its name to Bharat.
Adding to the future-teller's legitimacy is the
politician. Not that he didn't rely on
soothsayers earlier-Jawaharlal Nehru is known to
have consulted astrologer B.V. Raman often
through his sister and Gulzari Lal Nanda-but such
associations are much more in the open now.
In Bhopal, a senior IAS officer's room in the
secretariat turns into an astrologer's den at
times of elections and political instability. He
pores over horoscopes of chief minister-aspirants
and rival politicians to predict who'll emerge on
top (prized also by his colleagues because they
get to know who to proactively please). Regular
visitors at astrologer Radhey Sham Shashtri's
Lucknow workspace are BJP leaders Kesri Nath
Tripathi and Lalji Tandon. "For the last decade,
the sun, moon and earth have been in a typical
constellation which has increased the mind's
curiosity about the future" is Shastri's
explanation for the current future-telling boom.
This August, an astrology seminar titled 'The
Future of the Present Government' in Delhi's Le
Meridien hotel saw chief guest Murli Manohar
Joshi telling astrologers to "refuse advising
netas who come to you in the dark of the night
for advice, and call you unscientific by the
day". For his part, during his tenure as HRD
minister, astrologers' poster-boy Joshi had
mooted the idea that Vedic astrology (jyotir
vigyan) be introduced in our universities. Long
legal battles later, this May the Supreme Court
upheld the introduction of astrology as a subject
in varsities.
Something that Gayatri Devi Vasudev, editor of
the 68-year-old Bangalore-headquartered The
Astrological Magazine, had long been lobbying
for. Like her late father, B.V. Raman, she thinks
astrology is an academic discipline, and uses
terms from astronomy, astrophysics and
mathematics. When practicing, she uses techniques
of modern psychological counselling to convey her
advice. "My father's, and now my, endeavour has
been to separate astrology from mumbo-jumbo,
miracles and mystery."
But the long, and interminable, debate on whether
astrology is a science or not is best left to the
worthies.The truth is that we in Outlook met many
who had fraud written all over their faces while
reading our future. Any luck they said we had was
really about not having to pay them.
"An abhorrent commercialisation has set in,"
regrets K.N. Rao, advisor to the Institute of
Astrology at Delhi's Bharatiya Vidya Bhawan, "The
science of divination when practised should be no
more than a psychoanalytical counselling
service.But fake astrologers today create a
terrible fatalism in people's minds, depress them
and then shove costly talismans and gems down
their throats. Whereas all standard astrological
classics, like the Brihat Parashara Shastra,
Maansagari, Brihat Jatak, tell you that only
prayers and charity are remedies to future
crisis." Such unethical practices must be
legislated against, the academic fulminates, and
astrologers must be trained and licensed.
More ambitious, Bangalore's S.K. Jain-one of
South India's best-known astrologers-demands
industry status for astrology "because it plays
an important role in Indian life, right from
birth". Argues he: "The government treats us like
cows, to be milked whenever needed. Ours is a
mainstream profession and should be treated as
one." The future will tell. Meanwhile, the
present is propitious for India's Future-Telling
Industry.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Soma Wadhwa inputs by Harsh Kabra in
Mumbai,Sugata Srinivasaraju in Bangalore, K.S.
Shaini in Bhopal, Nikhil Mookerji in Calcutta, S.
Anand in Chennai and Sutapa Mukherjee in Lucknow
______
[4]
KANCHI ACHARYA ARREST: AFFIDAVITS - FULL TEXT [PDF]
http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/nic/0034/affidavit.pdf
o o o o
The Hindustan Times, November 19, 2004
Delhi Edition Pg 10: Edit
HOLY SMOKE!
Sudha G. Tilak
India's ad glib line, in more innocent times, was
that it was a land of holy men. It seemed at odds
with popular Hindu mythologies and fables that
narrated stories of rishis and saints who
indulged in plenty of connivance, intrigue and
sex. The saints either had a dodgy past or their
sainthood was often tainted by unholy acts.
In more confused and modern times came the
real-life swamis and cult gurus of India. They
were faith healers of timid and troubled hearts,
renegade gurus who made their monies with hippy
dollars and set up ashrams for sexual nirvana; or
refugees turned vulgar swamis guilty of rape and
murder, wily charlatans who hobnobbed with
political heavyweights and saints whose Manuvadi
diktats only widened the chasm between the
upper-castes and marginalised classes.
The public found a placebo in these talking gurus
and venerated them, ignoring or chaffing at the
agnostics, rationalists, Christian apologists who
constantly warned that these were men whose
spiritual services demanded a heavy price,
sometimes even human life. The public received
comfort that even top-rung politicians sought the
blessings of their gurus.
Jayendra Saraswati's arrest on November 11 is now
muddled by allegations of political motivation
and vendetta. This is nothing surprising,
considering how politics and religion combine to
poison and dictate public wisdom in India and
politicians and priests make for opportune
bedfellows.
A flashback would show that most post-Independent
gurus enjoyed political patronage from the
highest offices of India and many of their
arrests and public shame have come from the same
political and legal authorities swooping on their
misconducts at their convenience. A report in
November 1994 of a police complaint by two minor
girls was enough to throw the spotlight on the
ugly side of Trichy guru Premananda. He had,
until then, enjoyed patronage from some senior
members of the then ruling party in Tamil Nadu.
Thankfully, this did not absolve him and, in a
landmark judgment in 1997, he was convicted of
multiple rapes and murder.
But there are divine interventions that behove
benevolent judgments too. Just this October, a
Delhi court acquitted godman Chandraswami in the
St. Kitts forgery case and he made most of the
moment to say how he had been made a political
pawn by the V.P. Singh government for his
proximity to Narasimha Rao and Rajiv Gandhi.
So it is for the most powerful godman of India,
Satya Sai Baba, who has been venerated by prime
ministers from Vajpayee to Narasimha Rao and
received patronage of corporate giants like Isaac
Tigrett of Hard Rock Café. Despite pending
complaints with the CBI, negative campaign and
murders of youths inside his quarters in 1993, he
continues to be the guru with the most: over 20
million devotees and an estimated worth of $ 6
million.
Jayendra Saraswati also had former presidents
like R. Venkataraman and Prime Ministers
Narasimha Rao and Indira Gandhi call on him.
(Saraswati publicly stated that widows should
remain away from public spaces, but 'the Gandhi
widow' was a political heavyweight after all).
Obviously, he has missed something that
Chandraswami and Sai Baba know better.
This unholy nexus will continue until India's
spiritual electorate awaken to the shifty deeds
of politicians and the dented halos of its saints.
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