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Kerala goes
godmen hunting to end over the counter
spirituality farce
WSN Network
KERALA: Deravad is
an all India problem, not just Punjab wide. India's Communist-ruled
high literacy southern state of Kerala is often termed in tourism
literature as an abode of God. Of late, it certainly had become an
abode of self-styled godmen. But now, unlike the claims of Parkash
Singh Badal and Sukhbir Singh Badal, the comrades are going hammer
and tongs after the fraud babas. One by one, these babas are facing
raids, arrests and investigations.
An estimated 600-odd
godmen and women render the spiritual service to Kerala's population
of over 3 crores. This over-the-counter spirituality is now on
target. Kerala government has launched a full-fledged, state-wide
hunt for godmen.
And helping it are
journalists, cops, resident intellectuals, politicians, rationalists
and students. The babas are being probed, raided, booed, chased,
stoned, assaulted. One was de-bearded and got a de-mystifying hair
cut.
The collective
frenzy began last month with the police collaring a high profile
godman, Swami Amrita Chaitanya, who was initially mistaken to be a
gunrunner wanted by the Interpol but turned out to be another
conman. But that was the least of it. The swami, who was school
dropout Santosh Madhavan till he turned astrologer-godman a few
years ago, turned out to be a real-estate shark, power broker and a
lot else. He was also given to starring in porn videos made with
hidden cameras in his ashram, where he exploited school girls whose
education he graciously sponsored after adopting them from poor
homes. The cops got a big bunch of the Swami’s porn CDs from his
bank lockers.
Next, it was Swami
Himaval Maheshwara Bhadranandaji, a hotel management dropout-turned-godman
who lost his nerve when the media began nosing around. He put his
loaded revolver to his head, threatened to kill himself, got the
overawed cops to escort him to a police station with the gun still
aimed at his head. He pulled the trigger and accidentally shot
himself in the other hand, but only after Kerala watched him live on
TV, lording over the police station with his revolver for a couple
of hours.
An embarrassed
government ordered the cops to probe into all “fake godmen”. The
cops began raiding almost every godman they came across. A special
area of interest was the considerable wealth that showed up, sourced
from abroad in many cases.
Kerala’s minister
for temple affairs, G. Sudhakaran, has declared 90 per cent of
Kerala godmen to be fake. Punjab will not be any different, provided
the government has the will to act and investigate.Now there are
even calls in Kerala for a probe into every ‘Corporate Spirituality’
institution, including Kerala’s biggest spiritual crowd puller, the
Mata Amritanandamayi Ashram.
4
June,
2008
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