Swami Nithyananda - Persecution 2.0

This post has Rajiv Malhotra holding forth on the Swami Nithyananda case in view of the recent developments that have taken place in this regard.

Rajiv:

In my recent India trips I tried to inquire into the allegations against Swami Nithyananda and found a totally new set of facts than what I had been led to believe earlier. Though not a legal expert, I feel I should share what I heard from sources that seem reliable.

1. About 4 years back a sudden scandal broke out with charges ranging from stealing land, illegal gold, tiger skins, all the way to sex and drugs. Media constantly replayed a few tapes none of which had been verified. Swami Nithyananda went to Kumbh Mela and became invisible, and later got arrested. This much is well known. It was alleged that a woman named Ranjitha had been sexually compromised by him. This became a headline scandal that preoccupied the media for weeks.
2. But legal experts I spoke with recently told me that the chronology of events that took place was very strange and abnormal: First the allegations against Swami Nithyananda were made solely by media,before any charges had been filed by authorities. Then the police wanted to gather evidence to substantiate the charges and started placing advertisements on TV asking for victims to come forth and approach the police with complaints. Police phone numbers were displayed on TV ads round the clock for people to call. Interestingly, nobody came forth despite massive solicitation by the police and media. It was strange that the allegations were being repeated as though the matter was settled, even before the police had formal complaints from any victims,and even before the evidence was available.
3. So the sequence was: Media scandal ==> police ads looking for victims ==> police starts complaints. This is backwards.
4. 4+ years of due process later, all the charges got dropped, except one charge made by one woman. The other matters concerning illegal financials, land "grab", and various other unlawful activities initially charged all got dropped one by one.
5. The main woman said to be the victim (an actress named Ranjhita) has since come forth and refuted all the allegations supposedly made on her behalf. She hired a lawyer and filed lawsuits against the main TV stations that started the scandal, charging the media with slandering her name. It turns out that other media across India had blindly copied what had been shown on Sun TV (which is owned by DMK supremo Karunanidhi's family). Ranjitha now lives in the ashram of Swami Nithyananda - hardly a sign of someone seeing herself as a victim.
6. So where are things today? I am told that one woman is making the sole charges against Swami Nithyananda. Ranjitha and her lawyer appeared in the Supreme Court to petition that she was falsely used as victim in a conspiracy.
7. The sole accuser is said to have a track record that I dont want to state here, as what I was told is very messy, and I have not confirmed it for myself.
8. The matter was sitting dormant with nobody wanting to press it further, presumably because the case lacked merit. Swami Nithyananda could have just let it sit indefinitely and fade away. But his lawyers decided to make an aggressive move, and they initiated a petition in the Supreme Court. They petitioned that the state High Court of Karnataka had failed to dispose of the case in a timely manner, and it was well past all the deadlines applicable. The goal of Swami Nithyananda's lawyers was to escalate the case higher in order to get rid of it once and for all.
9. Whether this was a wise strategy or whether it might backfire, only time will tell. Now the case is back in full swing in the state High Court, because the Supreme Court reprimanded the High Court for tardiness and sloppiness, and ordered it to hear the trial quickly and resolve the matter.
10. Will the state High Court take its revenge for being embarrassed before the Supreme Court and for being made to look incompetent? Will the police look for every excuse possible to become extra tough just to save face - after all, its very intense and urgent case 4+ years went nowhere, and most charges got dropped anyway? I don't have a clue how to answer these, as this is not my field of expertise.
11. But one thing is for sure: the biased and opportunistic media is once again seeing this as another chance to sensationalize even though most of the journalists covering this are of modest levels of IQ and even lower levels of due diligence.

My advice to the ashramites of Swami Nithyananda's organizations is to remain loyal to their guru. He has without doubt helped a large number of people worldwide in solving a variety of personal matters. His teachings resemble those of Osho in many ways, with the added touch that he has revived many rituals and traditional practices alongside the Hindu dharma theory. I have said the same to the disciples of every other guru that approached me at a time of crisis: Be loyal to your guru.

My advice to Hindus at large is to always give the benefit of doubt to a Hindu guru over secular media or other charlatans of faiths making charges of whatever kind. When similar problems hit other religions, they close ranks and resolve the matter internally. Hindus do not have any such internal mechanism. Hence the matter goes to high profile forums, and secularists turn it into an opportunity to mock and ridicule.

I disapprove of Hindus who jump ship at every such opportunity or who join the opponents.  For many weak persons, its easier to do that, and harder to stick one's neck out for the principle of solidarity.

In closing: I was neither present as eyewitness when the alleged events are said to have occurred, nor am I a legal expert to evaluate the case. But my loyalties are clear as a Hindu.

Here is how US Federal Court issued ruling in favor of Swami Nithyananda, confirming the conspiracy theory against him.

Do join the discussion by signing up on the yahoo group. This thread can be followed here.

RMF Summary: Week of October 29-November 4, 2012 - Part 1

Due to the very interesting discussions that took place even as Hurricane Sandy and Cyclone Nilam raged, I have broken down the summary into two parts. 
The second part can be found here. Readers who arrived here via a twitter link (or have a twitter account) and are  eager to contribute are requested to tweet/RT or post comments in the group discussion, since there are a couple of calls for volunteers to provide assistance and/or critical feedback.

How you can assist:
1. Sanskrit text references for or against views expressed by Rajiv ji below in his November 1st post. Read the summary (and the entire discussion in RMF) prior to jumping in.

2. Logistical help in Chicago. See Nov3 post in part-2.

Part 1

October 30

Whither Telugu culture? [A case of digestion into WU by our own people? Whither Telugu culture? Being modern does not mean being western. Just look at Japanese & Chinese they are ultra modern but not western. They have retained... October 30 How will we categorize osho? "Rajiv ji i will like to ask you in what stage of u turn will osho fall you said that mata amrityananda and baba ramdev are in stage 1 as they teach things in the context but i find the categorization of osho very different,he is neither a traditionalist like ramdev and neither new age like deepak chopra and not even like krishnamurti who though being sincere has made dharma very generic and universal. In case of osho i find some unique mix of tradition and un-orthodoxy..." An interesting new discussion that resulted in some interesting comments. A glimpse of Rajiv Malhotra's response is provided below: Rajiv comment: Osho was great, original, effective in his modern usage of dharmic techniques. But at the same time his followers have become digested and many even go about facilitating digestion actively as some worthy thing to be championed. His critique of Christianity was an attack only against the church as an institution. But he tried hard to reinterpret Jesus the person to rehabilitate him in line with dharma - i.e. remove Nicene Creed but upgrade Jesus as enlightened master. The truth is that we simply dont know enough today about any historical Jesus to say much about him,.... October 31 (continuing discussion from October 20): Dramatic growth of Hindu education institutions across the country The rising sun of the swamiji schools With yoga, transcendental meditation, Indian spiritual wisdom and cuisine having won themselves global reputation,.. October 31 (Conclusion of the thread) Dharma and Karmakaand Dear All, All discussions must come to a definite end with a concrete proposal. The discussion seems to be digressing from its original topic of Karmakaand and... November 1: A new and interesting thread initiated by Rajiv Malhotra Why mantra cannot be performed by a machine Rajiv Malhotra: I am involved in a private debate with some Sanskrit scholars who dispute my position that mantra requires a jiva - i.e. prana/consciousness. Implication of my view is that a machine like an iPod cannot get enlightenment by chanting a mantra no matter how many times it repeats it. Otherwise, there would be robots or voice players who evolve to rishis. I claim that the sound a machine can produce is merely at the vaikhari level of vac. for mantra to function in madhyama, pashyanti or para levels of vac, it cannot be disembodied from jiva, i.e there must be prana/consciousness. This also shows how mantra differs from ordinary sound. A challenge raised by my opponents is that some benefit is received even by a person who does not chant the mantra and merely hears it played from a CD/radio type of device. My response is that when a person listens to recorded mantra, the effect it causes is because his subconscious repeats what is being heard, and thereby bringing his prana/consciousness into it. Can someone supply me Sanskrit text references for or against my two views:     Mantra differs from ordinary sound in that it requires being performed by jiva; and what a machine plays out is not mantra but the vaikhari level only?     A person listening to the sound of mantra played by a machine gets benefit because consciously or unconsciously he is internally echoing it, hence the prana gets involved. If I am right, this would undermine the whole international project to turn Sanskrit into machine based texts that can be searched, understood, chanted with the explicit goal to replace living pandits. In my talk at Waves, I challenged one of India's most prominent Sanskrit scholars who was proudly demonstrating the latest "advances" in machine based Sanskrit. I complained that this will lead to pandits being replaced by an App on your smartphones. There will soon be apps corresponding to specialized homas and other mantra based rituals, and the living pandit will become an exotic creature just like the Native American chief who is called to do their traditional dance at the July 4th US Independence Day celebrations in D.C. This issue has also become a major fight with some western academics who are attacking BD's position on mantra non-translatability. (Ironically and unfortunately, a couple of them got funding from some high profile dharma relate foundations that have recently arrived at the scene claiming to help dharma but are doling out their money ignorantly.) November 2 How will the western model fare in India Hi Everyone, My American colleagues often ask me if I had experienced 'culture shock' when I arrived in the US; culture shock here is more in terms of the civic amenities and public behavior. I tell them it was more of 'relief' than 'shock'; I elaborate by saying that clean roads, infrastructure and effective governance are not other-wordly for indians; We are not shocked but are happy ... November 3 (continuing discussion from October 12) Western confidence and Indian youths "...I must confess that my experience is very limited with regard to the on-the-ground situation in India (both urban and rural). In your posts, you seem to be saying that schooling in English somehow better prepares Indian youth for the modern world, or better prepares rural youth for a career in an urban center. You seem to be arguing in circles: you say Indian youth must become Westernized in order to gain confidence, but you are worried that Westernization will lead to a loss of Indian identity. This sounds somewhat like difference anxiety from below.". November 3 Is this digestion or appreciation This is a trick question about deciding whether an example of use of Indian terms is digestion or appreciation. I work in a research lab where various tools are having scientific names but they are referred to by their acronyms like LEXIMER, SEM, DLTS.... Our American (Mormon) boss asked the Indian team members to come up with a name of Indian god, symbol or deity that represents the work done by that instrument. In particularly he was asking for a name that signifies perfection in science, preciseness in action and of course fast and accurate results! (he wanted something like Ford assembly line perfection). From a few options given like Bhrahma, Vishwakarma he selected Saraswati. He then started naming all the devices and instruments in the lab, like Shiva for a laser and Ganesha for an electrical instrument.  There are some named Hercules and Zeus to... Glimpse of response from Rajiv ji:  Firstly, the entity being named as the Hindu deity is not some christian thing per se. The entity is not non-Hindu as such. It is a device that belongs to no particular faith. So calling it by the name of some hindu deity does not compromise that deity - assuming it is something dignified. Secondly, by the very nature of the overall situation, nobody of any faith will think that the naming is literal. They will recognize that this usage is as a metaphor. In digestion the Hindu entity ceases to have its original meaning after some time. It is stripped of its original meaning. This is unlikely here...     Rajiv comment: The number of views for my youtube videos is very small when you compare with popular thinkers on similar topics. Regarding Indian media's lack of coverage - you are correct. One can understand the posture of the media who are ideologically opposed. But the tragedy is that even those who think along similar lines are more interested in plagiarizing and turning it into their own works no matter how diluted or poorly argued. Also, there is frenzy among the so-called hindu activists to boost personal careers and status by using whatever ideas they can quickly pick up and start throwing out as one-liners, even if they dont really get it. All this causes dilution of support for the heavy research and publishing work that remains mostly undone...