Court Grants Injunction On Not Disturbing Radhikaranjan’s Classes ─ Sridharan

The Puducherry Court granted an interim injunction on 20 June, 2012 restraining the Trustees of Sri Aurobindo Ashram from disturbing and stopping Dr Radhikaranjan’s Sanskrit and Biology classes in the Ashram School. The drama began a month ago on 18 May, 2012, when Dr. Radhikaranjan was summarily dismissed from the School for daring to write an article expressing his anguish with regard to Peter Heehs’s book “Lives of Sri Aurobindo”. He had also criticised the Trustees for their inaction against the author who, while being an inmate of Sri Aurobindo Ashram and insolently claiming to be a practitioner of the Integral Yoga, had denigrated both Sri Aurobindo and the Mother in the public domain. The incident has all the more exposed the double standards of the Trustees, who have been putting up a show of great forbearance with direct attacks on Sri Aurobindo and the Mother’s credibility while taking severe and vindictive action on those disciples who have dared to criticise them or Peter Heehs. Actions always speak louder than words and the message that is conveyed by the recent actions of the Trustees is: Criticise Sri Aurobindo and the Mother as much as you like, but don’t you dare criticise me! Or Peter Heehs! (The other day, someone whispered to me: "Who is this Peter Heehs?" I said, "Hush! He is verily God himself!)

This is the first time in the history of the Ashram School that a teacher had to go to the Court to seek justice. The Ashram School is run on the principle of free progress, that is, bringing out the best in each student according to his natural bent of mind. The teachers are disciples who practise the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo through their work of instructing the students in various disciplines. None of them are paid and all consider teaching as part of their sadhana. What an extraordinary, unheard of and too good to be true environment has been created by the Mother! To think that in this very School (where every action should have spiritual considerations), the present Registrar cum Managing Trustee, Manoj Das Gupta (himself one of those fortunate children to have grown under the Mother’s personal care) had to stoop so low that an aggrieved teacher had to approach the Court for redress. What a shame!

Even if it was the fault of Dr. Radhikaranjan, the Registrar should not have permitted the matter to go out of his hands. For in the final reckoning, the head of the institution and not the teacher is going to be held responsible for this sad impasse. But I suppose, good administration has long since taken a back seat in the Ashram. What seems to hold sway now is Ego, a huge Ego, drunk with power that inebriates the head and blinds the intelligence, an Ego that flaunts in public with a holier-than-thou spiritual pretence.

Sridharan