[We publish here Raman Reddy’s response dated 10 August, 2010 to the Managing Trustee’s long explanation of his stand in the controversy over the Lives of Sri Aurobindo by Peter Heehs. Manoj Das Gupta (presently Managing Trustee of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Puducherry) had written an eighteen pages long explanation justifying his stand in the controversy.]
28 Feb 2013
25 Feb 2013
Comment on "The Present State of Sri Aurobindo Ashram" – A direct disciple
Dear Editor,
Except to those enslaved to their bare necessities of life – status,
position, security, etc – the physical organisation called “The Sri Aurobindo
Ashram” has long been materialising Sri Aurobindo’s diagnosis of 19 July 1926 –
before its ‘birth’: “All ashramas have a tendency to degeneration. It is due to
the incapacity of human nature. Whatever it receives from above, it spoils very
soon. As long as the influence of the founder lasts, his teaching remains pure,
but then his disciples, who cannot fully grasp it or can only grasp it
intellectually, deform the whole thing.” [Conversations,
Sri Aurobindo Circle, 1978]
17 Feb 2013
Court Order in Radhikaranjan's Case ― Sridharan
The
following are the relevant passages of the Court Order given by the 2nd Additional
Munsif of the Puducherry Court in Radhikaranjan’s case. An oral order was given
on 5 December, 2012 followed by a written order on 8 February, 2013 restraining
the Ashram Trustees from stopping Radhikaranjan’s classes in the Ashram School.
Normally, in such circumstances, when the court verdict is overwhelmingly in
favour of the aggrieved party, the authorities (be it an educational or a business institution or the Govt itself) graciously accept defeat and quietly
implement the Court Order without further ado. After all, who would like to
face charges for contempt of Court? But no, the Ashram Trustees, especially
Manoj Das Gupta, Managing Trustee cum Registrar, can never accept defeat! He will
fight till the point of landing behind bars, hoping that the aggrieved party
will run out of money and patience. So even though contempt of court has been
filed against him in Radhikaranjan’s case, the latter will have to wait for
some more time to get relief. The Ashram Trust will certainly file an
appeal in the next 30 days, and in the case of a second adverse order, will go for further
appeals. This is how the Ashram Trust presently functions – filing appeal after
appeal for very personal reasons and wastefully spending the money of devotees
and disciples all over the world, who donate for the cause of Sri Aurobindo and
the Mother’s work, and certainly not for legally harassing the inmates of Sri
Aurobindo Ashram.
8 Feb 2013
The Ashram Trust’s reply of 22 July, 2010 to Kittu Reddy, Sumita Kandpal & Ranganath Raghavan
[This is the last
letter that the Trustees of Sri Aurobindo Ashram wrote to the group of three
senior Ashramites – Kittu Reddy, Sumita Kandpal & Ranganath Raghavan. If
there is one characteristic that defines the letter of the Trustees, it is
“arrogance” – the arrogance of being unquestioned and unquestionable Trustees
in “a Providentially ordained game”. The very tone and tenor of the letter, the
constant denial mode and the counter accusations leveled at the three senior Ashramites,
who dared for the first time to question their authority, leave hardly any room
for a healthy debate. The correspondence thus abruptly ended here with the
Trustees rattling their legal sabres, “Our lawyer will respond” though we are
not under any “legal obligation to reply”, and finally, “The futility of
continued correspondence is thus obvious.” As there was no scope for further
discussion, Kittu Reddy’s group did not reply to the letter. Sumita Kandpal
remarked that she had never received such a rude letter during the entire
period of her service as a Collector. The Trust thus lost one more golden
opportunity to put its house in order and settle matters internally. The attached endnotes contain a few responses by the editor to some of the issues raised by the Ashram Trust.]
1 Feb 2013
Raman Reddy’s response to the Ashram Trust’s letter of 21 June, 2010
[The following is Raman Reddy’s response to the
Ashram Trust’s letter of 21 June, 2010.
Though he was not part of the group of three senior Ashramites (Kittu Reddy,
Ranganath Raghavan & Sumita Kandpal) that met and corresponded with Manoj Das Gupta, the Managing Trustee, during this
period, it is worthwhile reading his response to the Ashram Trust. A copy of it
was sent at that time to the Managing Trustee.]
The
Trust asserts its legal authority
I quote from the
letter of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Trust dated 21 June 2010 to Kittu Reddy,
Ranganath Raghavan and Sumita Kandpal:
The
Mother while entrusting the responsibility to the Trust to manage the assets of
the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, thought fit in Her wisdom, not to include any clause
or direction to even remotely suggest that all beneficiaries, be they devotees
or inmates, should necessarily be consulted at any stage in the management of
things or in the decision making process – if at all it be even logically
possible to consult everyone belonging to such an open ended and amorphous body
consisting of all the inmates of the Ashram and disciples of Sri Aurobindo. (p
2)
The Trust has
literally alienated the entire Ashram community along with the admirers and
disciples of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother all over the world with one
well-constructed sentence defining its autocratic legal position vis-a-vis the
beneficiaries. But have we ever denied its legal authority, or said that we
“should necessarily be consulted” in the decision making process? All that we
insist upon is the right to ask questions whenever their decisions don’t seem
right to us, and receive satisfactory answers. Even Sri Aurobindo and the
Mother cared to explain to their disciples the reasons behind their
administrative decisions. One has only to read Nirodbaran’s correspondence with
Sri Aurobindo to see how much time the Master spent in keeping the disciples
happy and clearing their misunderstandings.
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