Three newspapers (Times of India, New Indian
Express & Deccan Chronicle) have recently reported the adverse judgement delivered on the Five Prasad Sisters by
the Supreme Court of India on the 29th
of April 2014. The sisters have been ordered to vacate their present quarters
in Sri Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, by July 31st. What is however strange is that none of the newspaper
reports mention that the Ashram Trust will have to bear the expenditure of the
Five Sisters staying outside the Ashram premises! The Ashram Trust will have to
pay them a minimum of Rs 29000/ every month (subject to fair review and appeal on account
of inflation and other factors as this amount was fixed by the High Court a
long while ago) for accommodation, food and other basic necessities
of life until the original suit pending in the Pondicherry Court since 2005 has
been disposed of.
Additionally, the Honorable Supreme Court has not commented
on the merits of the original case and upheld the stand of the Trustees or
exonerated them from the allegations of sexual harassment as is being made out
in these deliberately misleading newspaper articles! This is but an interim
order on the limited issue of the five sisters staying in Ashram accommodation
during the pendency of their case in the Pondicherry Court. They might well be
granted the right to stay in the Ashram premises once the original case has
been disposed of in Pondicherry if the Honorable Judiciary were to find merit in
their stand. This crucial information has been deliberately left out by the
Ashram Trust in its briefing of the Press in order to spread fear among other
recent complainants of sexual harassment in the Ashram. The clear threat to
them behind this deliberate omission is, “You too will meet the same fate as
the Five Sisters. You too will be thrown on the pavements of Pondicherry
without food and shelter!” This is the petty and belligerent attitude of the
Ashram Trustees behind all their pretentious spiritual talk!
Secondly, what was the original intent of the Ashram Trustees in
the earliest case against the sisters, which set the ball rolling in the wrong
direction? Whatever be the merits of the actual case, the intention of the
Ashram Trustees was to create fear among Ashramites by "making an example" out of the five sisters, as declared then by Dilip Datta (Trustee). First, one of the sisters was accused of pregnancy in the year 2001, so that the Trustees could evict her
from the Ashram on grounds that sex is forbidden in the Ashram. This led to a defamation suit filed by her against the Ashram
Trust, the filing of multiple complaints of sexual harassment by the sisters,
and a prolonged bitter legal battle raging from the last 13 years till date. But
has the intention of the Ashram Trust to stop the inmates from
indulging in SEX been fulfilled? NOT AT ALL! In fact, Sex has allegedly
increased tenfold in the Ashram and entrenched itself more firmly than ever
before in Ashram life, if we go by the complaints received by the Honorable
Investigating Officer in the Judicial Enquiry against the Trustees! The Trustees know that too well, though they would vehemently
deny it in public. They themselves are not above it, as has been alleged by
many inmates in their depositions filed with the Enquiry Committee! After all, who can tame the natural instincts of man,
especially when the yogic motivation has practically evaporated in the majority
of the inmates of the Ashram?
So if the original purpose of the litigation against the Five
Sisters has not been served, what are the Trustees fighting for? As it often
happens in long drawn out legal battles, the contestants after a time forget
what they are fighting for, and why they are fighting at all! They fight only
for the sake of winning, because they fear defeat and the challenge to their
power and position it might ignite! And who is to bear the financial cost of
this fear? The Ashram, naturally, and all the well meaning devotees who donate crores
of Rupees every year in the hope that their offerings would serve in a small way
to give shape to the vision of the Gurus.
If after a long and bitter legal battle against five helpless
ladies, all the way up to the Honorable Supreme Court spanning 13 years and
costing the Ashram crores of rupees in legal expenses and irreparable loss of
Public Goodwill, all that has been gained is an interim order evicting
temporarily the five sisters from Ashram Accommodation in lieu of rented
accommodation, the expenses of which are to be borne by the Ashram, and the
original case is to continue in Pondicherry, then what has been gained? And at
what cost? The answer is an unambiguous indictment of the hypocrisy,
self-serving and corrupt rule of the present Trustees of the Ashram!
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