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Archive for category Hindus Ignore Rape

Anti-Muslim-Anti-China Article in Japan Times                                                                    By Sajjad Shaukat

 

 

It is sad that as part of the Indian venomous propaganda campaign, in his article, published in Japan Times on April 14, 2020, under the caption “The other contagion: Political and religious fanaticism”, Indian writer Brahma Chellaney has shown misconceptions about the Muslims, some Islamic countries, including Pakistan and China in relation to the Coronavirus outbreak.

 

Brahma Chellaney wrote: “Just as fascism led to World War II, communism has engendered the greatest global health catastrophe of our time. The Chinese Communist Party, by initially covering up the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, helped unleash the world’s worst pandemic … [China’s]…authoritarianism can ravage the entire world…the pandemic is another extremism—one grounded in religion…Meanwhile, a transnational Islamist movement, the Tablighi Jamaat (“Proselytizing Society”), by holding large gatherings in Malaysia, Pakistan, and Indonesia, helped export the pathogen to multiple countries extending from Southeast Asia to West Africa. This Sunni missionary movement also held a session in New Delhi that helped spread the virus across India. Through its large events, the Tablighi Jamaat—which has long served as a recruiting ground for terrorist groups—has emerged as the super-spreader of COVID-19…the organization will be remembered for the deaths and suffering it caused in many communities. The lesson is that religious fanaticism, like political despotism, is often deadly. Indeed, the blind faith of religious zealots has been a significant trigger in spreading the coronavirus, as Iran’s case underscores”.

 

While, spreading disinformation in line with the fanatic Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the ruling party BJP, including other religious extremist groups, the writer has ignored the ground realities.

 

Indian writer should pay attention to the fact that Prime Minister Modi’s extremist party BJP had also got a land sliding triumph in the Indian elections 2019, as, during the election campaign, the Hindu majority was mobilized on ‘hate Muslim’ slogans and ‘anti-Pakistan’ jargons. On the basis of the same slogans, the BJP-led alliance won the 2014 elections.

 

Since 2014 Modi-led BJP was already promoting religious fanaticism and the ideology of Hindutva (Hindu nationalism) by persecuting religious minorities, Sikhs, Christians, and particularly Muslims, including even lower cast-Hindus.

 

In his second tenure, the Premier Modi government accelerated the implementation of the Hindutva agenda, especially targeting the Muslims. Indian fanatic rulers’ various moves such as abrogation of the special status of the Jammu and Kashmir to turn Muslim majority into a minority in the Occupied Kashmir (IOK), continued lockdown in the IOK, the martyrdom of thousands of the Kashmiris there, issuance of a notorious map to bifurcate the Kashmir region into two union territories and introduction of new domicile law to further alter the demographic and geographic status of the IOK against the majority of Kashmiris are notable.

 

Particularly, in the aftermath of the elections 2019, news reports have highlighted different cases in which Dalits and especially Muslims were violently targeted by the radical Hindus.

 

In this respect, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat said on October 8, 2019: “Bharat is Hindu Rashtra and all Bharatiyas are Hindus.”

 

 

 

India's Nazi's

 

Besides, the Indian Citizenship Amendment Act 2019 (CAA) further exposed the Modi government’s discriminatory policies. The CAA coupled with the National Register of Citizens (NRC) is mainly against Muslim immigrants especially from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. It strips 200 million Indian Muslims of their citizenship.

 

Since December 15, 2019, daily mass protests, even by the moderate Hindus have been taking place across every state in India against the CAA and the NRC, which resulted in killing of more than 200 persons and injuring 800-mostly Muslims by the police and fanatic Hindus. But, the Modi-led regime has not withdrawn the CAA/NRC. Since February 23, this year when clashes started in New Delhi between protesters for and against the citizenship law, Hindu extremists of RSS and BJP have burnt properties of Muslims, including their vehicles and mosques, and compelled them to leave the areas.

 

While Indian rulers have been imposing various kinds of restrictions on the Muslims, coronavirus provided them another pretext to increase their hardships. Top officials of the Modi government and the health ministry claimed that Muslims are spreading this virus. Availing this opportunity, Hindu zealots have set off a series of assaults against Muslims across the country.

 

In this connection, The New York reported on April 12, 2020: “Muslims have been beaten up, nearly lynched, run out of their neighborhoods or attacked in mosques…Hindu extremists are scapegoating the country’s entire Muslim population for deliberately spreading the virus through “corona jihad”.

 

Al Jazeera reported on April 16, 2020, “Indian hospitals segregate Muslim and Hindu coronavirus patients…In what many are calling a case of “apartheid” during a global pandemic…made separate wards for Hindu and Muslim patients. It is a decision of the government”.

 

In this context, under the title “It Was Already Dangerous to Be Muslim in India. Then Came the coronavirus”, Billy Perrigo also elaborated the Indian present drastic anti-Muslim phenomena.

 

As regards the Tablighi Jamaat congregations since the remote past, they have been holding congregations. But, now as part of New Delhi’s biased policies, their preachers have also become the main target of coronavirus epidemic.

 

Indian Constitution which declares India to be a democratic state, safeguarding the rights of minorities has been torn into pieces by the Narendra Modi who has changed it into authoritarianism by targeting the minority groups, particularly Muslims.

 

And Brahma Chellaney who also held China responsible for deliberately preparing and spreading the COVID-19 is no more than disinformation. US-supported India wants to counterbalance China in Asia. So, the writer has spoken in the tone of America which has earlier accused Beijing in this regard.

 

Notably, Lijian Zhao, an official spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated on March 12, 2020, that the US Army has brought the coronavirus epidemic to Wuhan from where it originated. US athletes participated in the Military World Games which were held from October 18–27, 2019 in Wuhan.

 

So, Washington’s main aim was to check the rapidly increasing economic influence of China in the Afro-Asian countries. And New Delhi is also against the growing impact of Beijing in the region.

 

At present, China has controlled the coronavirus and lifted lockdown in Wuhan. Even, America is seeking Chinese help to eliminate the COVID-19 outbreak.

 

In terms of the above-mentioned facts, Brahma Chellaney’s article is based upon his misconceptions about the Muslims, some Islamic countries, including Pakistan and China. 

 

 

 

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BARBARITY – How the Indian Government Watched Delhi Burn By Samanth Subramanian

BARBARITY OF NARENDRA MODI

How the Indian Government Watched Delhi Burn

By Samanth Subramanian

February 27, 2020

Two things happened in Delhi on Tuesday, and the gulf between them illustrated India’s wild, alarming swerve from normalcy. At the Presidential palace, Donald Trump concluded a two-day visit by attending a ceremonial dinner: an evening of gold-leaf-crusted mandarin oranges, wild Himalayan morels, and gifts of Kashmiri silk carpets. Half a dozen miles away, northeast Delhi was convulsed with violence. Since Sunday, mobs had been destroying the shops and homes of Muslims, vandalizing mosques, and assaulting Muslims on the streets. In their chants of “Jai Shri Ram,” praising a Hindu deity, their loyalties were clear. The attackers were Hindu nationalists, part of a right wing that has been empowered by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government; many of them were even members of his party. The Delhi police, who are supervised by Modi’s home minister, seemed to side with the mobs; one video caught cops smashing CCTV cameras, while another showed them helping men gather stones to throw. Several reports said that policemen stood by while the attackers went about their business. In a few spurts, Muslims retaliated, and the streets witnessed periods of full-scale clashes. A policeman was killed, and an intelligence officer was murdered and dumped in a drain. At least thirty-eight people have died: shot, beaten, burned. At the Trump banquet, the Navy band played “Can You Feel the Love Tonight.”

The mayhem came after a winter of protest. Since early December, millions of Indians have assembled across the country to object to a new law that promises fast-tracked Indian citizenship to Pakistani, Afghan, and Bangladeshi refugees of every major South Asian faith except Islam. The law is limited in its scope but momentous in how overtly it separates Indianness from Islam. It’s a move characteristic of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (B.J.P.) and its allied groups, who regard India’s two hundred million Muslims as an undesirable part of an ideal Hindu nation. The protesters against the law have, in nearly every case, been peaceful, but their sit-ins and marches have been met with force by the government: tear gas, house raids, arbitrary detentions, police brutality, Internet shutdowns. In speeches, Modi’s colleagues have suggested that dissenters should be shot.

The B.J.P.’s top leaders—the Prime Minister included—seem to excel at creating conditions in which violence can unfold. On Sunday, in Delhi, a local B.J.P. politician named Kapil Mishra gave an ultimatum to the police: clear the roads of protesters or allow his followers to do so. His speech was inflammatory, but he faced no trouble from his party; the B.J.P. has a record of tolerating, and even rewarding, members who threaten to take the law into their own hands. (Yogi Adityanath, a Hindu cleric who regularly delivers hate-filled speeches and whose supporters burned a train in 2007, is now a B.J.P. chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state.) The government can claim that the gangs seeking out protesters and Muslims have acted of their own volition, outside the Party’s control. But the B.J.P.’s habitual rhetoric—stirring up hatred, advocating force, calling opponents “traitors”—not only incites mob savagery but also gives attackers the confidence that they’ll never be prosecuted. (Vigilantes who, while insisting that the cow is sacred to Hindus, have been lynching Muslims and lower-caste Hindus on the suspicion of smuggling cows or owning beef are operating out of a similar sense of security.) When the state knows that its right-wing affiliates will carry out the kind of violence that it cannot and should not pursue, then all it has to do is nothing.

The slyness of this tactic is not without precedent. In 2002, when Modi was the chief minister of Gujarat, a weeks-long pogrom against Muslims left as many as two thousand people dead. Then, too, the police assisted the mobs of Hindu nationalists—or, at best, did little to stop their rampage. Two witnesses later recalled that Modi had instructed the police to stand down while the brutality unfolded. One of those witnesses was found dead in his car the following year, while the other was sentenced to life in prison, last June, in a decades-old murder case that was suddenly resurrected. Modi was cleared of complicity in the 2002 riots by an investigative team appointed by the Supreme Court. But he is known to hold the reins of power so tightly, and to govern so absolutely, that it’s difficult to believe that Gujarat or Delhi could burn under his gaze without his sanction.This arm’s-length orchestration of anarchy has, in the past few days, made for some surreal scenes. Television journalists went out to work wearing cricket helmets, for safety; videos showed Muslim slums on fire; and the death toll climbed. Yet Ajit Doval, India’s national-security adviser, visited northeast Delhi on Wednesday and said, “Everything is normal. People of all communities are living in peace and love.” In the Delhi High Court, on Wednesday, the deputy commissioner of police claimed that he had not seen any footage of Mishra’s incendiary speech, even though it had been the spark applied to the tinder. Modi’s home minister, in charge of law and order, made no statements. Modi himself restricted his comments to just two tweets; in fact, he stayed away from the customary joint press conference at the end of Trump’s visit, leaving the American President to field questions about the turmoil. “He wants people to have religious freedom, and very strongly,” Trump said, of Modi. On Thursday, Modi’s Solicitor General told the High Court that it was “not conducive” to investigate B.J.P. politicians for hate speech—even though his government has kept a few key Kashmiri politicians under house arrest for more than six months, arguing that they’re liable to stir unrest. On Thursday, after paramilitary troops were deployed, and after northeast Delhi had somewhat quieted, the B.J.P. blamed opposition parties for instigating the violence.

 People supporting the new citizenship law beat a Muslim man.

People supporting the new citizenship law beat a Muslim man during a clash with those opposing the law in New Delhi, India.Photograph by Danish Siddiqui / ReutersIn 2002, a Reuters photo became emblematic of the riots, showing a Muslim tailor, his shirt flecked with blood, imploring security forces with folded hands to rescue him from a mob that was surrounding his house. This week, another Reuters image emerged, of a Muslim man on all fours, bloodied and bowed, trying to shield his head from the dozen or so men encircling him and beating him with staves. His manner is abject, desperate. There are no police in sight. The photo stands for what now seems to be the fate of India’s minorities, as designed by the B.J.P.: to find being heavily outnumbered a matter of life and death; to cower in perpetual fear; and to know that the state will bring no relief, because it’s the state that’s choreographing the fear in the first place.

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Has Caste Discrimination Followed Indians Overseas? by Priyanka Mogul

Has Caste Discrimination Followed Indians Overseas?

Has Caste Discrimination Followed Indians Overseas?

by

Priyanka Mogul

diplomat.com

 

“One is of the opinion that you leave behind all the trappings of the caste system once you leave India, but perhaps I was naive.”

Saunvedan Aparanti, an Indian student studying in London, has found himself at the center of a heated campaign to introduce caste discrimination legislation in the United Kingdom. Having moved to Britain for university, Aparanti was surprised to find himself at the receiving end of “caste supremacy” from his new flatmates. The caste system he speaks of — and its trappings — is one that the world has, unfortunately, become familiar with. Stories relating to caste violence frequently emerge from some South Asian countries, particularly India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. Headlines featuring the rape and murder of so-called “lower caste” people, or Dalits, are no longer rare.

Everyone is in agreement that this mistreatment of people based on an ancient social hierarchy is horrific and that it must be combatted. But when Indians say caste discrimination has followed them overseas, the solution doesn’t appear as straightforward anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Across the UK, a fierce debate has been playing out within the British-Indian community over whether there is a need to introduce legislation for caste discrimination. In 2011, the employment tribunal heard its first claim of caste discrimination when a couple alleged they had been wrongfully dismissed by their employers because of their inter-caste marriage. Vijay Begraj claimed he was told by a “higher caste” colleague that he was lucky to be working in a law firm as his caste would have made him a cleaner in India. The tribunal also heard that Begraj had been assaulted by relatives of one of the firm’s partners and had been called derogatory caste names. The law firm in question, Heer Manak, denied the allegations until the case was ultimately abandoned in 2013.

Stories such as Begraj’s have united Dalit rights campaigners in the U.K. in the fight for caste law. Caste Watch UK, the Dalit Solidarity Network UK, and the Anti-Caste Discrimination Alliance are a few who have taken center stage in the campaign, with support from a number of academics. The United Nations has also lent a voice to the debate, urging the UK government to implement caste discrimination law.

Manifestations of Caste in the UK

So who is experiencing caste discrimination in the UK? And where and how are they experiencing it?

Numerous reports have been put together, each compiling a number of U.K.-based case studies of caste discrimination. Due to the stigma that comes along with being a “lower caste” person, many are afraid to speak out publicly. Instead, they choose to isolate themselves from the Indian community in the UK and live among non-Indians who have little understanding of caste dynamics.

Research conducted by the National Institute of Economic and Social Research and the Equality and Human Rights Commission has detailed various incidents of caste discrimination in the UK. The majority of these appear to occur in the personal sphere, which falls outside the reach of the Equality Act 2010, which relates to education, employment, and provision of goods and services. This has led some to question whether the implementation of caste under the Equality Act would do very much to combat instances of discrimination among social circles.

However, Dr. Meena Dhanda, a leading academic in diaspora Dalit studies, has noted that there is crossover between what happens in the private and public spheres. She argues that if prejudice exists, it cannot always be assumed that this prejudice does not cross over into the areas of employment and education.

Reena Jaisiah, a young woman of Dalit ancestry, illustrates how this crossover is possible. Her experience saw her become the victim of caste discrimination on the school playground, where students would bully her and call her derogatory names relating to her caste. This then carried on into her adult life, when she was running her shop and found that an elderly “upper caste” woman consistently refused to put money in her hand, instead placing it on the counter.

“That is exercising untouchability here in the U.K.,” Jaisiah said in Caste Aside, a documentary that sees her recount her life as a “lower caste” woman in Britain. Jaisiah’s experience doesn’t appear to be an isolated one, with caste rights groups such as the Dalit Solidarity Network UK and Caste Watch UK noting that they receive calls from people across Britain who say they too have become victims of caste discrimination.

“This is a rights issue that’s happening across South Asia,” said Meena Varma, director of Dalit Solidarity Network UK. “In fact it’s happening globally, because wherever the diaspora go, they take their caste with them, and so, therefore, that discrimination goes with them.”

Arguments Against Caste Legislation

However, not everyone in the British-Indian community believes that caste legislation is necessary in the U.K. The Hindu Council UK and the National Council of Hindu Temples UK have both opposed the calls for caste legislation, with politicians such as MP Bob Blackman backing them.

“Caste legislation simply doesn’t stand ground,” said Anil Bhanot, director of interfaith relations at the Hindu Council UK. “Dalits have become rich now here because there’s no discrimination.”

Bhanot goes on to note that the instances of caste discrimination that have been brought up so far relate to prejudice within social circles, rather than discrimination that would fall under the realm of equality law. He also argued that implementing this legislation will make caste more prominent among British-Indians, bringing awareness of caste where he says there is currently none.

Satish Sharma, general secretary of the National Council of Hindu Temples UK, takes a similar perspective on the legislation. When asked to characterize the Hindu community in the UK, Sharma commended the “harmonious” nature of the community and emphasized that the current generation of British-Hindus have been free from the understandings of the caste system and do not discriminate against each other in any way. He fears that this legislation, if implemented, will automatically presume certain members of the community — anyone who isn’t a Dalit — are “prejudiced by birth.” He strongly opposed this notion and restated his belief that caste is not an aspect of the Hindu religion. Instead, he argues, caste, as it exists today, is a Euro-Christian concept imposed on Indian people.

“Where does this notion that there is some sort of superiority being played out in the British-Hindu community come from?” Sharma questioned. “It’s purely an act of mischief. And if that isn’t a recipe for friction, then I don’t know what is.”

What Happens Next

On September 18, the British government ended a public consultation on caste and equality law in Great Britain, which invited the public to submit their views on “how to ensure that there is appropriate and proportionate legal protection” against caste discrimination. Groups on both sides of the debate rallied supporters to submit their thoughts on the issue.

Sat Pal Muman, Chairman of Caste Watch UK, has hit back at those opposing the legislation, saying: “They are afraid that if caste discrimination law does kick in, somehow it will affect their religion. They may have something to hide, there may be some skeletons in their cupboard.”

As the debate continues, campaigners are hoping that a decision will be made on the legislation in early 2018. Hindus groups remain concerned that bringing caste into U.K. law will send a message that caste is becoming a prominent feature in British-Indian society; something that they believe is far from true. Meanwhile, Dalit rights groups remain anxious about what will happen to the thousands of caste discrimination victims they say they know in the UK.

Future cohesion of the British-Indian community hangs in the balance as the UK government mulls its next move.

Priyanka Mogul is a freelance journalist based in London. She is the producer of Caste Aside, a documentary about the British government’s controversial decision to introduce legislation against caste discrimination in the U.K.

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TEN COMMANDMENTS OF LIFE FOR HINDUS AND THE NEW AGE MYSTICS: Hinduism Exposed

Hinduism Exposed

 

http://www.blessedquietness.com/journal/housechu/hindu.htm

 

TEN COMMANDMENTS OF LIFE FOR HINDUS
AND THE NEW AGE MYSTICS:

My personal observations in green are based on
my observations growing up with Hindus in East Africa.

I -YOU ARE THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE–
          Make sure everyone around you knows it.

II – THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS TRUTH,
AND THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A LIE
          Anything not included in that statement does
          not matter anyway.
          
Do whatever turns a profit.
          The golden rule of Hinduism is,
          “Rip off everyone and buy gold in Bahrain.”

III – DO NOT GET CAUGHT–
          If caught, blame Kali or the Prime Minister,
          and offer a generous bribe.

MAHATMA GHANDI IS IN WISCONSIN

I was talking on the phone with our correspondent, Dave Casper, in Wisconsin this morning. We were discussing all the Hindus who have come to the USA and rescued gas stations and motels. Also, we noted that they have heavily moved the White race to turn against eating meat. Dave asked why, and I told him the theological reason. I am very well versed on Hindu theology, having many of their books and having grown up with Hindus.

Hinduism says that there are 12,000 cycles of reincarnation for everyone. With each reincarnation, we work off more and more of our bad karma, and we progress upward each time. Eventually, we reach the Brahman mind and Nirvana. At that point we are in a state of nothingness, and we are to believe that we will be happy once our mind is empty and we don’t know who we are. San Francisco is well on its way!

With each reincarnation we come back as a rat or as a guru, depending on whether we have been good and advance, or if we have been naughty and regress to the animal world. This is why Hindus will not eat meat. They are terrified that they may eat their grandmother or uncle. The Jains even believe the bugs and roaches are spirits on their way to Nirvana.

Imagine that– Your Roach Hotel is massacring thousands of innocent souls who are just trying to eat their daily crumb and wend their way to Nirvana.

Shirley McLain and her mob repackaged this loonie reincarnation doctrine for Gringos and reduced the trip to four reincarnations because Anglo Saxons would not possibly buy into something that took 12,000 tries to get it right.

Mahatma Ghandi once said, “Reincarnation in Hinduism is a burden too heavy to bear.” He was not really a very good Hindu. Dave and I speculated that Ghandi may have had to go back down the chain of reincarnation to be a rat or duck to pay for his nerve in questioning the doctrines of Shiva et al.

Ghandi hated Black Africans intensely and massacred many in South Africa as a Major in the British Army. He admitted that he was a poor husband and neglected his wife. He covered up the murder of an American engineer in India by his followers. There is a lot of bad Karma coming down for Ghandi. MORE

Well, while we were on the phone, Dave suddenly shouted, “Ghandi is swimming by the end of my dock.” It turns out, and this has to be earth shaking, that Ghandi is a beaver in a lake in Wisconsin. He was seen with a wad of grass in his mouth (what else?) which he was using to build his beaver lodge.

Dave Casper has promised to get us a digital photo of Ghandi soon, and we are considering keeping track of him through the winter.

Folks, you just don’t get the real news if you never check in at Blessed Quietness Journal 🙂

IV – BELITTLE EVERYONE YOU CAN,
INCLUDING YOUR WIFE AND CHILDREN
          As you beat and humiliate them, you are
          helping them work off their bad Karma.

V – NEVER WORRY ABOUT KHARMA
          You can be good in your next incarnation.

VI – POLITICS IS THE HIGHEST FORM OF
AM– — USEMENT
          If you cannot BE one, destroy one.

VII – IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO EAT TOO MUCH
          Food and a huge stomach are signs of
          prosperity.

VII – THERE ARE 400,000,000 GODS IN HINDUISM
          If you do not like the one assigned to you,
          make your own.

VIII – IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO TALK TOO MUCH
          See if you can get someone else to do your work
          so you can loiter and chatter.

IX – NEVER EAT MEAT, FOR YOU MAY BE EATING
YOUR GRANDMOTHER
          But, you may sell meat to Muslims and
          Christians. Grandmother will understand.

X – NEVER HELP THOSE IN NEED
          The more they suffer, the more kharma they
          are getting rid of.
          To help them and feed them would cause
          them to enter their next incarnation with
          left over kharma.
          Helping people to suffer pain and hunger
          is the most merciful act of kindness a Hindu
          can perform.

 

 

 

 

Srila Prabhupada, at the left, was the founder of
Hari Krishna, and every photo of him
I have seen shows a bored miserable look.
There is no joy in Hinduism, only sensuality and lust.
Ane, much uncertainly !!

 

 

“You can’t have a present without a past.”
        Words by Hindu radical, Acharya Dharmendra

Yes, Acharya, my past defines my present, AND my future. No reincarnation as a mouse or stink bug for me! Don’t you worry about stepping on me after I die, I will not be coming back 🙂 I am sorry about your having to work off your Karma by trying to make good Dharma. No amount of rule keeping will cancel the record of your sin– never enough puja. Eating no rice, no salt, no meat, burn incense– what does that have to do with your sin? Nothing! What a fearful way to deal with the past. Why should you wait to see what happens? Put your faith in the finished work of Jesus, and your past will also define a glorious future.

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GODMEN : Life At An Austin Ashram, A First-Person Account: The author of Sex, Lies and Two Hindu Gurus shares her experiences

GODMEN
Life At An Austin Ashram, A First-Person Account
The author of Sex, Lies and Two Hindu Gurus shares her experiences
 

In 1991, American writer Karen Jonson wasn’t in love and was in a dead-end job when she joined an ashram, the Jagad­guru Kripalu Parishat (JKP) in Austin, Texas, attrac­ted by local guru Prakashanand Sara­swati’s talks “about god and loving god”. The JKP proclaims the divi­nity of Kripaluji Maharaj. In the beginning, she was happy to be among a group of people who had the same feeling and purpose, picking green beans by the moonlight, cooking meals, acting in skits. After living in the ashram for 15 years, she quit in 2008, three years before Prakashanand was found guilty on 20 counts of child sex abuse. Jonson published a tell-all book, Sex, Lies and Two Hindu Gurus, which JKP followers dismiss as a ‘Christian conspiracy’. Here Jonson tells Debarshi Dasgupta how her spiritual quest went awry:

 

In hindsight, I always had some small doubts about both Kripalu and Prakash. But I had no proof of anything. I was also very religious and wanted to believe what they were telling us, about achieving God realisation and becoming a gopi in divine Vrindavan. All we had to do was ‘surrender’ to them, they said. So I tried really hard to do that, and whenever I stumbled, I believed it was because of my own lack of devotional qualities. So whenever I had doubts, I would push them back into the corners of my mind.

But the major onset of scepticism occurred when Kripalu was arrested in Trinidad for raping a young woman in May 2007. It was while he was on a ‘world tour’ that year for a few months. He had just spent about four weeks in the JKP ashram in Austin where I had lived full-time since April 1993. His plan was to go to Trinidad, then Canada, then come back to Austin.

Some uncomfortable events took place when he was in the Austin ashram, called Barsana Dham at the time (the name was changed to Radha Madhav Dham later, after Prakashanand fled to Mexico on his own cases becoming public). For the first time ever, I was invited to Kripalu’s bedroom to perform a secret ritual they called ‘charan seva’. I had never heard of it before. But I later learned that many of the women in JKP’s ashrams participated in this ritual, which took place several times every day at specific times.

During this ritual, 5-6 women are brought into the guru’s bedroom. He is lying on his back in the middle of his bed on several pillows with his arms and legs spread out. The women each climb up on his bed and kneel near one part of his body, the thigh, calf and feet. (At that time, one foot was not available for massaging due to an injury, which I later learned was tuberculosis that had gone into his bone.) We had been instructed to “press him very hard.” So we just pressed hard on whatever body part we had.

My first time was his left thigh. The room is very dark so it was hard to see what else was going on. Also, my attention was very focused on massaging him correctly, as instructed. While pressing him as hard as I could, his hand reached down to mine and tried to nudge my hand up to his groin. At the time, I naively thought he wanted me to massage him higher on his thigh, so I tried, but there was really nowhere else to go. He nudged me again. And again I went a tiny bit higher, but that was it. Then it was over and we were told to leave. “Jao!”

I had four more pressing sessions. In two, nothing that I know of happened. But then I wasn’t really expecting anything. But one time, when I was on the left thigh again, I saw movement on his groin from the opposite side. While focusing on my pressing, I also kept glancing over. It looked like another woman, who I knew, was massaging his penis. I really could not believe my eyes. I kept glancing, but was in shock. But I now knew that is exactly what was happening.

 

 
 
 
  That’s when I started putting together pieces of the puzzle—including my past doubts and experiences in ‘charan seva’.  
 
 
 

Another time I was on his left calf, and out of the corner of my eye I saw some movement. When I glanced up, I saw that Kripalu’s hand was up the woman’s blouse. I knew this woman too. Again I was in shock. Each of these three times, I tried not to think about the incidents. I still tried to believe that Kripalu was God and that I could not understand God’s actions. Plus, with him in residence there is way too much work to do and no one gets enough sleep, so we are sleep-deprived every day. I was constantly exhausted trying to keep up with the brutal satsang schedule from 4 am to 10 pm. Plus the work we had to do. My job was baking “birthday cakes”. They offered a thing called a “birthday seva”, where an interested person paid US $2,500 for the privilege of having Kripalu acknowledge their birthday—even if it wasn’t the person’s birthday. I baked over 50 cakes in four weeks for this!

 

About a week after his arrest in Trinidad, one of the preachers gathered us together one night to inform us. After spinning the story in Kripalu’s favour (she didn’t use the word rape), she told us: “Do not go on the internet and read about this.” I think that was the exact moment I got my mind back under my own control and snapped out of my cult delusion. Because I decided that is exactly what I was going to do: I went online, typed in ‘Kripalu’ and ‘Trinidad’, and started reading. I was in complete shock.

That’s when I learned the truth. So many people from around the world were commenting on the real JKP and Kripalu. I just knew they were telling the truth. Everything. The sex, the money collection, the abuse. That’s when I started putting together pieces of the puzzle—including my past doubts and recent experiences during “charan seva”.

It took me a little more time to accept that Prakash was as bad as Kripalu, because I knew Prakash first and had hardly known anything about Kripalu until the fall of 1999. Prakash had stopped talking about him after Kripalu’s first arrest for raping two underage girls in India in the early 1990s (I joined in 1991). That case has never been resolved. He ‘reintroduced’ us to him in late 1999, saying he was the fifth jagadguru, an incarnation of Radha-Krishna and Chaitanya, and a lot of other fairy tales.

One day, I realised that Prakash had to be as bad as Kripalu, because he served him and brought us to him. Within a couple of months, I heard from the young women who had been molested by Prakash as children while living in the ashram.

I’m not sure why certain people calling themselves “gurus” in India are so popular among Indians. I don’t fully understand the beliefs, culture and history surrounding this relationship. I’ve been told by some of my Indian friends living in the US that to worship so blindly is an aberration of the traditional guru-disciple relationship. In fact, an Indian man living in Austin wrote a chapter in my book on that subject. He stressed that there should always be an element of verification on the student’s part. In other words, be sure the person is a true guru. But it seems that some people have completely abandoned this step.

I believe that conmen gurus don’t leave any room for verification. In my case, Kripalu and his preachers went out of their way to teach that it’s a sin to doubt the guru, question him or second-guess him. The only option is 100% unquestioning belief. I now know that this is a red flag. Only a cult would not want a person to use their reasoning mind to make an informed decision.

If a person stays in such a situation, well then they are just sitting ducks. This unquestioning attitude gives the conmen complete control and allows them to shape the followers’ minds anyway they choose. The conman has effectively stolen the individual’s personal power and used it for their own purposes, much like a vampire sucks a person’s blood to stay alive.

At the same time, they claim a kind of shield. Just before his arrest in Trinidad, one day at the Austin JKP temple, Kripalu said: “The actions of a saint may seem more worldly than the most worldly person’s actions. But you cannot judge them, because you are worldly and a saint is divine.” That’s the kind of thinking that gives a person a licence to kill. Very scary.

 

 

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