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Serene Spirituality with a sinister edge?

By Pamela D'Mello

When media first descended on the four-storey ashram of Sanatan Saunsta, shortly after the October 16 Diwali eve blast that killed two of its functionaries while ferrying explosives, inmates of the ashram went out of their way to explain they are a spiritual organisation, conducting satsangs (weekly religious discourses) and instructing its devotees on correct religious practices and dharma.

Just a week later, as the organisation got over its initial defensiveness, it changed track to a more belligerent offensiveness against the police and home minister. In tandem with the Goa BJP's lukewarm effort to fog up the links, the Sanatan began issuing daily releases, denying its involvement and accusing the media of jumping the gun. Special investigative teams, and Maharashtra's anti-terrorism squad though have found similarities between the blasts in Goa and those that occurred earlier in Thane, Vashi and Panvel in Maharashtra, where the Sanatan is active and where its members have been arrested.

With the recent blast, public opinion in Bandora village, where the Sansta shifted its headquarters four years back, has turned against the organisation. Demonstrations in Ponda have called for a ban on Sanatan. The organisation though is not without its sympathisers - middle class professionals, among them many well connected in educational institutions and in government service. Its mouthpiece newspaper is said to have some 6,000 subscribers in Goa alone.

Set up in 1990 by the now ailing hypnotherapy researcher Dr Jayant Athavale, the Saunsta has branches in Panvel and a large following in Maharahstra, besides offices in Melbourne, USA and the UK.

Sanatan's spiritual practice has drawn hundreds of rural middle-class women. Inmates and lay persons, called seekers, or sadhaks are taken through various levels of spiritualism. Newcomers are encouraged to relentlessly chant or repeatedly write the name of the kuldevta, to attain higher levels of peace. While its spiritual practice could be labelled a harmless religious cult, harkening back to vedic and caste defined pure forms of worship, Sanatan's overt publications and direction of its mouthpiece newspaper is far from benign.

Screaming banner headlines spew venom against the Congress, Muslims and Christians. Muslims are equated often to erstwhile Bijapur chieftain Afzal Khan, while "righteous" Hindus are extolled to emulate Shivaji and destroy the evildoers. Christian clergy are caricaturised and depicted as satanic, in one image with horns and tails. Articles on its websites attacks Mahatma Gandhi for "anti-religious thoughts", and Gandhi's preachings that Lord Ram and God had various names. "How do we protect Hindu society from Gandhi," it asks. Another article quotes Savarkar, extolling Hindus to "pressurise Muslims until they ask for mercy".

Hindus who do not follow the "correct path" are included in the category of evildoers. "Remember these people at the time of the Hindu revolution," is an oft repeated footnote, that intersperses its comments and reports in the newspaper. Its ideologues, similarly critique the RSS and BJP for making political compromises, but are careful to abstain from politically targeting the BJP, reserving its vitriol solely for the Congress.

At satsangs, in addition to the religious discourse, gruesome videos are screened, whipping up hate against minorities and the Congress, calling Hindus to a religious revolution, the "reinstatement of the divine kingdom". A publication of a timetable to reach this goal, sets out the first task as "Impressing upon the mind that 'destruction of evildoers' is a part of the spiritual practice". From 2000 to 2006, its set task was the "actual destruction of evildoers at physical, psychological and spiritual levels". While it sets 2023 as the year to attain its objective. Investigators are no longer treating the group's activists as cranks, given its recent sinister record. The Goa SIT team seized the hard disks of 145 computers in its Ponda headquarters. Though called an ashram, the airy spacious building has the feel of a convent; its activists savvy with modern cameras and computers, it's halls air-conditioned and it's senior functionary is chauffeured around in an SUV.

Alongside its serene spirituality, the Sanatan recently set up its Dharmashakti Sena, under a senior activist Vinay Panvalkar. At its inaugural, sena members were dressed in combat gear. "Violence towards evildoers is non-violence itself," says one of its publications, ironing out any potential dilemma for those who see a contradiction between spirituality and the violence, the organisation has begun promoting. A 2005 Dussehra special edition of the Daily Sanatan Prabhat published a call by founder Dr Jayant Athavale to members to become "Hindu Naxalites".

Publications like its Swasaurakshan Prashikshan (self defence manual) demonstrates use of the trishul, loading of a gun (an air rifle is used in the picture), and weak spots to target. A few years back, the organisation set up a Martial Arts Training school, that was inaugurated by then Goa DIG Karnail Singh. The school operated for a while before it shut down.

While anti-terrorism investigators are ferreting out its foreign funding sources, its hard to miss government patronage to the organisation in the form of advertisements to its newspaper. In the aftermath of the blast, DSP asked Hindus to only trust reports in Sanatan Prabhat, Goa Dhoot, the BJP mouthpiece and in Samana.

Its close linkage to the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti is no secret. The Sanatan started out with opposing local Hindu traditional festivals - targeting especially the Diwali eve practice of creating colourful giant effigies of Narkasur that are burnt before dawn.

Together with the HJS, the Sanatan recently collaborated in targeting Goan artist Subhodh Kerkar, for some of his depictions of Ganesh, it labelled as incorrect depictions of the Goa. While disagreement is legitimate, the newspaper printed Kerkar's phone numbers and exhorted its members to ring him up and protest. The artist was for days harassed with abusive and in some cases threatening calls from Maharashtra and Goa.

The police in Goa is also on alert in Margao, the site of the blast. The HJS and Bajrang Dal have in the past two years repeatedly instigated communal tension in chief minister Digamber Kamat's constitutency. The police here believes that the Margao blasts were indirectly targeted at minorities. Suspicion for a blast on Diwali would have fallen on Muslim terrorist organisations. On far less serious pretexts, the HJS have in the past taken hordes of thugs to Muslim pockets in the city, baiting residents, burning and looting minority commercial establishments, the last such incident in 2008.

The police has established that Malgunda Patil, the SS's senior administrator who perished on October 16, was in touch with the perpetrators of the Maharashtra explosions, before their arrest. Patil made frequent trips to and from his hometown Sangli and his connections to the Sangli riots are being probed. Saunsta members, using the front of their mouthpiece newspaper Sanatan Prabhat, and in the guise of journalists were found ferrying sticks and weapons for use during riots in Miraj and Sangli.

The Maharashtra ATS' year- old request to the government seeking a ban on the organisation, has come up once again after the Margao blast. It is not quite clear why the Sanatan in Goa was not put under a more active surveillance, given its record in neighbouring Maharasthra. The police PRO S.P. Atamaram Deshpande admits to a communication lapse, but questions are being raised about Maharahstrawadi Gomantak Party minister Sudhin Dhavlikar's political patronage to Sanatan, and whether this could have acted as a protection blanket.

The minister admitted his wife and three of his brothers and their families are involved in Sanatan. His wife Jyoti, kept the organisation's accounts, and was an active member.