By Karachian
08 September 2003
Let me give an example. The Asianet channel that has a niche market for
news and entertainment programmes in the Malayalam speaking state of
Kerala has begun giving an hour every Friday to discourses by Satya Sai
Baba, an extremely popular spiritual guru. His followers straddle
countries in South Asia, including Sri Lanka and Nepal and beyond. The
devotees throng his meetings and the numerous temples that have been
raised by his trusts, and often receive the boon of this or that miracle.
I have it from impeccable sources close to the late Sirimavo
Bandaranaike that she flew in a special plane to meet Sai Baba at his
southern Indian hermitage. Mrs Bandaranaike was prime minister of Sri
Lanka at the time. Her toes were badly paralysed and she couldn't walk.
Herbal therapies in Kerala and acupuncture in Singapore had failed to cure
her. But Sai Baba told her calmly that she would walk within 10 days. She
never did. Subsequently the opposition press picked up the story and
chided "the leader of a Buddhist state for dabbling in Hindu mumbo-jumbo."