I write this to you representing the pain and
anguish of thousands of Inmates and devotees of the Ashram, and seek your
intervention to ensure that Auroville and its institutions are not misused in this
manner. Otherwise the views of SAIIER Board will be misconstrued as
representing those of Auroville Foundation involving your implicit sanction and
approval, and will be filed in the Courts tomorrow by the Trustees, as has been
the case with other such letters that the Trustees have solicited and sponsored.
[…]
No disciplinary action has been taken against the
author. No steps have been taken against either the author or the publisher to withdraw
the book or to protect the Ashram from the violation of copyright. In fact,
even to this day, Peter Heehs continues to visit the Ashram Archives practically
every day outside official working hours, he still retains full privileged
access to all its rare and unpublished documents, and he still keeps a large
part of these documents and thousands of reference cards in his exclusive
possession and not at the Ashram Archives!
While the Trustees took no actions to protect the
Ashram from harm and to curb Peter Heehs from his abuse of Sri Aurobindo and
his anti-national activities, the same Trustees came out in violent force to
victimise and intimidate all those who criticised the book and exposed its factual
distortions! Many Inmates were targeted by arbitrarily terminating their work
in the community life, or by denying them food in the Dining Room community kitchen,
or denying basic facilities of the community including medical facilities. Many
others were threatened with denial of food, shelter and medical care, and some
with threat of bodily harm and injury. All these threats were used by them to
gain support and cooperation from unwilling Inmates for continuing to protect
Heehs and promote abuse of Sri Aurobindo in the name of His own Ashram.
These malafide actions by the Trustees are not
merely illegal, they are violations of basic human rights, and are, above all,
violations of the spirit and values upon which the Ashram was originally
founded by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. From: Sraddhalu Ranade, Sri Aurobindo
Ashram, Pondicherry To: Dr Karan Singh, Chairman, Auroville Foundation,
Auroville. 23 January 2012 Sub: Letter from SAIER dated December 12, 2011 and
delivered on January 14, 2012.
Inmates
of Aurobindo Ashram observe dharna Puducherry Sunday, Jan 1 2012 IST
The
Hindu: Ashram devotees seek expulsion of U.S. national PUDUCHERRY, January 6, 2012
Controversy
continues on Sri Aurobindo's biography The Sunday Indian CHITTARANJAN
CHIRANJIT | Bhubaneswar
Aurobindo's
disciples demand deportation of US national PTI | 08:01 PM, Jan 27,
2012 Bhubaneswar
It is said ‘Lives of Sri Aurobindo’ is not a biography as claimed by the author Peter Heehs but actually a book of fragmented, tainted and out of contest quotations with malicious intention to demean Sri Aurobindo and his teaching in a very shrewd and subtle way. He has deliberately misused, tampered and twisted Sri Aurobindo’s writings to establish and justify his own statements and show other biographies as hagiographies. It’s different if someone from outside loves to throw mud on a giant visionary and Maha Rishi like Sri Aurobindo. They will be judged on their own merit. But it is criminal when they from Ashram itself distort and tamper his writings in the guise of research to misinterpret him and his teaching. Perhaps the author has taken advantage of his engagement as a proofreader to create such mischief. As a leading freedom fighter Sri Aurobindo was first to boldly declare total independence of India when others feared even to think of it! He is a national pride. A thorough investigation into the matter is most wanted. --Sakumy
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