In Artful Living, Sri Sri and Nityananda Have Much in Common

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s organisation has had a history of allegations of land-grabs, writes Aditya Sinha.

Six years ago, a sex scandal broke out in Bangalore involving the 33-year-old Swami Nityananda, when the godman with striking looks and thick shoulder-length hair was apparently caught on video with Tamil actress Ranjitha in his bedroom. It made for a good clip on YouTube and on CD—WhatsApp had only just been invented two months earlier—and it kept the press busy. For some of us, it didn’t seem much more than a case of another fraud caught in the act.

Two months later, in May 2010, another controversy eruped involving another godman, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, when there was a firing near the periphery of his sprawling Ashram in the Panchagiri hills just outside Bangalore: at first reports said the firing just missed the Guru’s convoy, then reports hinted that disgruntled devotees were involved; and finally the state police chief said that a nearby farmhouse owner had merely fired at a stray dog. One of my newpaper’s reporters spoke to local villagers who complained that the Ashram kept encroaching and gobbling up their land, and that their complaints to the authorities went unheeded because Sri Sri was a powerful man.

True enough: the Art of Living Foundation, which claims tens of millions of followers spread over 80 countries (as far away as Argentina) celebrated its 35th anniversary with impunity on the banks of the Yamuna in Delhi this past weekend. The foundation also has a sophisticated public relations set-up, and back in June 2010 invited me for a face-to-face with the godman.