As the scans of his discourses here
show, Sai Baba has repeatedly condemned both the possession
of atomic weapons and those countries which develop them, calling
their leaders
'moral
dwarves'. Despite this, he befriended for many years the man
who was known as 'the father of India's atom bomb', Dr. S. Bhagavantam.
(Scientific Advisor to the defence Ministry). Later he supported
the government of Vajpayee, which revelled in the explosion
of Indian nuclear devices, and even now in 2006 he made the
man who developed the first rocket delivery vehicle for nuclear
weapons, India's President, A.J.P. Kalam, the guest of honour
at his 81st birthday celebrations in Puttaparthi. Sai Baba has
extended his full support to all these 'nuclear' governments!
In his Janus-faced way, Sai Baba is a Dr. Jekyll in word and
a Mr. Hyde in action! Only blind faith devotees cannot realise this.
So how does this fit with his maxims
like "Help Ever, Hurt Never", "Serve All, Love
All"? What happened to Sathya Sai's much-touted "human
value" of non-violence (ahimsa), in this ever more
militaristic State? "Why Fear When I Am Here" when
India increases its defence budget by leaps and bounds (28%
in 2003, 17% in 2004 and 10% in 2005) to ca. 830 billion rupees
($19 billion) in 2005.
There are
adherents of Sai Baba who believe that he is doing the "Task"
he set himself, to set India's house in order (before he sets the
entire world straight!), and thus is trying to influence the government.
Yet he has promised he would unfailingly raise India to its
supposed former moral and spiritual glory (i.e. very ancient 'Bharatiya'
culture which he claims was prevalent in far gone days, thousands
of years ago). He boasts that his will is indomitable, he is omnipotent!
See Sai
Baba's Mission - Words and Facts
and also http://www.saiguru.net/english/conclusions/commentaries-Serguei.htm
What international observers report, however,
is a continual decline into rampant militarism, major political and
social corruption, religious strife and mass killings of Muslims,
bombings of Hindus and continual (sometimes hardly reported) murders
of Dalits, brides, Christians and infanticide of girl babies. Meanwhile,
the vast poverty is not alleviated, huge city slums proliferate, ever
more rampant AIDS epidemic and some of the world's worst crime
and corruption in all sectors, and the prostitution slave trade is
still booming. UNICEF
states "an estimated 246 million children are engaged in
child labour. Of those, almost three-quarters (171 million) work in
hazardous situations or conditions".
What Sai Baba called his own "backyard", India, still succumbs
to soaring overpopulation, massive illiteracy and innumeracy, 40%
of its population under the poverty line, and endemic lack of institutional
reform. It spends ca. zero percent of GDP on health care in the public
sector. There is vast environmental pollution and despoliation of
air, water, flora and fauna, endemic widespread violence, child labor,
high infant mortality rates, female foeticide, rapid spread of Maoist
insurgency in many parts of India, including in Sai Baba's state of
Andra Pradesh, owing to lack of agrarian reform and dependence on
security forces to suppress. India has a chronically poor record in
the education of medical personnel and a low share of the world market
in manufacturing exports. And so on it goes
See also How
far is it to Dharma?
A Brief History of India's
Nuclear Ambitions
As early as 26 June 1946, when addressing a public gathering in Bombay,
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, soon to be Indias first Prime Minister,
said: "As long as the world is constituted as it is, every country
will have to devise and use the latest scientific devices for its protection.
I have no doubt India will develop her scientific researches and I hope
Indian scientists will use the atomic force for constructive purposes.
But if India is threatened, she will inevitable try to defend herself
by all means at her disposal."
After Nehru's death, a reprocessing plant and the CIRUS research reactor, began operating in 1960. The first Chinese nuclear test was in 1964, barely two years after India lost the war with China and the "peaceful nuclear explosion" of 1974.
The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in March, 1998, with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who had already been a devoted follower of Sathya Sai Baba for two decades (but evidently no follower of his 'human values' like non-violence!). On 11 May 1998, the Buddha's birth anniversary, India tested three nuclear devices. Two days later, two more tests were conducted. After these tests, the Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee triumphantly announced that India was now a Nuclear Weapon State. Vast crowds celebrated this achievement with great enthusiasm in India's major cities.
THE NEWS WHICH SHOCKED THE WORLD - WHEN SAI-DEVOTEE P.M. ATAL B. VAJPAYEE BOASTED OF THE BOMBS!
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