In his regular column in The Hindustan Times on March 20, 1999 (during a rare visit by Sai Baba to New Delhi) Khushwant Singh made the following enlightening remarks:

“The Indian soil is very productive of prophets and messiahs. We have always had men and women claiming to be incarnations of God, or even God Himself in human form. What would be regarded a sheer blasphemy and treated with ridicule by Christians or a sentence of death in Islam is acclaimed by Hindus, Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs as an avatar. So we have many Bhagwans (Gods), Swamis (Lords), Rishis (Sages), Maharishis (great sages), Acharyas (teachers), Saints (saints) and Gurus with large followings.”

“… If anyone is to be put on a shrink’s couch, it is not the godman but his followers who look upon him as God to find out what is missing in their lives which they hope to fulfil by associating with their chosen godman. It is not producing vibhuti (sacred ash), materializing watches and medallions from the air or regurgitating sivalingas – all such tricks can be performed by magicians and cannot stand the test of scientific scrutiny. The devotees’ faith has more solid foundations. They have unquestionable belief that their guru can do no wrong.”



Note how the BBC claims to have talked to many abuse victims, not just the few chosen for the final cut! Also note that these abuse victims admitted to ‘genital oiling’ in Tanya Datta’s words. The Sai Baba ‘blow job’ to which Kushwant Singh refers is that reported by in the interview with American Mark Roche in the BBC documentary (wmv – see here 1.9Mbs).

TRANSCRIPT OF VIDEO CLIP

KHUSWANT SINGH: “Indians get impressed when they see white people becoming devotees, that applies to the Germans, Australian, Italians, Spaniards, Americans with shaved heads with their pigtails, wearing the mumbo-jumbo of the prayers that they carry out, dancing in the streets.”

TANYA DATTA: One of the things that a lot of the abuse victims we’ve talked to have said is that Sai Baba does the genital oilings because it is part of Hinduism. Have you heard anything…

KHUSHWANT SINGH There is no Indian tradition to support – that worship of the linga includes doing the ‘blow job’, if that is what you are referring to. I don’t think there is any basis for that whatsoever.

(SEE THE SHORT VIDEO CLIP 2.1Mbs in Quicktime – SEE HERE)

ALSO KUSHWANT SINGH VIDEO CLIP 567Kbs in Quicktime (on Sai Baba’s homosexuality)

Kushwant Singh on prayer and meditation (“Prayer is useless” and he saw the hours spent in satsangs, religious discourse, gatherings, kirtans, bhajans etc. as a “staggering waste of time”)