Well, it is said that it is bad to hit a man who is down. But the same does not apply to God himself! Today, as we go to the press, the God of Puttaparthi, Bhagwan Sri Sathya Sai Baba—whose real name happens to be Sathyanarayana Raju—is in the ICU on a ventilator and such other life-support systems. While ordinary mortals like us require such things, one always wonders why a God should need all those? In fact, the newspaper reports have stated that at one point in time, there were 27 doctors attending to him! Certainly, they will not be ordinary ones, but those with a roaring practice who must be quite competent in their field. One wonders what is happening to their other patients when they are all busy attending to this God. Anyway, it is a wonder as to why someone whose miraculously materialised holy ash or vibhuti has allegedly cured thousands of people from various diseases—from arthritis to Zollinger-Ellison syndrome—has to be attended to by mundane humans! Is it that, as many claim, one’s own medicine does not work on oneself?

This 85-year-old god started his career as a small-time prestidigitator “materialising” things like sweets for his schoolmates. He also claimed to be an avatar of the Shirdi Sai Baba, who is a much-revered saint from the eponymous place in Maharashtra. However, he was not allowed to step into that place! The temple there is a very prosperous one, and those controlling it would have certainly been scared of him taking over the place! Starting with small-time miracles like materialising things like small trinkets and vibhuti or holy ash, he soon went into the big league. He started with his present headquarters in Andhra Pradesh called Puttaparthi, which grew from a small village to a major pilgrimage centre which it is now, with its own airport and railway station. He started attracting devotees from all over the world, particularly from the very materialistic West, and those people who were spiritually minded, and started his missions all over the world. As his fame grew, politicians from India started flocking to him, probably seeing him as a storehouse for their ill-gotten black money. These so-called ashrams of these alleged godmen are a major storehouse for the ill-gotten wealth of these politicians and a source of corruption, too. It would be very appropriate to bring these, too, under the newly going to be drafted Lokpal Bill! However, one can be sure that this will not be done, as many such are the supporters of Anna Hazare, the new middle-class messiah. His supporters have managed to keep away those whom they call corrupt politicians, but the same yardstick has not been applied to such so-called godmen!

More than anything, this so-called god has been ascribed many miracles. There are numerous biographies of him—or rather hagiographies—crediting him with a plethora of miracles. One should take a look at these, as they are what he calls his visiting cards. His most famous “miracle” of materialising holy ash or vibhuti has been exposed innumerable times, with videos all over the web making their rounds as video clippings. It was a series made by Channel 4 called Guru Busters that exposed how this trick is done with a pellet of ash hidden in between the fingers and crushed with the rotation of the palm. This has been ascribed miraculous powers by many of his gullible devotees, which include eminent physicians, too! In fact, one such person has gone on record claiming that her patients had been maintained on doses of this panacea. It has been claimed to cure a variety of disorders of organic and functional origin. It has been credited with providing solutions to a number of family, social, and probably national problems, too. This holy ash, however, is the present to ordinary mortals who flock to Puttaparthi for a glimpse of their god.

The VIPs who visit him are presented with a variety of trinkets like rings, chains, and such. However, all the objects which he claims to materialise can be easily hidden in a closed fist, and then this is rotated to make it appear as if the object is appearing from thin air. He has been caught in this act many times, particularly in video footage by Doordarshan, the national channel controlled by the government, when he tried to “materialise” a gold chain from under a memento at a function held in Hyderabad in the presence of the then Prime Minister of India, P. V. Narasimha Rao, and a number of other VIPs. He wanted to show the whole nation his greatness by getting the same broadcast on the national news to snub his detractors. On the contrary, this video footage showed clearly his modus operandi! This was noticed by an editor of the footage and not broadcast. But the same was obtained by our movement and started making its rounds all over the country, and is now on YouTube, too. The very same happened to his regurgitation of a gold Shiva lingam on the Shivaratri day, when he used to bring out the object hidden in a towel, put it into his mouth under the pretext of wiping his face, and make it appear as if it was coming from his stomach. It was claimed that his body contains a lot of gold which comes out as these lingams. On a particular occasion in 2004, when the BBC was filming this, the lingams failed to “materialise” and he vomited some bile. His devotees claimed that what used to come out as solid has emerged as a liquid this time! That was the last time he tried this trick.

Likewise, he has been credited with bringing back to life dead people, converting water into petrol, sand into the Bhagavad Gita, many different types of fruits from a single tree, and many such. However, not one of them has been corroborated by independent witnesses or under experimental conditions. He has been challenged innumerable times by us to let his so-called miracles be investigated or perform them under experimental conditions after scrutiny. Abraham Kovoor from Sri Lanka was one of the first to publicly challenge him. Dr. H. Narasimhaiah, a former Vice-Chancellor of Bangalore University, had constituted a committee for the scientific investigation of so-called miracles in the 1970s and had written to him asking for those to be performed under controlled conditions. He had explained that as a physicist, he could not believe that something could come from nothing, and had requested him to be a subject for an experiment to verify his so-called materialisation of things from thin air. He was met at first with silence, and later with vicious personal attacks.

Later, Premanand took on this so-called godman by performing his so-called miracles in public and explaining the tricks behind them. He trained thousands of volunteers to perform these, and they started doing these all over the country to demonstrate to the common man how they are done. Now, I am continuing this work at the national and international levels, giving these demonstrations and training thousands on how these tricks are done. We have thrown challenges to anyone claiming to have such powers to come forward and perform them under controlled conditions and win huge awards. But so far, none has come forward.

His devotees defend him by showing the so-called charitable work which he has been doing. They don’t realise that the whole thing is a facade behind which a huge empire thrives. This is now said to be in billions, and there is a big struggle to seize control over it. On the one hand, there are his relatives who want to take over that, while on the other, there is the trust which has many so-called VIPs, including retired judges and other bureaucrats. He also has many public figures in the list of his devotees. Now that he is on his deathbed, these have been threatening to come out into the open, and one of the reasons why he has been kept away from the public is so that all the legalities can be done when he is supposed to be alive. If he has not made any will and the whole empire is in his name, then his family will inherit it! On the other hand, if he has made one bequeathing his property to the Trust, he has to live for a year after making one. One has every reason to suspect that he has been kept on life-support systems to wait for an appropriate time to switch them off. No one is allowed to see him because of this. Occasional reports are put out that he is improving, just for public satisfaction. It would be best if all his properties were taken over by the government and used for the public purpose they are supposedly intended for. The claimants for the assets should not have any objections to that! Anyway, none of it is his personal property. They are all built from contributions from the public.

By the time this comes into your hands, I am sure that things will have reached a stage where state intervention will be needed. What is made from public contributions for supposedly charitable purposes should be used for that purpose only. His super-speciality hospitals, educational institutions, and such are all for such purposes and should be put to such uses only. This would prevent any ugly turn of events and will also be a way to satisfy his devotees who are supposed to run into millions.