The news from an anonymous source that the Indian P.M. Atal Bihari Vajpayee, is depressed because he has received confirmation that SB is a child molester is, of course, unconfirmed. However, it is still interesting... anonymous leaks have become part and parcel of the policy of government factions and political enemies. There is no doubt whatever that the political struggle is particularly dirty and uncompromising in India, which is seen in the massive corruption scandals that have been exposed at the very highest levels time and again. So what likelihood that there is this news about Vajpayee, is reliable? 

Firstly, it is unlikely that Vajpayee, after having signed a public statement to whitewash Sai Baba of any accusations whatever, would announce any discoveries he may have made that undermine this, if indeed he has somehow been subjected to any of the sworn affadavits against Sai Baba or to other damning information from victims or witnesses etc. His strongly Hindu-oriented government is very unstable, not least since the Muslim-Hindu disturbances (to use a mild word), so that any further debacles would be most unwelcome to him and his Hinduist right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). However, within his party and coalition partners, many fundamentalist Hindu forces are very strongly opposed to Sai Baba, and represent a strong anti-Vajpayee faction behind the scenes.  

Just prior to Baba's ridicule of the plans for a Rama temple at Ayodhya in a discourse some months after the incident, the BJP Party boss, L.K. Advani, had been observed sitting in the darshan lines at Prashanthi Nilayam for a number of days by a mutual acquaintance, who also told me that he had tried to get SB to support the Rama temple. L. K. Advani is a right-wing Hindu with allegience to the Shankaracharya of South India (holding India's most formal religious position with the most massive following), who has declared Sai Baba to be a reincarnation, not of Rama, but of Ravanna. Interestingly, SB has said that Ravana was no ordinary person, but was a Mahatma and that: "Rama and Ravanna were equally proficient in 36 forms of knowledge. Ravana became the root cause of the death of his sons and brothers because he was unable to control his lust." (Sanathana Sarathi 8-1999, p. 219). Contradicting himself (as per usual), SB also said: "Ravana had mastered 64 categories of knowledge while Rama had studied only 34 categories" (Sanathana Sarathi 7- 1989, p. 171). Perhaps yet more interestingly, SB has stated: "Ravana did possess a considerable amount of worldly power and even moral power..."; "To him his own enjoyment, his own safety, his own pleasure were all that mattered. We should note here that in spite of all his great and good qualities, he was behaving in a bad manner... Towards the end of his life he realized that what he did was all sin..." (Summer showers in Brindavan 1977, p. 114ff). 

A. B. Vajpayee, however, was a follower of Sai Baba since well before he was appointed at the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) first candidate for Prime Minister, ahead of the Party leader, L. K. Advani. When he won the election, I asked my very close friend, V.K. Narasimhan about him. As a famous journalist , VKN knew Vajpayee and he told me that - on the evening of his election victory – Vajpayee had rung up to SB and told him that he wanted to come to see him straight away, but could not due to the need to form a government coalition. Such an outright show of allegiance to SB by Vajpayee before assuming office would most likely have alienated those politicians who have no time for SB, including fundamentalist Hindus in the BJP and their associates who were involved in - or tacitly supported - the destruction of the Ayodhya mosque and the erection of a Rama temple in its place. 

One can but imagine what struggles for political life and death are conducted behind the facades, but the likelihood is very high that Vajpayee would be extremely disturbed both personally and politically to find that his sadguru is actually guilty of what is so widely alleged.