A long history of reports through decades: In various interviews stretching over several decades, Sathya Sai Baba (Sathya Sai Baba) has informed of a coming huge scandal about him, which clever bit of precautionary 'fall-back' against the day it actually came has since deceived many into doubting and/or ignoring the mass of facts and credible, courageously-published accounts. If, as very widely reported, he engaged in constant sexual activity, he then would certainly have realised that even he, with his very secretive and power-wielding confederates, could most likely not keep it a secret for ever. Thus, he would have tried to prepare the ground against the day it came out, so as not to lose too much prestige, or too many followers and donors as a result. It has actually come out on a number of occasions in different parts of the world, at least since the 1970s.
One major question about what are alleged by Sai followers to be 'rumours' about his homosexual activities remains: How could such allegations arise from so many countries and individuals over decades, independent of one another, and backed up by many written accounts and signed affidavits by alleged victims, and by television interviews with such victims made by reputed national broadcasters who investigated the matter? By examining in some detail the history of these allegations, one can better decide whether or not these instances can be a case of 'no smoke without fire'.
Due to the general difficulties prior to the 1990s web revolution of locating or contacting other ex-devotees spread around the world, the scandals that broke remained fairly local and did not become widely known, especially throughout the Sai movement, which is systematically compartmentalised precisely so as to maintain intternal control and censorship on all dissent of any kind. Accounts of Sai Baba being a homosexual and paedophile have circulated in diverse circles in India during the 1970s (to be summarised here later). His predilection for homosexual relations was reportedly widely known in Puttaparthi when he shared his rooms with a young man called Krishna (they were called 'Radha-Krishna' where they went together everywhere hand in hand, according to the long-term worshipper Vijayamma). Mrs. Bitten Nelson of Denmark firmly indicated what has been known all along to many villagers, none of whom dare say a word about it due to the huge power wielded threateningly by the Sai Baba camp.
The scandals about sexual abuse of male students among Malaysian devotees around 1980 which caused resignations from the Org. in Malaysia, apparently was very little known in the West. The following information was sent to me by a person who wishes to remain anonymous, having distanced himself socially from all connection with Sai Baba. "When I became aware of Sai Baba's activities on some male Malaysian students studying at the Sai institutions in Whitefield and Puttaparthi, I carried out my own inquiries and dropped out from that movement. So did many devotees in Malaysia f these male students, I am unable to reveal their identities. It is not fair to them. I remember having advised them in 1980 to keep their identities confidential and not be overzealous since they have lives to lead and they should forget about what had happened to them. An American boy, Terry Scott, who was a contemporary of these Malaysian students, left the Sai College together with the rest of the Malaysians. There were many devotees who left the cult. Those holding office in Sai organisations in Malaysia did not do so but quite a number of them may have quietly slipped out of the cult."
Barry Pittard also writes of another former Australian devotee, Connie R. of Cooma, in the State of New South Wales , who visited a Malaysian devotee family during a stopover to India.She said that she heard a disturbingly authentic cassette tape of an Indian Malaysian boy's account of sexual molestation by Sathya Sai Baba. The boy had attended the Sathya Sai college at Whitefield, where Pittard had taught for two years. Horrified, his parents had withdrawn him from that institution. Convinced of the truthfulness of the account by the boy and by the family, and deeply disgusted, Connie R. cancelled her trip.
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Likewise, a scandal about sexual abuse of a Greek boy in the Sai College in Greece and similar accounts in Yugoslavia in the 1980s did not reach or affect other countries in Europe . Meanwhile, a major scandal arose independently in the USA in the early 1980s about which the leader of the US Sai organisation, Dr. John Hislop, wrote letters to leaders in the Sai Org. there advising them to suppress the facts as unconfirmed. Again, in France and Belgium around 1990, there was apparently much talk about Sai Baba being a homosexual, which only seeped through to some followers in a few other countries. Only when the Internet provided the means for communication between alleging victims spread and isolated here and there, did the world-wide exposé of Sathya Sai Baba's various activities begin to come together from 1999 onwards.
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