Chennai: Written and videographed responses to thirty questions asked from monks who have taken up residence there, besides scrutiny of foreigners staying on the premises. This is what roughly 150 police personnel led by Superintendent of Police (Coimbatore) K. Karthikeyan have been doing at the Isha Yoga Centre in the city for two straight days.
The ashram of the Jaggi Vasudev-run Isha Foundation is being probed following a Madras High Court order that sought a report on allegations levelled against the “non-profit spiritual organisation” by a retired professor, Dr S. Kamaraj, who petitioned the court alleging that his two daughters had been forced to take up monkhood there.
Wednesday marked the second day that teams of police personnel, officials from the social welfare department and district child protection unit landed at the ashram and made inquiries.
In the joint exercise involving police and district administration officials, sources privy to developments said, those who became monks were asked at least 30 questions.
“They were asked if they stay on their own will or by compulsion, how they first came to know about the ashram and what’s being taught in the process. Social welfare department officials have recorded the answers on video and in writing as well,” a source told ThePrint.
Though there is no official data on the number of monks residing at the ashram, it is estimated that there would be close to 1,000 people inside. “However, we are yet to ascertain how many of them are just volunteers and how many of them have taken up monkhood,” said the source quoted earlier.
Kamaraj also stated in his petition that “recently a criminal case under POCSO has been registered against a doctor who is working in the very same institution (Isha Foundation)”.
This, sources said, might be the reason behind officials from the district child protection unit accompanying police and social welfare department for the inquiry.
The police are also talking to foreigners inside the ashram and checking their documents, including passport and visa, it is learnt.
The second day’s inquiry started at 10.30 am and was on till late evening. The operation had started Tuesday around 10.30 am as well and ended around 7.30 pm.
Soon after the first day’s inquiry, SP (Coimbatore) Karthikeyan told the media that the Isha Foundation was cooperating with the investigation and they would file a consolidated report before the court Thursday, when the case comes up for hearing next.
On Monday, when Kamaraj’s petition alleging his daughters were captive at the Coimbatore ashram came up for hearing, high court justices S.M. Subramaniam and V. Sivagnanam asked why Jaggi Vasudev alias Sadhguru was encouraging young women to tonsure their heads and live as hermits when he had got his own daughter married and settled.
In response to the police inquiry, Isha Foundation has said they neither ask people to get married nor to take up monkhood.
“Isha Foundation was founded by Sadhguru (Jaggi Vasudev) to impart yoga and spirituality to people. We believe that adult individual human beings have the freedom and the wisdom to choose their path. We do not ask people to get married or take up monkhood as these are individual choices,” it said in a statement Tuesday night.
The foundation further asserted that Isha Yoga Centre was home to thousands of people who are not monks and a few who have taken brahmacharya (monkhood).
Speaking to ThePrint, Kamaraj said he was finally happy that his over a decade-long battle was coming to fruition. “It has been a 12-year battle to bring them (his daughters) out of the Isha Yoga Centre and an eight-year legal battle. I hope justice will prevail,” he said.
Also Read: Jaggi Vasudev is the Ducati-riding guru for the Modi Age
Legal battle of a parent
It was sometime in 2012 that a 30-year-old woman, a postgraduate from a UK university, started attending yoga classes at Isha Yoga Centre in the foothills of Vellingiri hills in Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore district.
According to her father, she soon took up monkhood and never returned home. “Will you be able to believe that a woman who was earning a very good salary gave up everything and took up monkhood,” asked Kamaraj, referring to his first-born Geetha, now 42.
According to Kamaraj, his second daughter, Latha, now 39, subsequently went to Isha Yoga Centre to rescue her sister.
“But she also took up monkhood there. When we went to the yoga centre to inquire about them, both had tonsured their heads and we could not believe that my younger daughter who had gone to rescue my first daughter had also taken up monkhood,” he told ThePrint.
In his petition, Kamaraj has alleged that the “foundation is abusing certain persons, by brainwash and converting them as monks and not even allowing the parents and relatives to meet the inmate monks”.
At Monday’s hearing, the counsel representing Isha Foundation initially refused to produce the two women, but the Madras High Court ordered that they be brought before the court. The duo was subsequently produced before the court in the afternoon that day.
According to reports in the media, the women told the court that they stay at the yoga ashram on their own volition and not under any compulsion. The judges, however, questioned the women over the hate they were showing against their parents.
“You claim to be on a spiritual path. Don’t you think ignoring your parents is a sin? ‘Love all and hate none’ is the basic principle of devotion, but we can see so much hate (in you) for your parents. You are not even treating them respectfully,” Justice Subramaniam told the women. ThePrint has seen a copy of Monday’s order.
Kamaraj, who was at the court that day, spoke about what triggered the judges to order an inquiry.
“The moment the judges asked them, my daughter spoke at length for about 10-12 minutes alleging that I was influenced by the communists and the Dravidian outfits and (thus) protesting against the Isha Foundation. They did not even address us parents. This is what triggered the judges to order an investigation,” he told ThePrint.
All these years, Kamaraj alleged, he could not even meet his daughters when he wished to.
“Even if I go there every month, I cannot see them. They will meet only once in six months and even during the meeting, they hardly say anything. ‘Namaskaram. You came here to see me and you saw me. You can leave now’ are the only words they speak most of the time,” he added.
He also claimed that his daughters had warned him against fighting the Isha Foundation.
“My daughters have asked me (in one of the meetings over 10 years) if I have ever seen anybody winning against the Isha Foundation, and cried. They warned me that my life was in danger and asked me not to visit the yoga centre often,” Kamaraj said.
Responding to Kamaraj’s allegations filed before the court, Isha Foundation has stated: “The petitioner wanted the monks to be produced before the court and the monks have presented themselves before the court. They have clearly stated that they are staying at Isha Yoga Center out of their own volition. Now that the matter is seized by the court, we hope truth will prevail and there is an end to all the unnecessary controversies created.”
With regard to criminal cases pending against Isha Yoga Centre, Isha Foundation has said there is only one such case and that too has been stayed by the Madras High Court.
“Previously, this very petitioner (Kamaraj) along with others tried trespassing into our premises on the false pretext of being a fact-finding committee to enquire about the facts surrounding the crematorium being constructed by Isha Foundation and then filed a criminal complaint against the people of Isha Yoga Centre. Against this, the Hon’ble High court of Madras has granted a stay on submission of the final report by the police,” it said.
Earlier, in August 2016, Kamaraj’s wife had also filed a petition before the Madras High Court alleging that her daughters were being illegally confined at Isha Yoga Centre.
However, based on an inquiry report by the Coimbatore principal district judge, the high court had dismissed the petition against Isha Yoga Centre.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
Also Read: Uncle, please sit. Jaggi Vasudev needs to shut up on things he has no clue about