Sangeeta Persaud, Swami Aksharananda and a dark, deep, fathomless hypocrisy!

May 09, 2010 Letters

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Dear Editor,
I refer to the letter by Swami Aksharanda, captioned, “Many questions remain unanswered regarding Sangeeta Persaud’s death” (SN May 7, 2010) and would appreciate the opportunity to rebut.
With Swami’s misguided tirade, poor Sangeeta Persaud officially becomes a political football!
SN is not without is defenders (see “As a matter of principle, what can we all do to defend SN?”: http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/cgi-script/csArticles/articles/000058/005865.htm) but it is that newspaper’s complete failure to follow up on the developing reportage of the sort in “Police Hunt Fake Healers/Fortune-Tellers from India” (https://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2010/05/05/police-hunt-pandits-from-india/) that now supplies more perspective for Aksharananda’s comments. For another SN crime-story caption about a “Muslim Leader”, we offered SN the comment that: “Why is there not a single mention of the word “Hindu” in the Kaieteur News article, despite generous references to “pandit’ and “puja”, standard Hindu institutions? The comment was not allowed!
Kaieteur News’ was indeed a stunning feat of “carefully neutralized” writing, while the SN commentary regaled us with references to “Pastor” and “Muslim Leader” on its May 5th headlines. Now poor Sangeeta Persaud becomes the latest political football in the current round of anti-Christian frenzy!
Regarding the Swami’s comment that “… Here is the Chairman of a duly constitutional national commission defending the Christian right to make converts as well as the Christian practice of exorcism…” We should consider that we last encountered Swami Aksharananda in 2007 when he attacked Anil Azeez (“10 defences for Anil Azeez Against swami aksharananda’s Accusations”: http://www.scribd.com/doc/31033379/10-Defences-for-Anil-Azeez-Against-Aksharananda-s-Accusations).
Then, as now, it was easy to see that a deep and dark anti-Christian intrigue, bordering on a fathomless hypocrisy, develops wherever he shows up. He now has his oh-so-recent “Christian friend” Juan Edghill in his sights and Sangeeta is his bullet!
On that occasion (see para 3 of “10 Defences for Anil Azeez …”) we pointed out the following decisions made at the IRO-level: “… Thirdly, we can appreciate the depth of Aksharananda’s duplicity by contemplating the IRO meeting of June 2005 on “How to propagate faith without offence”. There, many non-Christians advocated censorship. Among the objective criteria decided on were: (a) respect for the truth, (b) respect for freedom of speech; (c) respect for egalitarian democracy; (d) non-preferential treatment, and no victimization, for persons of differing religious persuasions relative to issues of procedure, protocol and law, and; (e) respect for the rule of law and constitutional provisions regarding freedom of association, freedom of religion, freedom of expression. How significant is this, and especially relative to “truth”? …”
Now, relative to (d) above, and the last paragraph of his letter, Aksharananda crosses a well-defined line, and so we must ask this opposing question in rebuttal: “Should the practice of Kali Mai puja be subjected to public scrutiny and should it be above the law of the land simply because it happens to be the religious beliefs of some people?”
We should publish the unofficial transcript of that 2005-IRO-meeting shortly. We are either into propagating the realm of truth here, or else Aksharananda’s standard recipe of fathomless hypocrisy!
As to Minister Rohee’s “commendable action”, we should assess his motives in more detail. We remember the previous representation to SN on 14th January 2007 “The Christian Protest Against Casino Gambling Presents no Threat to National Security” (http://www.scribd.com/doc/31055198/The-Christian-Protest-Against-Casino-Gambling-Presents-No-Threat-to-National-Security). Ministers Clement Rohee and the late Desrey Fox thereafter made unconscionable comments about Christianity that were never recanted.
One wondered then, as now, to what end? The end, we now know, was a Russian owned casino and a Presidential reversal on a solemn promise! A fathomless hypocrisy …
But perhaps the most astonishing part of the debacle that Aksharananda’s now represents is his continuing proclivity to intellectual slothfulness.
He asks the completely inane question: “…But what was even more shocking in my layman’s opinion was the presence at the autopsy of Dr Neehaul Singh.
It was the “inconclusive” result of his autopsy that necessitated a second being undertaken. Should he have been there? …” Now this would be a perfectly logical question if Dr. Nehaul Singh were not the government pathologist. This is the level of intellectual tomfoolery that Aksharananda is infamous for!
Aksharananda commends Rohee for an “independent autopsy”, which, on the face of it, seems laudable. But the truth of the matter is that the second autopsy will scarcely be as “impartial and independent” as its predecessor since the first had the admirable benefit of being attended to by independent witnesses. Now, Seopaul Singh has been wise in asking: “Why was Swami Aksharananda, or the gabble of Hindu voices raised in anti-Christian hysteria, not in attendance at the autopsy of poor Sangeeta?” The only answer that suggests itself is that their absence in itself illustrated this fathomless hypocrisy of which we speak! SN notes the scramble to correct the political mistake on April 25th. Persaud’s grandmother, with whom she was living just before her death, other relatives, members of their Church, rejected local Pathologist Nehaul Singh and other government officials were present at the exhumation.
Now Valery Alexandrov (not the FBI, Scotland Yard or Interpol) is entrusted by Minister Rohee to “independently” (as in by himself, alone) reassess the evidence after exhumation. No comfort is sought in the teamwork of a panel of experts!
Given Aksharananda’s brutish insertion into this mess, and his overt attempt to conjure up a Christian conspiracy, the results of the second autopsy are almost as predictable as they would be farcical, and we would be pleasantly surprised to see nothing anti-Christian coming from it!
Guyanese should demand a third and truly independent autopsy by a team from the FBI, Interpol or Scotland Yard before this politically-inspired comedy goes any further!
Because the real issue is now clearly not poor Sangeeta, but the small-minded ambitions of a fathomless hypocrisy!
Roger Williams

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