Sanatan Sanstha HQ: ‘Spiritual Univ’, set up by ‘world-renowned hypnotherapist’

[related-post]

The organisation refutes the accusations, saying it only believes in “democratic means of protest” and does not propagate violence. “Be it Narendra Dabholkar and Pansare asking people not to believe gods or sadhus, or M M Kalburgi making distasteful comments against deities, it hurts our sentiments, but we fight only through democratic means,” Veerendra P Marate, managing trustee of the Sanatan Sanstha says, while pointing out that the Sanstha itself had not been called for questioning in Pansare’s case.

The Sanstha’s founder, 77-year-old Dr Jayanth Balaji Athavale, has not met any visitors for the past 10 years, though he meets followers regularly. In the Sanstha’s pamphlets, he is described as an “internationally renowned hypnotherapist”, who founded the organisation in 1999.

Of the members at the headquarters, most are in their mid-30s and a majority are women volunteers and former journalists who earlier worked in local dailies. They now bring out the Sanstha’s Marathi mouthpiece Dainik Sanstha Prabha, that publishes articles defending Hindutva and other ideologies consistent with it. They mostly hail from Maharastra, Pune, Goa and Karnataka.

The second floor has a full-fledged audio-video production centre, on offer to “like-minded” Hindu organisations that lack such facilities or can’t afford them elsewhere. A clinic on the premises prescribes allopathic and ayurvedic medicines.

The Sanstha claims to have 95,000 subscribers for its publications, in Hindi, Marathi, English and Kannada, published from Ratnagiri, Goa-Sindhudurg, Mumbai, Pune and Hubli-Dharwad region in Karnataka as well. One of these publications was found in the house of Gaikwad at the time of his arrest.

Marate admits Gaikwad has been a “prasar” — one of its 250 full-time members who distribute the daily Dainik Sanatan Prabhat— with them since 1998. “It’s wrong to say that our organisation has incited him,” he adds. “Besides, we continue to believe he is innocent and therefore have offered him the legal services of the Sanstha’s advocate.”

Lauging off a Congress leader’s charge that the Sanstha’s writings had provoked Gaikwad into committing murder as “impossible”, Matare says, “Most of our articles are compilations of the Mahabharata and Ramayana… In a recent publication, we questioned the Central government’s inaction over unfurling of the Pakistani flag and ‘denegration’ of the Tricolour by Muslims in Srinagar. We have spoken on the Maharastra government’s move on cow slaughter. Are we wrong?”

The Maharashtra government carried out Pansare’s arrest under pressure, the Sanstha believes. “For over six months, police sat on the case. Now since family members of Pansare have filed a petition in the Bombay High Court, police are acting in haste without any evidence,” a member says.

Among the Sanstha’s concerns, a prime one is getting India declared a Hindu nation. “It is a widely misunderstood concept, but we have conducted several meetings on how to diminish falsehood and promote the fact that unlike any other religion, a Hindu nation would respect other factions and faiths as well as maintain communal harmony. Our ultimate aim is to build one nation with one identity… We are confident that under Dr Athavale’s guidance, we are ready to be a ‘Hindu nation’.”

If a sister concern, Hindu Jagruti, is focused entirely on this effort, a Sanstha monthly, Sanatan Prabhat, recently wrote about the struggle of Hindus in Nepal to get the country declared a Hindu nation.

The Santha’s “overseas sections” cater to expats from Canada, Australia. “Unlike in India, for westerners, associating with spirituality in their daily life is not easy. So we have a response desk where on a regular basis we respond to thousands of queries from western spiritual seekers in a scientific manner,” says Shawn, an online convener for the Australia-based Spiritual Science Research Foundation, present at the Sanstha headquarters.

“Peace”, Matare says, is their ultimate endeavour. “Our founder Dr Athavale sought to integrate spirituality with science, thereby bringing ‘shanti’ in people’s lives.”