The sister act

For two days after their suicide bid, protesters took to the streets demanding a fair probe into the Prasads’ ordeal. The matter however would have died a quiet death were it not for the mighty institution they took on: the Sri Aurobindo Ashram that runs educational institutions and owns properties worth several thousand crores that occupy almost half of Puducherry.

Gadadhar Prasad, a native of Bihar who worked in the HR department of Bokaro Steel Plant, was a devotee of Sri Aurobindo. Between 1983 and 1998, he donated a “sizable” sum of money to the ashram and put his five daughters into its care.

The family refuses to talk about their past in Bihar.

While the sisters came to live in Ambabhikshu House, the ashram’s housing complex, Prasad and his wife moved into a one-room home in Puducherry after his retirement in 1992. Surviving on pension, he did voluntary work for the ashram.

The sisters claim to have given up higher education to work for the ashram: Jayashree had done a B.Ed from Delhi, Arunsashri gave up a scholarship in engineering, and Rajyashree did not enrol in the Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER), Puducherry, where relatives say she had secured a seat. The younger Nivedita and Hemalata did their school and college education at the Ashram International Centre of Education.

The sisters were assigned duties at the ashram — Jayashree was deployed at the dining room and kitchen, Arunashri worked as an artist with a commercial art enterprise of the ashram, Rajyashree served at an alternative health centre, Nivedita did administrative work at the trustees’ office and Hemlata taught at the ashram’s school for crafts.

It was their home till December 17, when the police evicted the sisters from the ashram on the order of the Supreme Court. “They left all their belongings at the ashram before they headed to the Bay of Bengal along with their parents,” says an ashram inmate, adding that one of the sisters told him “their suicide was not a protest, but a sacrifice to live by Aurobindo’s principles”. Before leaving, they wrote a letter to the ashram trustees: “The Supreme Court has passed an order without giving us any opportunity to present our case. This order has been passed in an interim petition while the trial for the original suit was already underway for the past four years and you all are illegally trying to evict us using the Supreme Court.” They added they were ending their lives to end the harassment.

According to them, their travails began on January 9, 2001, when Jayashree was allegedly manhandled in the dining room by a visitor. She had earlier questioned financial irregularities in the accounts of the ashram canteen and alleged that “sexual favours” had been sought by senior inmates. She had lodged a complaint with the ashram management, but no action was taken for two months. The sisters then warned that they would file a police complaint if their grievances were not addressed, despite ashram rules barring inmates from contacting external agencies for “internal matters” without trustees’ permission. The next day, the ashram slapped a notice on Hemlata, ordering her expulsion. The sisters filed a case in the local court in March 2001 challenging the ashram’s decision.

This, say many ashram inmates, was the beginning of their undoing, and the start of a 14-year-long legal battle they eventually lost. “It all began with Hemlata breaking the rules,” says an inmate. Another says she was “probably the first to go to the courts to seek government intervention in an internal matter”. “People with anti-ashram agendas encouraged her to do this. I pity them. They became pawns in a larger game,” he says.

In the court, the ashram said Hemlata was expelled “after she was found to be pregnant”, which amounted to “misconduct” as devotees must observe celibacy. The trustees, meanwhile, approached the Madras High Court which appointed an inquiry commission headed by retired district judge N P K Menon. Its final report, submitted in October 2002, termed the allegation against Hemlata “quite serious” and recommended her expulsion. Hemlata challenged the report in a local court and the trial is pending.

In 2004, another sister was allegedly molested in the ashram. When the ashram did not heed their allegation, they filed a police complaint, leading to the arrest of an inmate. The trustees then launched an internal probe by a retired deputy secretary to the government, A V Nagarajan, who submitted a report favourable to the ashram. The sisters challenged it in the court, which ruled in their favour and said the sisters should be allowed to live peacefully in the ashram till the disposal of the suit. The ashram then moved the Madras High Court. In their blog, prasadsisters.blogspot.com, the sisters claimed that their advocate was “repeatedly humiliated by judge K Venkataraman (of the high court)”, so he quit midway and they were left without a lawyer. The HC, too, later ordered their eviction.

The sisters moved the Supreme Court in 2012, which transferred the case to a new bench in April 2014. The bench, allege the sisters, did not hear them before ordering their eviction, and so they refused to leave the premises.
The ashram thus filed a contempt petition, which was heard on December 2. The sisters challenged Justice S J Mukhopadhaya over his alleged conflict of interest, as he had visited the ashram, so he recused himself from the case. Back home in Puducherry, the sisters received summons on December 8 for a hearing the next day. They alerted court officials that it would be impossible for them to reach Delhi overnight and that they didn’t have an advocate to represent them. An order was, however, passed on December 9, directing the police to evict them.
The ashram says it has nothing to say after the SC order. Says secretary Matri Prasad , “All allegations raised by sisters have been ruled out by the courts.” On the SC judge visiting the ashram, he adds, “So what? He is a devotee. He himself said it in the SC open court that he visited four times.”

Puducherry government sources say the Prasads may be shifted to the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in Bangalore. Puducherry Senior Superindent of Police V J Chandran says, “Once they are discharged, the government will arrange counsellors to help them return to a normal life.”

Mythri Prasad, a member of a fact-finding team on the alleged harassment of the Prasads, believes “the rebellious sisters are being portrayed as mad”. “Their big mistake was that while accepting a spiritual calling, they also claimed a bit of democratic space inside the ashram. But an ashram demands surrender. The management unleashed its vendetta against, and the realities outside played against the sisters too.”

Veena Gurubatham, a human rights activist, points out that the sisters used to be “extremely articulate and talented”.

“Nivedita is a good singer who still teaches music and dance, Hemalata, an extremely good writer, is also among the best in hand stitching and embroidery works, which she has been teaching at the ashram school. Arunashri was also an artist with one of the commercial art enterprises of the ashram. They only fought for their dignity with a spiritual conviction. It was the SC order that forced them to give up their lives,” she says.