In our
January 2008 issue (See MAKARA JYOTHI - a state sponsored fraud, Bangalore
Skeptic, No.1) we documented the facts behind the ‘divine light’
(rather,‘divine fraud’) of Makara Jyothi at the Sabarimala shrine
in Kerala. We reported that the fraud had been perpetrated by the authorities
of Sabarimala temple with the active support of various departments
of Government of Kerala (including the state police) upon the credulous
devotees for decades. We narrated in detail the story of the successful
attempt made by the rationalists in 1981 to expose this massive fraud.
That year, the rationalists photographed the entire sequence of events
leading to the very lighting of the ‘divine’ Jyothi. We also brought
to the attention of our readers the expose made by the television news
channel NDTV 24 X 7 on 11 January 2007, when its correspondent, Rajesh
Ramachandran, filed a report from Ponnambalamedu itself with appropriate
visuals. (The readers may recall the myth prevalent among the Sabarimala
devotees that Ponnambalamedu is the abode of Lord Ayyappa and is not
accessible to human beings).
Unfortunately, the reports of none of these exposes reached the teeming multitude that throng the hill shrine every season; especially those devotees belonging to the states other than Kerala. The governments (both the Left and the non-Left), with their eyes on the huge revenue brought into the state by the devotees, continued to perpetrate this fraud, season after season, year after year. Since 1982 this fraud has been committed under heavy police protection. The rationalist activists who attempted to visit the place again in 1982 and later were roughed up by the police. The lighting of the Makara Jyothi also resulted in heavy human casualties at Sabarimala itself. In 1999, for instance, 52 devotees were killed in a stampede while witnessing, to use the eminent historian Dr. Rajan Gurukkal’s pithy epithet, the “state sponsored magic”.
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Makarajyothi as seen from Sabarimala
The platform on ,which the
Makarajyothi is lit. The facmg hill is Sabarimala |
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Priest’s
confession Now, for
the first time the Sabarimala priests themselves have come out with
the truth. On 28 May 2008, Kantararu Maheswararu Thantri, the head priest
of Sabarimala, said in a press statement that there was nothing divine
in the “Jyothi” and that it was man-made. The immediate back ground
to this belated confession was the violent protests witnessed
in Kerala against all kinds of godmen and other spiritual
quacks following the recent arrest of Santhosh Madhavan alias Swami
Amritachaithanya, a self-styled godman. The media, which shamelessly
promoted this ‘miracle’ for all these years and refused to give
any coverage to rationalists’ attempts to expose the fraud, has now
started to come out with the truth.
Unfortunately,
even while reluctantly coming out with the facts, the temple priest
tried to further befuddle the readers and the devotees rather than to
clarify the issues. The tantri in his press statement said that the
devotees confused Makra Jyothi with Makara Vilakku, and that Makara
Jyothi is a star that appears on the sky whereas Makara Vilakku is manmade.
What has been called Makara Jyothi is in fact Makara Vilakku ,which
is manmade whereas Makara Jyothi is a star appearing in the sky, which
is still a miracle! Confused? That precisely is what they want. Confound
the devotees, retain the flock and rake in more money.
There
has never been any confusion so far, not only among
the devotees but among the Sabarimala authorities
too to assert that the
Makara Jyothi is still a miracle, though they now will be pointing to
a different direction, towards a star! It is you, the devotees, who
made the mistake and we, the authorities, are pristine innocent! You,
fools, now look at the star, a miracle and continue to fill our coffers! |
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Policemen guarding the route
to Ponnambalamedu
The forest route road leading
to Ponnambalamedu |
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The complicity
of media
The media
do not fare better. While lambasting the government for misleading the
devotees for years, the media does not bother to devote even a line
for self-criticism. Don’t the media have a responsibility to explain
to their readers why they had not sent their investigative reporters
to unearth this monumental fraud? Don’t they have a duty to inform
their readers why they had blacked out all these years well documented
exposes made by the rationalists? Is it not a simple truth that it was
with the active support of the media that this fraud has grown into
gargantuan proportions that it is today?
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G.
Sudhakaran, Devaswom Minister
(Minister for temple affairs), Kerala |
The media
not only refuse to admit their complicity in perpetuating the fraud,
but continue to parrot the absurd claims made by the temple authorities.
The New Indian Express, for instance, states in their editorial that,
to quote, “two more connected events still evade scientific explanation:
Just before the ViIakku appears a star rises in the sky and a kite hovers
over the temple!” (See NIE, dated 29.05.2008). The truth is there
is no miracle in these. The star that the editorial refers to, can be
seen not only from Sabarimala but from elsewhere too. It does
not appear just on the day of Makarajyothi, it is always there. As to
the hovering of a kite, kites are a common species of birds abundant
in these parts and they are normally attracted by filth for which Sabarimala
is notorious. Moreover, kites can easily be tamed (the readers may note
that kites are very efficiently used in falconry in the Middle East)
and hence it is always possible for the temple authorities to release
a trained kite right on time for the devotees to shout hysterically
“Swamiye Saranamayyppa “ !
Minister’s
Summersault
The most
pathetic statements came from G.Sudhakaran, the state Minister for temple
affairs and a CPI (M) MLA. He not only repeated the statements made
by the temple priest to deliberately befuddle the people, but gave his
own justification for the perpetration of the fraud ”Makarajyothi
and Makaravilakku are not the same things, the later of which is manmade.
Religion could not be subjected to rational
analysis and our government did not want to go with the rationalists
on this
issue” (Mathrubhumi daily, Kannur edition, 29.05.2008). It is this
same gentleman
who told NDTV just a
little more than a year before that, to quote, “nobody has examined
it, government never inquired into it, we are not planning to inquire
into that because that is related to the faith of devotees for hundreds
of years” (see the transcripts reproduced in this issue of Bangalore
Skeptic).
How has
the minister suddenly got enlightened about the human-hand behind the
“miracle” which “nobody has ever examined”? Why did he feign
ignorance about sending a posse of policemen by his own government to
guard the creation of this fraud by employees of various government
departments, including his own, on a land owned by the government? What
is in this fraud that takes it beyond the purview of a rational scrutiny
as the minister claims? Can we be faulted if we suspect a collusion
between the priest and the ministry in giving a press statement deliberately
to confuse and continue to defraud millions of people?
DOCUMENTS
Sabarimala
miracle claims disputed
NDTV Correspondent
Thursday, January 11, 2007 (Ponnambalamedu)
Makaravilakku
or the festival of divine light at Sabarimala draws the second largest
number of pilgrims in the country. Devotees say the appearance of the
light three times is a miracle but some say it is a set up.
Every
Makar Sakranthi at 6.30 pm the summit of a hill opposite the Ayyappa
temple lights up. Government broadcasters Doordarshan and All India
Radio cover the annual event live.The divine light or Makarajyothi draws
a million devotees according to the Devaswom Board, which runs the temple
management. Pilgrims stream in from several states, some of them hold
on to vantage positions for several days to witness the event.
”A light
appears on the hill, it’s a miraculous thing and that is why pilgrims
are coming,” says the President of Tranvancore Devaswom Board Raman
Nair.
Not a miracle
A former
employee of the Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB) Shivananda claims
the light is not a miracle.”When I got transferred to the Pampa division
of KSEB near Sabarimala, I got an opportunity to actually see this light
being lit in 1981,” he said.”A Devaswom Board assistant engineer
Karunakaran Nair, two policemen and two labourers had come there. They
had one or two kilograms of camphor and an aluminium vessel. The light
was lit by a KSEB driver VR Gopinathan Nair,” Shivananda explains.
This version of the light is widely known in Kerala but rarely discussed.
Devaswom
Minister G Sudhakaran says, “nobody has examined it, government never
inquired into it, we are not planning to inquire into that because that
is related to the faith of devotees for hundreds of years.” “As
far as the temple is concerned as far as the belief is concerned it
is not good for the government to inquire “ Sudhakaran said.
But as
the pilgrims increased in the mid-eighties the enterprise drew in more
personnel and resources including a large contingent of police making
it harder to conceal. Till the early 1980 signiting the light was confined
to a small group of KSEB employees who helped the Devaswom Board.
Another
former KSEB employee says, “when I went there in 1986, the police
had completely cordoned off the area. They let in only a few people
whom they knew well. Officials from Devaswom Board lit the light”.
Closely
guarded site
A forest
road runs from Vandi Periyar, 100 kms from Kottayam. Of Kochu Pampa,
midway to Sabarigiri hydel project a mud track goes inside the reserve
forest.The forest department closely guards the road. The key to a barricade
on the road is with the nearest forest check post a couple of kilometers
away.The forest department reportedly opens the barricade and lets Dewasom
and police officials into Ponnambalamedu where the miracle is set up.
“Makarajyoti
is the biggest ritualistic fraud in the country which has disastrous
social and ecological impact,” Dr PM Rajan Gurukkal, director of the
School of Social Sciences said. “On that day many people remain in
vulnerable positions unmindful of the danger to see the state sponsored
magic. The core of the whole activity is commerce. It generates a lot
of money and a miracle attracts a lot of people”.
In 1999 a stampede among
pilgrims gathered to see the light left 52 people dead.
http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070000611
The visuals can be accessed at: http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/videos.aspx?id=10648
DOCUMENTS
Confessions
: Divine light is man-made
Express News Service
Thiruvanantapuram, May 28
The ripples
created by the movement against cheating of the credulous by fake godmen
in Kerala have reached Lord Ayyappa’s abode of Sabarimala too.
The phenomenon known as Makara Vilakku, the light appearing in the thick
jungles of Ponnambalamedu, some distance away from the temple, had for
long been flaunted as divine by vested interests. Lakhs converge
to see the flare that flashes thrice to mark the auspicious moment of
Makara Samkranthi.
But the
truth has now been revealed by the government, the Travancore Devaswom
Board and the Sabarimala Thantri family. The explanation is that Makara
Vilakku and Makara Jyothi are entirely different. While Makara Jyothi
is a star appearing in the sky, Makara Vilakku is man-made. But the
revelation may trigger another controversy over deceiving millions of
devotees over the years by those in the know. Taking a cue from the
statement of Sabarimala headpriest Kantararu Maheswararu Thantri on
Tuesday regarding Makara Vilakku and Makara Jyothi, Devaswom Minister
G Sudhakaran and TDB president C K Guptan confessed on Wednesday that
Makara Vilakku had been man-made.
“There
is no doubt that Makara Vilakku is a man-made phenomenon. But the government
can’t do anything to stop it. It may pave the way for communal tension
in the State,” said G Sudhakaran.
Guptan
also said the lighting of Makara Vilakku can’t be prevented. “The
TDB has no role in lighting Makara Vilakku. It is happening on a premise
far away from the temple which is under the administration of Devaswom
Board. TDB has never given any publicity to Makara Vilakku by terming
it a miracle,” said Guptan.
The Thantri,
in a statement issued through his grandson Rahul Eswar on Tuesday, said
that Makara Vilakku is a custom started by the tribes at Ponnambalamedu,
the abode of Sastha. Legend has it that Lord Parasuram lighted the lamp
and started the light worship there.
Referring
to the controversies, the thantri said those were kicked off by the
misconception of people who had mistaken Makara Vilakku as Makara Jyothi.
The thantri had asked everyone to realise the truth and not to drag
the temple and Dharma Sastha into controversies. (The New Indian Express
(Kerala Editions), 29.5.2008)
Snuffing
out the flame of faith
(Editiorial - The
New Indian Express (Kerala Editions), 29 May 2008)
It has
finally been certified that the famed Makara Vilakku at Kerala’s Sabarimala
hill shrine, hitherto considered a heavenly miracle, is only a man-lit
phenomenon. Two authorities - patron pontiff Kandararu Maheswararu and
Minister for Temple affairs G Sudhakaran - have confirmed that there
isn’t anything godly behind the mystery flame that flickers thrice
on the first of Makaram month every year sending millions into frenzy.
The time of this revelation couldn’t have been better as it comes
at a time when Kerala is witnessing a wave of protests against anything
with even a light tinge of superstition. But the statement on Makara
Vilakku, one of the most public secrets in Kerala, deserves praise not
because it’s the last fort of superstition to crumble, but for the
honesty with which the Government has owned up. its involvement in the
event. It has been widely alleged, especially by rationalists and atheists,
that the event is nothing but a spiritual hoax sponsored by successive
governments to add devotional value to the first of Makaram. (Several
bids by rationalists to unearth the mystery were brutally crushed by
police and forest department guards.)
According
to Sabarimala lore, it was on this day that Lord Ayyappa, after leading
a successful war against the demon Mahisasuran, merged with Sastha idol
in the hill shrine to give birth to the Dharma Sastha myth. It’s also
said that tribals who were harassed by the demon did an arathi from
a hillock opposite the shrine to celebrate the victory of good over
evil to give birth to the Makara Vilakku myth, which attracts the largest
congregation of devotees year after year.
Sabarimala
today attracts pilgrims even from Maharashtra with the first of Makaram
hosting at least five million pilgrims who watch the miracle flame appearing
thrice in the deep forests opposite the shrine. But two more connected
events still evade scientific explanation: Just before the Vilakku appears
a star rises in the sky and a kite hovers over the temple! But a democratic
Government, having admitted how millions of people were being misled
by a practice under its patronage, owes a more sensible explanation
for orphaning a philosophy and hurting true devotees. Would tendering
an apology and ending its patronage to the event assuage some of the
sentiments?
(The New Indian Express,
Calicut 29 May, 2008)
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