The Sai Baba Phenomena:

If there was one personality among contemporary Indians who evoked frenzied admiration and loathing in almost equal amounts, it has to be the Sai Baba of Putaparthy. I for one am an agnostic verging on atheism. Hence in my personal opinion someone claiming to be God has to be a sham. However, it is not that simple. Even if he were not a God, there is no denying the myriad activities that he has undertaken for the benefit of mankind. My major grouse with him his that why did he have to resort to silly gimmicks to arouse devotion? Why did he have to announce that he was the reincarnation of Satya Sai Baba of Sirdi. Why could he have not simply stuck to the truth – that he was a good man and an ardent devotee of the Almighty with a zeal for helping the downtrodden?

That he is intelligent is a non debatable issue. Knowing the Indian psyche, he must have realized early on that simply being good and pious is not going to loosen the purse strings so badly needed to help out mankind. The hospital and educational institutes he helped set up could not have been built on good wishes alone. Hard cash was what was needed. So he must have gone about it methodically.

The easiest way, in India at least, to convince someone to part with his money, is to evoke the Almighty. We see hundreds of examples of that in our daily lives. But the Sai Baba was the pioneer in that field. He did not ask money for God. He declared himself to be God incarnate aided by certain methods (materializing Rolex watches and ash out of thin air – a common trick which is the staple fare of magicians all over the world) and then he did not have to ask anyone for money – ever. That is the real magic that the Baba worked on the masses.

But in all fairness – he did put some of the funds thus collected to very good use. He built up some of the very best hospitals and educational institutes in the country. These provided state of the art treatment and education, free of cost, to some of the needy patients – though the majority, I suspect, would still be paying through all their orifices.

But coming back to the main question – is he a God incarnate? That, I fear, like the very existence of God, can never be answered one way or the other. If he really were God, what is the point of putting himself on a ventilator? He had announced way back, in a moment of madness, that he would live up to the ripe old age of 96. Today he is 86. If he really does survive till 96 (as millions of his devotees believe – after all why would God lie over such a trivial issue), then there might be some substance to his assertions. But I, for one, would not bet on that. Would you?