India’s Hugging Mother<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

 

IHEU is reviving a campaign in support of Sreeni Pattathanam, whose book questioning the claims of the ‘Hugging Mother’ has resulted in his harassment by the authorities of his Indian state (see p. 3). But who is ‘Hugging Mother’? Mata Amritanandamayi (née Sudhamani) of Kerala, in South India, has acquired the name from her approach of healing people by hugging: in the process of hugging, she apparently passes on to them ‘energy’. She is reputed to have hugged and healed some 20 million people across the world as part of her mission. On Fridays, she declares herself to be the goddess Kali, and on many occasions she has claimed to be the god Krishna himself.

 

The Mata (her assumed name roughly translates as ‘mother of immortal joy’) has attracted considerable attention in recent years. She was the subject of a television documentary in the ‘Weird Weekends’ series on BBC television, presented by Louis Theroux. Like the godman Satya Sai Baba, she too has many devotees in the political world: BJP leaders such as the Prime Minister of India, A.B. Vajpayee, and the Home Minister, L.K. Advani, as well as the Congress Chief Minister of Kerala State, A.K. Antony.

 

According to the Home Ministry records of the Government of India, the Mata Amritanadamayi Mission is the second largest recipient in India of foreign funds – in 1998-99 alone Rs. 515 million were received (US$11.5 million). Educational institutions established by the Mata, a primary school drop out, enjoy Deemed University status. Penguin India published her authorized biography, Amma: A Living Saint, by Judith Cornell, in which her miracles and her boundless love are highlighted, and the train Amrit Express (Palghat Town – Thiruvananthapuram) is named after her. Small wonder, then, that any efforts to question her claims and activities should meet opposition.

 

Babu Gogineni