Talk:Sri Aurobindo Ashram

Disproportionately long section
What is obvious at this point is that the section "Allegations of sexual harassment" is disproportionately long, i.e., 432 words against the total of the preceding and succeeding sections (313+118). It is widely known that the foremost person behind continued and persistent attempts to denigrate the ashram and its authorities is Sraddhalu Ranade, whose attempts to create a page for himself have been thwarted twice.

The deletion log entry for "Sraddhalu" is:
 * 00:38, 22 December 2014 Y (talk | contribs) deleted page Sraddhalu (G11: Unambiguous advertising or promotion)

The deletion log entry for "Sraddhalu Ranade" is:
 * 01:06, 26 October 2014 Alexf (talk | contribs) deleted page Sraddhalu Ranade (A7: Article about a real person, which does not indicate the importance or significance of the subject)
 * 18:32, 6 January 2011 Jimfbleak (talk | contribs) deleted page Sraddhalu Ranade (A7: No explanation of the subject's significance (real person, animal, organization, or web content): unsourced biography of a living person)
 * 00:42, 30 August 2009 NuclearWarfare (talk | contribs) deleted page Sraddhalu Ranade (G12: Unambiguous copyright infringement: http://www.prernacentre.com/web/prerna-team/facilitators-a-advisors/shraddhalu-ranade.html)
 * 16:31, 14 March 2008 NawlinWiki (talk | contribs) deleted page Sraddhalu Ranade (G11: Blatant advertising)

Ranade's hostility towards the ashram authorities went so far as to support the five sisters in their 12-year long crusade against them and eventually drive them to threaten and actually attempt suicide (successfully in the case of two of the sisters and their mother). See the article titled "Sisters victims of Sri Aurobindo Ashram squabble," which appeared in the Deccan Chronicle on December 21, 2014: http://www.deccanchronicle.com/141221/nation-crime/article/sisters-victims-sri-aurobindo-ashram-squabble. The article contains the following passages: Senior ashramites claim that Jayashree Prasad and her younger sisters were misguided by another ashramite, Sraddalu Ranade, who has been fighting the trust for years. "Sraddalu and his associates are responsible for driving the sisters and their old parents to the point of suicide. They have been trying to damage the image of the ashram for several years," claimed one senior ashramite.

Senior ashramites claim that Jayashree Prasad and her younger sisters were being advised by another ashramite, Sraddalu Ranade, who has been fighting against the ashram trust for several years, demanding that it be dissolved, citing mismanagement.

"Sraddalu and his associates are responsible for driving the sisters and their aged parents to the point of suicide. They have been trying to damage the image of the ashram for the past several years. First, they went ballistic against the biography of Sri Aurobindo written by American Peter Heehs claiming that it portrayed the ashram and its guru in a bad light. When they could not succeed in this, they forced these sisters to make allegations of sexual harassment. They have also filed a case in the Supreme Court, seeking dissolution of the trust and the ashram. We have to wait and see what their next move will be," the senior ashramite said. There can also be little doubt that Ranade is directly or indirectly behind recent edits of the ashram page, especially in the aforementioned section, which are aimed at tarnishing the ashram's reputation.

Ujm (talk) 07:16, 9 January 2015 (UTC)


 * While I tend to agree with your point of that section's being "disproportionately long" at the moment, however, rather than suppressing that information, I would favor to put it in context and to expand the over-all context as to rules and governance etc. of the Ashram. That information is missing in the article has become apparent especially now at the occasion of the December 2014 incident. Therefore I am now introducing a new section (preliminarily called "Governance, rules, and relations to local authorities"). The section can surely expanded further (observing WP:RS of course) to give the appropriate perspective.
 * The relevance or non-relevance of S. Ranade (Google) for Wikipedia seems to be off-topic for this article.
 * As to your assumptions on who may be behind which WP edits, in Wikipedia we usually fare well by assuming good faith. Very often, that assumtion is in fact correct. --Chris Howard (talk) 11:28, 10 January 2015 (UTC)

The section has now been shortened somewhat and rendered more neutral in tone. Extensions for other sections are being prepared. There are of course no sufficient grounds for naming S. Ranade in the article itself, though for us in the Ashram his involvement and motives are plain. Ujm (talk) 05:00, 14 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Looks better to me now at first glance. --Chris Howard (talk) 23:33, 14 January 2015 (UTC)