Infinite immunity

As a major Hindu leader, Amma benefits from total immunity. Protests raise and crumble against an invisible shield which magically protects her organisation and her deeds.

In 1985, an ex-policeman named Sreeni Pattathanam wrote "Matha Amruthananthamayi - Sacred Stories and Realities," a book in Malayalam which questions the miracles performed by Amma and evokes police reports in support of suspicious deaths around her ashram. At that time, she was quite unknown, so the book went unnoticed. In 2002, she was becoming more and more famous. A complaint was then filed against the author for "insulting or attempting to insult the religion or religious beliefs of any class of citizens with an intention of outraging its religious feelings", under a law which is so archaic that its last use dates back to 1933. This case raised some indignation.

In June 2008 , a group of communist activists organized a protest march against the "commercialization of spiritualism and the links between the mafia and religious leaders of the state" of Kerala. The 50 demonstrators walked toward Amma's ashram in Kozhikode. 250 members of a nationalist party name VHP, gathered outside the ashram, blocking the traffic and stoning the demonstrators until they gave up and split. The VHP activists began to rampage, some were arrested by the police.

Following this clash Amrita TV broadcasted a report. But instead mentioning the massive mobilization of VHP, the journalists pretended that the ashram had been protected by a spontaneous popular gathering. The nationalist party was of course angry that his role had been thus concealed and accused the TV channel of being pro-communist. The party urged Amma's devotees to report any communist infiltrating the TV channel and in the ashram.

After making controversial references against Amma in 1998, the Kerala government chief is required to deeply apologize. Here again the pressure of the nationalists parties plays a great role.

In 2009, a woman attended to a program, in order to have a taste of the famous darshan, like many other people do. After that experience, she posted a negative article on her own website. The Amma's online PR team immediately reacted by making an inquiry about this woman, and published all the muddy informations they could find regarding her life. Facing this mini-smear campaign, she wrote another humoristic article, which didn't trigger any further reprisals. No critic against Amma is allowed, particularly online.

Right after the publication of her book "Holy Hell" in November 2013, Gail Tredwell has been interviewed by a swiss online newspaper. A few days after its publication, the article has been removed, because the newspaper had been threatened by Amma's lawyers. It is so surprising to see a spiritual leader relying so heavily on political and legal powers to protect her own public image.