White asset

The homepage of the blog Letter To The Mother has become quite peculiar recently. Plenty of foreigners flock to the blog in order to testify about Amritanandamayi's greatness and Gail Tredwell's ugliness.

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The book Holy Hell went quite unnoticed in foreign countries. Its release in November 2013 didn't raised much concerns on behalf of Amritanandamayi's western devotees. We can logically assume that they don't care about Gail Tredwell, they don't worry about her allegations, they don't mind about the book.

But since Gail's story has become viral in India, the western high-ranking members of the organisation are restless. They extensively write from France, Finland, America, Israel, Germany... How come that they suddenly care about the reputation of their guru in India? Have they been prompted by the ashram to "spontaneously" support her?

Why calling her western leaders to the rescue? She has a few millions devotees in India but less than 600,000 followers abroad. Moreover, the biggest part of them only know her when she tours in their country, they forget her as soon as she leaves. So why not relying mainly on her Indian devotees to clean her Indian image?

Why requesting the westerners when she is in trouble in India? Does she want to use once again the same old trick that enabled her to rise? The white skin seems to be a convincing argument in India. Just like in many other Asian or African countries, white people's choice is considered to be the best choice, even if it happens to be actually disastrous.

According to Gail Tredwell, Amritanandamayi became really famous when she started touring the west. Indian politicians also discovered their "devotion" for her at that moment. Looking back at our own experience we notice that she always displays her western followers on stage when she tours in India. She always makes sure that they are numerous around her, assisting her with darshan, sitting in the front rows during the programs, partaking in the pujas... She obviously wants them to be clearly seen by the Indian population. The media page of Amritapuri only reproduces extracts from foreign newspapers. If the western support is her main asset then it is logical that she pulls it now that she is facing criticism.

Is she trying to convince the people that she is supported by countless westerners, in an attempt to make them change their mind, thanks to the western fascination? Is she willing to reassure her political allies by pretending that she has a great worldwide audience?

The facebook page Amma for the Nobel Peace Prize got 37,545 Likes in five years.
Gail's facebook page got 33,021 Likes in one month.
Displaying a lot of western high-ranking devotees in India cannot hide the truth : her international audience is not as important as she pretends. It's just a thin white varnish adorning the claws of her organisation.