THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 2014
Sinister Commonalities In Alleged Visa Fraud By Khobragade And 163 Missing Vedic Pandits In USA?
Smuggling persons seeking greener pastures to advanced nations is a highly profitable occupation if one identifies who profits from it.
One such case was that of the Christian maid - Sangeetha Richard who had worked for Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade. I had exposed the whole racket in my blogs - saying the disgracing of Devyani had nothing to do with her being arrested for quietly using a job-racket-type operation to have a maid cheaply at her home in New York. It was altogether something else.
In a simple sentence, I had averred that Devyani Khobragade was attempted to be turned into a pro-CIA spy, the operation failed, she was collecting money from the USA, spreading disinformation on behalf of RAW, the mandarins in Langley found out and out she went in disgrace.
The links:
Everyone in India and in the US of A who mattered and matter in the chatterati class attempted to make it appear that the entire Indian diplomacy is doing something illegal in employing maids or other servants abroad and/or smuggling them to foreign climes and helping them settle down in much better off economic conditions.
Well sadly it is not.
Many clever chaps and organisations have found better, legal methods of smuggling persons into the US of A under false pretexts. And those acts make the endeavour to find better life abroad illegal. Some get smuggled in containers and others do it the most cushy way.
One of them is masquerading them as Hindu priests.
An investigative report in Chicago had exposed this and cited over 100 Vedic Pandits had gone missing from a well advertised so-called monastery once having been headed by the late Maharshi Mahesh Yogi.
Sensing rotten fish, I had reproduced the original reports to expose the racket.
Now the dried, rotten fish have come home to roost as can be seen from the news reports appended below.
In a nutshell, reading between the lines anyone can make out that a huge number of persons are being smuggled into the US of A under the guise of their being innocent, devout, saintly Hindu Priests attempting to meditate in foreign climes for world peace.
So they go on an R1 visa - which does not necessitate a work permit, green card or migration or anything. More importantly, the visa does not necessitate a minimum wage as that visa norm is not covered under the rules of employmentapplicable in the US of A.
I shall quote parts of the email of William Goldstein who is a lawyer who defends the Mahesh Yogi outfit sent to newspaper offices.
They [the Vedic Pandits] are on R-1 visas. They are not in possession of a visa to be day labourers nor are they equipped to be such. Their visa only entitles them, and they are solely qualified to engage in, their spiritual vocation of meditation and Vedic performances. They [the Vedic Pandits] are not subject to minimum wage laws in this spiritual or ministerial vocation, like monks in a monastery.
The sting is in another part of the email of Goldstein.
A small number of the over 2,600 pandits, about five per cent, who have come on this unprecedented Vedic programme to the US have gone AWOL (absent without leave).
When one says Absent Without Leave - in US legal military parlance - a person becomes a criminal deserter - punishable by imprisonment.
Of course, the missing persons are Pandits and not bandits.
Of course, they were being treated well, as Goldstein argues, when comparable with life in India.
So, if all was so hunky dory, a few questions, however, emerge.
[1] What exactly did Goldstein mean when thepersons went AWOL?
[2] By leave as in AWOL did Goldstein mean permission to leave work and relax as in weekly/monthly off days - when salaries are payable by employers?
[3] Since he admits that the persons have gone AWOL - and since he insists their lives were filled with the kindness of milk and honey, experiences comparable with heaven when juxtaposing them tolives in India, the question is - why did the 163 persons go AWOL?
[4] What are the 163 who went AWOL doing? Meditating in an organisation rival to the Mahesh Yogi outfit? Serving as waiters in restaurants? Studying in some university? Participating in a competing religion's monastery while praying/preying for world peace? Did some of them convert to Christianity or Islam?
[5] Now that Goldstein has admitted that the 163 persons went AWOL, can he provide the documentation that show how the missing persons and the better part of the crowd of 2600 in the monastery were qualified to meditate or to mediate with God for the peace/piece of the more pleasing part of the world please?
[6] Are there universities in India to certify Vedic Pandits? If yes, how long do such courses run? Are such varsities and/or organisations of credibilityrecognised in the US of A and the better part of the advanced world?
[7] Can Goldstein provide credible evidence to the authorities in the US of A that in case there are no qualifications needed, in case there are no statutory bodies in India recognised by the Indian and US education system [both being mandatory] to issue such certifications, that such persons introduced into the US of A are not terrorists in disguise and being smuggled into the US of A under false pretexts?
[8] Can Goldstein assure all concerned that the 163 persons who have gone AWOL did not use the Mahesh Yogi set up to enter the US of A under false pretexts?
[9] Would someone in the US of A bother telling everyone concerned that why stringent lawful checks applicable to properly educated migrants seeking jobs in the US of A [like say persons from Indian Institutes of Technology or Anna Varsity in India] or applying for students' visas meant for higher education are not applicable to those who enter US of A under R1 visas?
[10] Will the US immigration service say it is sure that it is not allowing terrorists to slip through in special juxtaposition with what had happened on 9/11 - when the very system had blinked several times on the entries of the agent provocateurs?
Two respectable newspapers have published follow up stories on this:
130 Vedic Pandits go missing in U.S.
Narayan Lakshman
The Iowa-based institutions of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi have confirmed that at least 130 Indian “Vedic pandits” have gone missing in recent years after arriving in the U.S. to pursue programmes of religious learning.
Meanwhile, one of the institutions’ officials described media reports alleging ill-treatment as “replete with falsehoods” and “defamatory.”
In an email to The Hindu, William Goldstein, Dean of Global Development and General Counsel to the Maharishi University of Management, based in Fairfield, Iowa, said the Global Country of World Peace (GCWP), the U.S. organisation sponsoring the pandits’ R-1 visas and their stay in this country, had not received any communication from the scholars before they went “AWOL” (Absence Without Leave) and it could be that “someone is misinforming them about the financial opportunities and the legal implications, and their prime motive appears to be to generate more money for their families.” There could be an “organised racket brokering the operation.”
Link:
Only 5% pandits missing: Maharishi Vedic university
PTI Jan 28, 2014, 12.19PM IST
WASHINGTON: The Iowa-based institutions of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi have said about only five per cent of the 2,600 Vedic pandits, who were brought to the US from north Indian villages, have gone missing in recent years.
Each of these cases the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have been informed about Vedic pandits leaving their United States Citizenship and Immigration Services and State Department approved programme at its Iowa campus, said William Goldstein, Dean of Global Development and General Counsel to the Maharishi University of Management.
Only a small number of the over 2,600 pandits, about five per cent, who have come on this unprecedented Vedic programme to the US have gone AWOL (absent without leave), Goldstein said in an email.
For the first four years of this programme, it was a very small number. In recent months this number has been unfortunately increasing, he said.
He alleged that they appear to have been induced by individuals providing false and bad information of high earnings, or by unscrupulous employers taking advantage of them.
He also denied allegations of mistreatment of the priests, including giving them low wages.
In an investigative report, Chicago-based ethnic weekly newspaper Hi India alleged that 163 Vedic pandits brought to the US lived in pathetic conditions and were paid less than 75 cents an hour.
Goldstein claimed that these pandits come to the US under R-1 visas and thus are not subject to the minimum wage rules.
They are on R-1 visas. They are not in possession of a visa to be day labourers nor are they equipped to be such. Their visa only entitles them, and they are solely qualified to engage in, their spiritual vocation of meditation and Vedic performances, he said.
They are not subject to minimum wage laws in this spiritual or ministerial vocation, like monks in a monastery," said the official from Maharishi University of Management. The Iowa campus has been specifically inspected and approved for this precise purpose by USCIS, for use as a site for R-1 pandits, he said.
Denying allegations that pandits brought to the US are underage, he said, No pandit has ever come on the programme under 18 years of age.
He said that it has been agreed with the pandits that of the USD 200 per month base cash compensation, USD 150 will be transmitted to their families in India.
All the pandits, contrary to the allegations, reside in modern, fully heated and air-conditioned comfortable modular homes, with an indoor and outdoor athletic facility and a large organic vegetarian kitchen and cafeteria, along with their meditation halls, classrooms, and Vedic performance halls, he said.
In the past the so-called holy men from India who had settled abroad had indeed broken immigration laws.
One of them was Bhagwan Rajneesh, for whompractice of free, unhibited, group sex was one method to find Nirvana [the word nirvaana in Tamil means naked].
The Wikipedia says thus on Rajneesh:
Chandra Mohan Jain (11 December 1931 – 19 January 1990), also known as Acharya Rajneesh from the 1960s onwards, as Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh during the 1970s and 1980s and as Osho from 1989, was an Indian mystic,guru and spiritual teacher who has an international following.
A professor of philosophy, he travelled throughout India during the 1960s as a public speaker. His outspoken criticism of socialism, Mahatma Gandhi and institutionalised religion made him controversial. He advocated a more open attitude towards sexuality, a stance which earned him the sobriquet of "sex guru" in the Indian and (later) international press.
In 1970 Rajneesh settled for a time in Bombay, initiating disciples (known as neo-sannyasins) and assuming the role of spiritual teacher. In his discourses he reinterpreted the writings of religious traditions, mystics and philosophers from around the world. Moving to Pune in 1974, he established an ashram which attracted a growing number of Westerners.
The ashram offered therapies derived from the Human Potential Movement to its Western audience and made news in India and abroad because of its permissive climate and Rajneesh's provocative lectures. By the late 1970s, tensions were mounting with the Indian government and the surrounding society.
In mid-1981, Rajneesh relocated to the United States, where his followers established an intentional community (later known as Rajneeshpuram) in Oregon. Within a year the commune's leadership became embroiled in conflicts with local residents (primarily over land use), which were marked by hostility on both sides.
The large number of Rolls-Royce cars purchased for Rajneesh's use by his followers also attracted criticism. The Oregon commune collapsed in 1985 when Rajneesh revealed that the communeleadership had committed a number of serious crimes, including a bioterror attack (food contamination) on the citizens ofThe Dalles.
He was arrested shortly afterwards, and charged with immigration violations. Rajneesh was deported from the United States in accordance with a plea bargain.
Twenty-one countries denied him entry, causing Rajneesh to travel the world before returning to Pune, where he died in 1990.
Other individuals whose business activitieshave been linked to visa frauds include the owners of Saravana Bhavan hotels. Once upon a time, it used to supply packed veg lunches to various diplomatic missions - especially in Chennai.
Some of its owners were caught with alleged visa fraud.
Its founder - Annachchi Rajagopal - was accused of murdering lusting after the wife of one of his employees - a Christian youth.
I had written about this earlier in one of my blogs. Link:
http://tsvhari.com/template_article.asp?id=644
I had written about this earlier in one of my blogs. Link:
http://tsvhari.com/template_article.asp?id=644
There are persistent rumours that indicate the Saravana Bhavan group has been sold to big-time politicians.
There are several God-men who used political bigwigs like late PM Chandrasekhar - to obtain US visas. One such holy man is said to be Chandra Swamy, whose role in the assassination of former PM Rajiv Gandhi was pointed to by the late DGP of Tamil Nadu K Mohandas.
So, the question to be asked:
Are human trafficking rackets only ordinary get-rich-quick tricks or are they something else altogether?
And a piece of simple advice to those Indian diplomats attempting to take Indian maid servants when posted to the US of A: Next time get them in through R1 visas attached to some money making racketeer's trust temple abroad. For details approach someone in the Enforcement Directorate. They have all the details of the schmucks. And please use the criminal schmucks. That is what they are there for!
And a piece of simple advice to those Indian diplomats attempting to take Indian maid servants when posted to the US of A: Next time get them in through R1 visas attached to some money making racketeer's trust temple abroad. For details approach someone in the Enforcement Directorate. They have all the details of the schmucks. And please use the criminal schmucks. That is what they are there for!
http://tsvhari.blogspot.in/2014/01/sinister-commonalities-between-alleged.html