Hinduism: Details about 'P R Sarkar'
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Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar was born in Bihar, India on a full moon day in May of 1921 to a family belonging to the intellectual caste of Brahmins.
Spiritual preceptorSarkar became known as an spiritual preceptor or guru. In 1955, he founded the socio-spiritual movement Ananda Marga (the Path of Bliss) and became known as Shrii Shrii Anandamurti but was affectionately referred to as simply Baba by his disciples. Sarkar dictated a large body of works on spiritual matters, including theories of cosmological, spiritual and social evolution, over 5.000 inspirational songs (Prabhat Samgiit) and built up an organisation with an international network spreading his ideas, spiritual practices and social services around the planet. Spiritual traditionSarkar´s ideas are steeped in the ancient spiritual tradition of India. One precursor is Sri Aurobindo, who wrote earlier about many of the same topics, including the quadri-divisional (Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra) basis of historical evolution in "The Human Cycle: The Psychology of Social Development", spirit based evolution of the species, et cetera. Sarkar´s interpretation, however, offered many novel insights. His work may be seen as offering a unified theory of existence. One important contribution was his focus on social service as a means of liberation. Political oppressionBy the early 1970s, due to the rapid growth of his grass-roots movement, Ananda Marga, the government of West Bengal felt the groups social activism had become a threat to their imported materialist ideology of Marxism as well as undermining the power base of the Communist Party of India, which sought its support among the poor. As a result, Ananda Marga was banned and its members came under often fierce attacks by Marxist organised mobs whereby many monks and nuns were killed. Sarkar was imprisoned on trumped up charges, of having conspired to kill his former disciples. The government of Indira Gandhi and the CBI supported the bans and charges and became active in spreading corroborating information about him and his movement internationally. During the "Emergency", lasting from June 1975 to March 1977, did the political oppression of Ananda Marga and other groups reach a peak. Only after Indira Gandhi and her Congress Party had been strongly voted out of office in 1977 was there a retrial. Sarkar was cleared of the charges and released from prison in 1978. At the outset of his seven years of imprisonment Sarkar was allegedly poisoned by the prison doctor but lived. From then on he took to fasting, and subsisted only on half a cup of butter milk twice a day. Due to the poisoning, long-term fasting and restricted movement, his health deteriorated. Despite that, he remained active promoting his mission until his death, from a series of heart attacks at his residence in Calcutta, on October 20, 1990. DisciplesOne of his best known disciples is Ravi Batra, an internationally recognised economist and best selling author living and teaching in Dallas, Texas. In his works, Batra has relied heavily on Sarkar´s "Social Cycle Theory" and "PROUT", a theory of sustainable and equitable economics. Other disciples include all the nuns and monks of Ananda Marga that propagate his teaching. References
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