Who bombed the Hilton?

by Rachel Landers

  Local Ananda Marga member Bruce Dyer is likewise intent on lamenting, not endorsing, her death, but then praising her actions. Dyer states that the Ananda Marga ‘regard her as a very great person’ and ‘we regard her letters like the relics of a saint’. The Australian Proutists also regard her as ‘almost a saint’ with local Prout member Craig Walter asserting that ‘her death was a tragedy, but it was a great sacrifice. She was Australia’s first spiritual soldier.’8

  Whether ordained by Prout or not, Lynette’s ‘spectacular’ suicide certainly grabs the attention of the Australian Government. First, Lynette’s no doubt heartbroken father, Harold, arrives in London to lodge a protest against the British Government, which he says ‘shares responsibility for his daughter’s death because it deported her knowing she was going to burn herself to death’.9 The Australian High Commission keeps to its story that it was not informed of the deportation, and Scotland Yard keeps to theirs — that the Aussies were aware all along. I have to say I find this a bit convoluted — it can’t have been all that complex to detain the obsessed young woman intent on self-harm under the Mental Health Act and, at the very least, as her father points out, ‘to inform her parents’.

  Andrew Peacock, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, flies into this diplomatic fracas when he arrives in London the next day on a ‘routine visit’. He is asked to intervene as ‘Mr Phillips [continues to demand] the British Government […] hold an official inquiry into how his daughter — who had a prepared, signed statement on her intended self-immolation when she was arrested — was allowed to leave Britain’.10

  Simultaneously, all hell is breaking loose back in Australia. Ananda Marga member Peter Henry demands the return of Brandon’s passport, the issuing of a visa to Donju Gista, an Indian member of the sect living in America, and the cessation of the ‘persecution of the Ananda Marga sect by the Australian Government’ or ‘he would burn himself to death next Tuesday’.11

  I reckon this would be a great test to set all Acting Ministers for Foreign Affairs to assess their mettle while the boss is overseas. What do you do? Call his bluff? Sweat him out? Play hardball? Beg him to reconsider? Poor Ian Sinclair, acting in Andrew Peacock’s position, attempts all of these at once. First he makes the conciliatory statement ‘that he was willing to re-examine the issues which led to an Ananda Marga member threatening to burn himself to death’. He immediately counters this by stating (in keeping with the new counter-terrorism policy) that ‘no government could act under duress of threats of the kind or take any decision while a threat remained’.12 That’s all well and good, but Sinclair and his colleagues must have little doubt, given the recent horror of Lynette’s actions, that the threat is real. Sinclair hastily organises a meeting with Henry’s wife, Cetana, and two members of Ananda Marga in an attempt to avert catastrophe. It is of little apparent value, despite Sinclair’s reported offers to urgently re-examine the matters of both the visa and the passport, and to discuss them with Mr Henry if he would contact his Canberra office to arrange a meeting.

  In response, ‘Mrs Cetana Henry stated after meeting Mr Sinclair she was certain her husband would go through with his threat [adding] the meeting had not resulted in any “real” action.’13

  Let’s take stock as Mr Sinclair and his government colleagues surely do at this moment. Since Abhiik Kumar discovered on 9 August that his Michael Brandon passport had been cancelled, the Ananda Marga has disrupted Australian federal parliament twice, requiring the creation of new legislation; the daughter of some prominent wealthy Australians has burnt herself to death on the steps of the United Nations; and now a local sect member is threatening to do the same next Tuesday. There have been accompanying demonstrations, letters to newspapers, and lots of articles claiming that there are up to 80 000 members of Prout around the globe. The Australian Prout centres in Sydney and Perth have only opened recently yet already boast up to 20 trainees. Unlike their Swedish counterparts, who went out of their way to denounce Lynette’s suicide, the Ananda Marga in Australia doesn’t even bother to distance itself from Peter Henry’s threat. Margii spokesperson Ainjile Morrison tells the press that Peter Henry is ‘a rational and sincere person and his fire-suicide threat must be taken seriously’.14

  Myself, I’d be scared shitless. If the membership is willing to make these kinds of extreme gestures, what aren’t they capable of? What’s next? The government must be wondering how far can this go. Will it start with Mr Henry setting himself on fire on the steps of Parliament House, then extend to a pair of like-minded Margiis in Sydney or Melbourne? Perhaps they will do it in threes or fours. Maybe start lobbing bombs. Why would any rational person imagine this kind of activism/madness was going to stop? Does Mr Sinclair urgently call Mr Peacock in London? Is there a war council in Canberra? Is Malcolm Fraser called in? All these things occur.

  Evidence that the Australian Government regards this as the start of a potential third wave of violence from sect members is found in another confidential Cabinet paper, written in early October. The paper, prepared by Attorney-General Peter Durack, seeks:

  … authority for legislation to deal with disorderly conduct in Parliament House such [as] has recently occurred in the House of Representatives galleries and to give proper protection to officers enforcing order in the public galleries and other parts of the Parliament building to which the public have access.15

  Among those consulted are ‘officers of the Senate, the House of Representatives, the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Department of Administrative Services’. You can hear the panic in the prose. Under the title ‘URGENCY’, the Cabinet paper declares ‘the matter is urgent because of the second incident by members of the Ananda Marga sect in the House of Representatives. Further attempts to disrupt Parliament can be expected if action is not taken urgently.’16

  There are a lot of ‘urgents’ in that paragraph. Yet one can detect the government sliding rapidly away from its non-negotiable counter-terrorism policy, circulated a little over three weeks earlier. This is clear when Mr Peter Henry announces on 17 October that he is not going to burn himself to death after all. Appeals from his family, sect members, the Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne and — critically — the actions of the Acting Minister for Foreign Affairs, have given him pause. Peter Henry, reportedly looking ‘tanned and relaxed’, fronts a press conference with his wife and baby daughter. He announces breezily, ‘I think the publicity of the past week about my actions has achieved my aim and Mr Sinclair … has agreed to reconsider the decision over Michael Brandon’s passport.’17

  Clearly if you make the right sort of terrifying threats, despite the newly hewn counter-terrorism policy, you can still negotiate aggressively and successfully with the authorities.

  What is so impressive throughout all this threatened violence over the passport is that the owner of it, Michael Brandon (aka Kumar), has not uttered a single word the entire time. Of course he doesn’t need to — it’s perfectly obvious there is no lack of minions to throw things, scream, protest or burn in the quest to get his passport back. Why lift a finger when you can just watch your brethren do it all for you?

  A new phenomenon

  By late October the government is not just on the back foot but scrambling for solutions. They convene another consultation group made up of all the same departments and organisations that had gathered in the immediate aftermath of the Hilton bombing. This time the tone is completely reactive. The agenda is to summarise clearly the events involving all members of the Ananda Marga sect to date, and to decide if the strategies in place — immigration restrictions, suspension of recognition of and assistance to Ananda Marga, protective measures for Indian establishments in Australia — are sufficient given recent events. The question is then raised ‘whether further measures should be taken in the light of the continued harassment of the government’. The question next to this is a more worrisome one: ‘Whether the further measures might provoke increased harassment and violence against the
government and other authorities and establishments, and, if so, should this weigh against further measures?’1

  Like the paper on counter-terrorism, this document, finalised by November and marked ‘secret’, will remain classified for 30 years. The threat assessment from ASIO, COMPOL and the Department of Foreign affairs is stark and unambiguous. It is reiterated that starting in August 1977, Ananda Marga members in Australia and throughout the world mounted a campaign of violent harassment of Indian nationals in order to achieve the release of their imprisoned leader, Sarkar; ‘the campaign assumed world wide proportions, ceasing after Sarkar’s release on bail in August 1978’.2 Now they believe it is beginning again.

  The ASIO summary is as follows:

  Currently, members in Australia are undertaking a campaign to secure the return of Ananda Marga’s Australasian spiritual director’s (ML Brandon) passport. To date, the campaign has not been violent, although threats of the use of violence have been made. The Ananda Marga Australasian sector stands out from Ananda Marga activity world-wide because of the apparent preparedness of its members to become involved in violence.3

  The report warns that should this current campaign fail to secure the return of Brandon’s passport, ‘further incidents, some of which may be violent, will occur. There are indications that senior Ananda Marga members have decided on a possible long-term campaign for revolution in Australia.’ On the positive side, ‘Ananda Marga’s capacity to enter into such a campaign is limited and it is not yet possible to determine the extent of support for revolutionary action within the sect’.4

  Limited capacity or not, the Ananda Marga in Australia has to be dealt with. It’s becoming terrifyingly clear that any legislation the government enacts, or any restriction it imposes on the sect, could create a horrific backlash of violence. Collating all the evidence from ASIO, Special Branch, Sheather’s task force, COMPOL and Interpol over the last few years, it is manifest that, outside India, Australia’s Margiis have been involved with more ‘publicised acts of violence and harassment attributable to [sect] members than anywhere else’.5 It’s reasoned that this unenviable position is owing to Australia’s more stringent measures against the organisation, which, in turn, led to increased retaliation. These facts twist into a Gordian knot that leaves the government flummoxed.

  They carefully reconstruct the conundrum before them. While similar to what they faced in September 1977, months before the Hilton bombing, it is a problem they imagined would evaporate once the mighty Sarkar was freed from his prison in Patna. How wrong they were. Indeed, what is becoming obvious is that:

  The application of restrictions has led to retaliation by Ananda Marga, a pattern which will probably repeat itself in the future. Australia therefore is presented with a new phenomenon, that of an organisation claiming to be spiritual and non-violent but harbouring militant fanatics determined to go to extraordinary lengths, including the use of violence, to achieve its ends, whatever they may be at any given time.6

  In addition to this is the extraordinary admission that they are virtually powerless in the face of such extremism: ‘The administrative, legal, and protective apparatus currently available to the government is not capable of dealing satisfactorily with the phenomenon, other than in a reactive way.’7

  You can understand why they would want to keep documents like this secret for so long. It’s hardly edifying for the public to see that their government is incapable of standing up to a deranged splinter group within a fringe cult adept at plausible deniability.

  The way they characterise the situation in mid-November 1978 is that the ‘basic problem is twofold’: on the one hand there is ‘how to deter individual fanatical members of the Ananda Marga from committing violent and unlawful acts to further the sect’s cause’, and on the other there is ‘how to prevent the sect as an organisation from mounting campaigns of violence and intimidation. In either case, the hierarchy of Ananda Marga is able to dissociate itself, as an organisation, from unlawful acts.’8

  The options available to the government are severely limited. The report outlines four potential courses of action and then underlines why each is imperfect. The first option could be to ‘proscribe the organisation’, that is, to ban it. It is immediately pointed out that no country in the world has done this and to enact such legislation in Australia would ‘not only … create legal difficulties … it would be politically undesirable and might provoke demands that other organisations be proscribed (e.g. Croatian groups)’.9

  The second option moots withdrawing all forms of government assistance and recognition, ‘in addition to immigration and passport measures’. This would remove the Ananda Marga’s recognition as a religious denomination, financial assistance to its schools and Commonwealth tax concessions. However, this is riddled with technical legal problems in the withdrawal of educational assistance and tax concessions. It would also require extremely complex complementary action from each state government.10

  The third option is stunningly simple: ‘to maintain the status quo, including the present restrictions’. The drawbacks of this are also obvious — it maintains the current situation, which is regarded as untenable.11

  A fourth idea is to give the Ananda Marga what they want — in effect, to give in to their demands. In brief the government would remove all current restrictions and allow the sect the rights and privileges accorded to similar organisations and their members. This is shot down instantly because ‘at the present time this would bolster Ananda Marga’s belief that their campaign of violence and harassment had been successful and encourage them to embark on other campaigns to force fresh concessions (e.g. the release of jailed members in Australia)’.

  At the time of the report, these incarcerated members include Anderson, Alister and Dunn, along with Duff, who has just been sentenced to nine years’ imprisonment by the Supreme Court of the ACT for ‘unlawful acts against an Indian diplomat’, and the ‘relaxed and tanned’ Mr Peter Henry who has been charged with creating a public mischief.12

  Which of these four limited options to choose?

  The decision is to go with number three and to maintain the status quo, despite its ramifications, and to enact a number of additional measures. These include the rather vague statement that ‘some form of special legislation may be called for directed towards controlling acts of violence of the general nature of those in question’. Much clearer is the decision to keep completely silent at the present moment. The recommendation is that ‘no statement be made by the government on Ananda Marga at present’. Instead, they will keep up to date with the situation and gather material for a public statement ‘for use at an appropriate time’. If such a statement is to be made in the future, it will be jointly handled by the Prime Minister, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, and the Minister for Administrative Affairs. It is also suggested that such a statement could possibly be the ‘forerunner of a long-term government programme to inform the public of the harmful side of the activities of the Ananda Marga’.13

  Further measures include the suspension of any new government recognition and assistance (for example, for new Ananda Marga schools) and the continuing ban on ‘non-Australian Ananda Marga adherents’ entering Australia or being granted citizenship. It is suggested that ASIO and COMPOL ‘increase their efforts to identify the potentially violent elements of Ananda Marga’ and continue the ‘appropriate protective measures … for Indian establishments in Australia’. It is also agreed that ‘the question of passports for Australian Ananda Marga members continue to be subject to advice from the Passports Working Group’.14 This is the group who made the decision to seize Brandon’s passport in the first place, which let’s face it, led to a heap of trouble. What’s their advice now?

  Despite all the tough talk, it’s hard to interpret what happens now as anything other than a complete backdown.

  In less than a fortnight after the above report is tabled on 16 November 1978, the Mi
chael Brandon passport is returned to its owner.

  The Sydney Morning Herald seems fairly confident that this is the result of intimidation and fear of fiery suicides on the streets of Sydney:

  The Sydney leader of the Ananda Marga sect, Mr Michael Brandon, has been granted a restricted passport … The cancellation [of his former passport] resulted in another member of the sect, Mr Peter Henry, threatening to burn himself to death.

  The government, on the other hand, is a lot more evasive:

  A spokesman for the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Peacock, said yesterday Mr Brandon had been granted a restricted passport last week. Although the government would not give any reasons for its decisions, he said Mr Brandon wanted a passport so he could carry out his pastoral duties … The restricted passport only allows Mr Brandon to visit countries where he has duties to perform on behalf of the Ananda Marga. These are New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, South East Asia, India and the South Pacific.15

  The moment the passport is returned by a dragooned federal government, Abhiik Kumar, the number one suspect in the Hilton Hotel bombing and possible mastermind of other acts of terrorism both in Australia and abroad, hops on a plane to India. And then he’s gone.

  1979

  Well, not quite completely gone …

  Like the end of any bad relationship, things will shudder on for a bit. Let’s face it, if a bond is tight, no matter how dysfunctional, it’s hard to let go. I may want to imagine Norm Sheather watching, stoic and steely-eyed, churning with emotion as his nemesis Abhiik Kumar boards the plane at Sydney airport for the final time and ascends into the heavens — however, things are rarely this cinematic.