Indian Vedic students go ‘missing’ in the US

Indian community paper says over 100 teens taken to the US to study at two institutions have gone missing in one year.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi had achieved global fame teaching the art of transcendental meditation [AP]

Over hundred Indians, brought to the US as teens from villages in Chhattisgarh and elsewhere in north India to study at two Vedic institutions, are reported to have gone missing.

A report in Hi India, a Chicago-based Indian community newspaper, said of the 1050 young Indians brought to the Maharishi’s Vedic City and the Maharishi University of Management in Fairfield, Iowa, 163 have gone missing in the last one year.

The two institutions are owned and managed by members of the family of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who died in 2008. Mahesh Yogi, during this lifetime, had achieved worldwide fame by teaching the art of transcendental meditation.

The Indians were brought to Maharishi’s two institutions to be trained to become Vedic pundits or scholars. They are also called ‘world peace professionals” in ashram speak, say reports.

Under the programme, parents of the children, who are promised their wards would be given school education upto 12th standard and trained to become pundits or masters in Vedic studies and Hindu rites, send their children to the ashram in Fairfield.

After completion of 10 -15 years the pupils are offered a choice to stay back to work for the organisation or leave to work on their own, the reports say.

The Global Country of World Peace (GCWP) is one of the Maharishi’s many teaching centres. It runs Vedic Pundit programme to “bring about peace on earth where there will be no war”. 

Varsity members of GCWP did not have information on the missing Indians and said, “They have jumped the fence for immigration purposes or for chasing their American Dream,” the newspaper quoted.

Source: Al Jazeera