Who bombed the Hilton?

by Rachel Landers

  While the latter seems like powerful circumstantial evidence, one needs to remember that at a press conference the day before, India’s Prime Minister Desai had cheerfully aired his belief that he was the target of the bombing and that the Ananda Marga were to blame. At the same time, a lean, bespectacled and bearded 26-year-old Tim Anderson, in his role as spokesperson and secretary of that religious sect, has had his own well-attended and well-publicised press conference stating that Ananda Marga members were greatly shocked by the bombing and extended sympathy to the families of the dead men. Maybe Trotter has simply married this well-known identity to the man he thinks he saw in the cab. Is it evidence?

  At the Ananda Marga press conference Anderson also informs journalists that the Margiis suspect they have been infiltrated by ASIO and Commonwealth Police agents (which is absolutely true in the case of ASIO) and that they welcome this. They have nothing to hide. To have Ananda Marga connected with the Hilton bombing is unthinkable. He adds that they are aware there are elements attempting to destroy Ananda Marga and that these elements were responsible for terrorism around the world. This refers to an alliance of the Russian KGB and the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). He ends by saying, ‘The fact that Australia, which is the little brother of the United States, in Russia’s eyes, is hosting the conference, is all the more reason for an attempt to undermine the aim of the conference.’3

  The disinformation is easier to identify but equally time-consuming to address. For the most part this takes the form of a swathe of bomb hoaxes that begin to be called in; there are three on 15 February and within six weeks Sheather’s team will have logged over 500 of them. It also takes the form of a steady stream of mentally disturbed individuals who confess enthusiastically to being the bomber.

  Accelerating the rising tide of intelligence, both good and bad, is the sudden announcement of a $100 000 reward to be given jointly by the state and federal governments for information leading to an arrest. This is simply an astonishing sum of money for Australians in 1978. To put it in context, it is exactly the same amount of reward money that would be offered today, almost four decades on, for Australia’s most serious crimes. Not only is it a wad of money that promises to attract crazies, it is guaranteed to be ineffective in producing informants who may be implicated in the crime but wish to name associates in exchange for immunity, as Premier Wran has warned there would be no ‘immunity for people responsible for the bomb blast. There will be no compromise for a terrorist. There will be no mercy for people who plant bombs.’4

  One imagines Fraser and Wran felt they needed to make a gesture of this size commensurate with the catastrophic explosion — but it is simply a fatal mistake. It will turn Sheather’s tide of intelligence into a tsunami.

  Making the day worse are the initial reports from the ballistics team — the Scientific Branch — stating that while they do not believe the bomb was a land mine or plastic explosive, they do believe the explosion was of such force to have blown things such as a timer to pieces. The violence of the explosion makes it difficult to find many traces of the actual bomb. Their best guess is that it was ‘plas-gel’, a malleable form of gelignite or sticks of gelignite — the latter procurable at that point from almost any large hardware store — weighing around 4.5 kilograms.

  Despite an exhaustive fingertip search of the barricaded site the night of the bombing by the Scientific team and a large number of police, the operation is ‘hampered due to the presence of refuse’ from within the garbage truck. The items of interest that are discovered ‘that might assist in establishing the means of detonation’ are sent for further examination to the school of metallurgy at the University of New South Wales and to a Mr West at the Analytical Laboratories. Among the items are: ‘sections of white and yellow insulated wire’, fragments of ‘black plastic insulating tape’, ‘a small unidentifiable spring’, parts of batteries, bits of an electric hobby motor, watch batteries, samples and swabs from the garbage truck, pieces of metal, a man’s gold wristwatch and a single leather glove.5

  And then comes the break: news arrives from Bangkok. Three members of the Ananda Marga have been arrested in the Thai capital in possession of ‘enough high explosive to blow up a ten-storey building’.6 Two of the three are Australian: Timothy Thomas Hilton Jones, 25, and Caroline Lee Spark, 24. Also arrested is US citizen Sarah Child, 29.7 All three were about to leave Bangkok for Australia but had been unable to get on a flight.

  As this news breaks, Sheather receives a barrage of reports about the Margiis. On 7 February in Manila, Americans Stephen Dyer and Victoria Shepherd (both members of Ananda Marga) were caught in the act of stabbing an Indian Embassy employee.8 On 8 February in West Germany, two Ananda Marga members, Helmut Klein Schmidt and Erica Rupert, set themselves on fire and burn to death.9 It seems they are protesting the arrest in London on 1 November the previous year of three Margiis — Anthony Niall Kidd, Brian Shaw and Susan Waring, all British — on bombing charges and for conspiracy to murder a member of the Indian High Commission.10

  It is thought that this spate of violent acts in Manila, West Germany and Thailand in less than two weeks is linked to the fact that the imprisoned Ananda Marga leader Sarkar (Baba), a god to sect members, had his appeal denied in India on 2 February.11

  Sheather must be staring at this information as one might stare at an unexpected visitor from a parallel dimension. Who are these people? What is going on? He must also be staring hard at those dates. Sarkar’s appeal is denied in India on 2 February; on 7 February two Margiis are arrested for stabbing an Indian official in Manila; on 8 February two Margiis self-immolate in West Germany; on 15 February three Margiis are arrested in Thailand with high explosives. The bombing of the Hilton on 13 February sits neatly within these dates. The Indian PM was inside the hotel. Is there a link?

  Coming across this material in the archive I actually feel a rush of adrenalin, as if I were one of Sheather’s team making this discovery. If not exactly concrete evidence, it surely suggests a motive. It’s provocative. Ten members of the Ananda Marga have been caught either planning or committing acts of extreme violence in four completely different countries — England, the Philippines, Thailand and West Germany. The latter three seem clearly motivated by the denial of Sarkar’s appeal. Surely the Hilton must be part of a wave of Margii violence protesting against Sarkar’s continued incarceration?

  Needless to say, Norm will investigate this path — indeed, how can he avoid it? The Ananda Marga have thrust themselves forward as prime suspects. To be willing to touch a naked flame to your own petrolsoaked skin takes a certain kind of terrifying belief. What could explain it? To save a child? A lover? A country? To free your god? These acts are extreme. They cannot be ignored.

  Norm will not, however, close off other inquiries nor completely discount the idea that the Hilton is simply a coincidence.

  He contacts ASIO. Do they have someone working undercover within the organisation? Yes, they do. Had they received any information about these attacks in other countries? Anything about actions protesting the denial of Sarkar’s appeal?

  I imagine the ASIO officer takes a moment to consider how he will answer these queries. This is going to take some time. He needs to takes Norm back to when Ananda Marga first appeared in Australia. If the members of this religious sect are suspects, Norm needs to know more about them. And if he wants to know who within the sect could be responsible, if indeed they are, and how he might catch them, he’s going to need the patience of Job.

  Enter the Ananda Marga

  The Ananda Marga, comes onto the radar of Australian authorities in May 1976. A report entitled ‘A Note on Anand Marg [sic]’ is sent from the Indian Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to ASIO via Interpol.1 The unnamed author is clearly hostile to the sect but nonetheless provides a detailed report of the religion’s origins. Literally meaning ‘Path of Bliss’, Ananda Marga is founded in 1955 in Jamalpur in the state of Bihar by 31-year-old PR Sarkar, then a clerk
at a local railway workshop. The sect is founded on a complex and detailed philosophy that eschews both communism and capitalism for a third path known as universalism. Like other Indian religious practices, its adherents practise yoga, meditation and vegetarianism and it has a hierarchised structure of followers with different cadres of disciples — in the Margiis case with the avadhuts and the acharyas at the top. Avadhut is a Sanskrit word for a mystic or saint, and acharya, also Sanskrit, means a teacher, a highly learned person or a leader of a sect. Both appellations and roles were common to a range of Indian religions.

  The sect and Sarkar hold a great attraction for young Indians attending college and over the years the membership grows. Along with the Ananda Marga, Sarkar founds a philosophy called Prout (Progressive Utilisation Theory), ‘a comprehensive socio-economic political philosophy [which] envisages a Proutist government that would take society towards “universalism”’.2 Prout is also established as an organisation. Although the Ananda Marga and Prout share similar tenets, they can and do have separate memberships and indeed different aims.

  To define them crudely, the former might be regarded as the practitioners of spiritual philosophy and the latter as those who undertake practical and proactive steps towards social reform.3 Up until the mid to late 1960s the sect is mainly confined to India, but then starts to send out disciples to an increasing number of countries — the USA, Germany, the UK, Italy, Sweden, Thailand, the Philippines, New Zealand and Australia. These disciples are for the most part white, Western and well educated, having joined the Path of Bliss after visiting Sarkar in India. The disciples scatter to the four corners of the globe and establish yoga societies, schools, meditation centres and relief centres in disaster-hit areas. These sites in turn collect funds and followers. The religion grows.

  In 1971 local police raid the Ananda Marga headquarters in Ranch, Bihar State, and Sarkar’s residence. The Indian police allege that in the course of the searches they discover bombs, firearms and ‘lethal weapons’.4 During this investigation the police receive further information connecting Sarkar to a hitherto unsolved multiple murder in which six tortured and mutilated bodies were found tied to trees deep in a forest. The murder case is re-opened and on intelligence from ex-sect members, including Sarkar’s ex-wife, Sarkar is arrested for the murders. The victims, all Ananda Marga disciples who had become disenchanted with the sect, were part of a killing spree allegedly carried out by Sarkar and his followers. Sarkar is put on trial, found guilty and jailed.

  Thereafter, so goes the report, once all legal means to release Sarkar have failed, the fanatical members of the sect mount a violent campaign to secure their leader’s freedom. Amongst other things they are accused of a successful 1975 grenade attack against a senior Indian government minister that killed him and two others, and a failed attempt on the life of the Chief Justice of India when sect members were caught throwing grenades into his car. Fortunately, the grenades did not explode.

  The Indian authorities warn Interpol that ‘until 1975, the criminal activities of the fanatical group of Anand Margiis [sic] have been confined to India’. However, they add — and now one can get a sense of how they really feel —:

  It would be strange if amongst these disciples, there are not some, who like the more fanatical type of Avadhuts in India, have not been so brainwashed and indoctrinated as to be willing to participate in any plans of violent activities which would be spectacular such as causing explosions, hostage taking, causing physical harm to Indian dignitaries residing in or visiting a foreign country or staging violent incidents in the country where these units are located to attract world attention and to pressurise the government of India to release their leader.5

  They refer to an ‘incident’ in New Zealand involving six Margiis — two American nationals, two citizens of New Zealand (one of Indian origin), one Italian national and one Australian citizen, which ‘should be an eye-opener’. The Margiis are reported to have stolen explosives, kidnapped a police officer and planned to blow up the Indian High Commission. The Americans are deported and the others imprisoned for between two and four years.

  Our unnamed Indian source ends with this warning:

  It will be seen from the above that it is very necessary that the police services, specially of those countries where Anand Marga [sic] activities have been noticed in any form, should not be deceived by the outwardly innocuous façade of the local Anand Marg [sic] units being engaged in the propagation of yoga, or spiritualism or social service. They are capable of the most violent and outrageous crime on the command of their leader presently in jail. It is not necessary that they receive such a command personally from the leader. For them it is enough to be told by any one of the Avadhuts that PR Sarkar has desired it.6

  Stirring stuff, and if the Margiis did plant the bomb at the Hilton two years later, wonderfully prophetic. But — and this is a big but — from the get-go Sarkar has proclaimed not only his innocence but that the Indian Government, under the leadership of Indira Gandhi, has been out to get him and his followers by any means possible. On 4 July 1975, her government declares a State of Emergency and bans the Ananda Marga from operating in India on the basis that their activities are prejudicial to the national interest. Sect members argue that Sarkar has been set up for the murders and all the attacks in India blamed on the Margiis have in fact been carried out by the Indian secret service.

  It is here that things get even more complicated. One of the most confounding aspects of the sect in the mid to late 1970s is its members’ extremely vocal and increasingly strident assertions that the acts of violence carried out in the name of the Margiis are in fact part of an elaborate conspiracy driven by the Indian CBI in cahoots with the KGB to discredit the religion on a global scale.

  In the Ananda Marga’s allegations this conspiracy takes the form of the Indian CBI, possibly with the KGB, impersonating a violent inner cell or sister group of Ananda Marga or Prout called UPRF (Universal Proutist Revolutionary Federation), who commit violence or threaten violence against Indian officials or institutions in Australia and around the world in the guise of a continuing campaign to have Sarkar released from jail. These acts and threats of violence are not supported by the Margiis or Proutists and are in fact orchestrated in such a way as to erode the credibility of the sect — who oppose violence — and thereby damage their legitimate and legal attempts to have Sarkar released.

  In the opinion of the Indian CBI and the Indian Government, this scenario is a complete invention — a kind of double blind to terrorise the Indian Government and simultaneously curry favour with adherents, particularly the growing counter-culture movement in the West. What better way to attract adherents than to present the sect as virtuous and persecuted?

  So far, so good. The finger-pointing is nicely balanced. It’s clear to Norm that ASIO and the Australian Government don’t simply take the Indian Government’s accusations at face value. Despite India’s banning of the sect in 1975, the Ananda Marga in Australia, and indeed in most of the West, is recognised as a legitimate religion. In Australia, state and federal governments extend the sect financial assistance for their schools in New South Wales, Tasmania and Western Australia, and register their marriage celebrants. Who is to say what Indira Gandhi’s government was really up to when it imposed a State of Emergency from 1975 to 1977? Perhaps they were attempting to discredit the sect. It’s possible.

  It’s in 1977 that things get even more confounding. Early in the year Gandhi’s government — which instigated the State of Emergency for two years, during which the Margiis and other groups were banned — is crushed by Desai’s Janata Party in a victory of democracy over dictatorship.7 On winning the election, Desai’s government immediately lifts the ban on the sect and agrees to review Sarkar’s conviction. Indeed so committed is this government to righting the wrongs of the previous government that they arrest Indira Gandhi herself and get rid of 75 per cent of the secret service personnel.8

  However, while
the position of Sarkar and the Ananda Marga is decidedly improving, they are dealt a severe setback in July 1977 when the attempt to have Sarkar’s case re-opened unexpectedly fails.

  At that moment the ground rules completely shift. Prior to the ban being lifted, almost all the protest activities associated with the sect in Australia and the West have taken the form of demonstrations, posters and graffiti. After the July 1977 ruling, things abruptly change. A wave of violence and threats of violence rains down on Indian officials across the world. Accompanying this is the same pattern of denial from Margii spokesmen.

  One of the oddities about these acts of violence and the declarations of denial that flare suddenly in 1977 is that despite the radical change of government in India, the Ananda Marga continue to claim that they are being set up and maligned by the same enemy government agents. In short, that the instigators behind the violence remain the Indian CBI and the KGB.

  An Australian campaign of terror

  In Australia on 24 August 1977, a few weeks after Sarkar failed to have his case re-opened in India, Ananda Marga member Paul Alister, then going by the name O’Callaghan, walks into the Air India building on Elizabeth Street in the Sydney CBD, places a pig’s head on the counter and begins throwing plastic bags filled with blood on the ceiling, walls and carpet (fine $600 or 120 days in prison) and on the trousers (fine $100 or 60 days in prison) of the unfortunate staff member at reception.1 Alister is subsequently arrested. Two days later a bag containing another pig’s head is found inside the Indian Consulate General’s office on the tenth floor of Caltex House. The next day a plate-glass window at the front of the Sydney Air India office is smashed. On the same day an Air India employee is told that there is a bomb on Air India flight AI 1415 leaving Sydney.