Blunders of Lachman Das Madan, "Top political astrologer"
P. Rajah
Bluff & Blunder!
Top political astrologer caught red-handed
September 2004 has passed and the Indian Government is still in office.
It has survived all storms of a major "planetary shift" caused by
"Saturn in the ascent" and defied its horoscope pointing to a catastrophe.
During the last months, a sensational forecast of one of the leading
political astrologers created excitement in political circles,
especially among the BJP leadership. Lachman Das Madan, 82, who has been
guiding the steps of top politicians including several Indian prime
ministers, predicted that the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA)
was heading for split and that the subsequent fall of the Indian
Government in September was imminent. The drumming gave way to deafening
silence: the prediction turned out to be nothing but a grand flop - not
the first one in Madan's careeer!.
Watchers of the astrology scene may still remember a unique event in
April 1995. It was in Vir Sanghvi's talk-show Question Forum: Madan
boasted with his thousands of all-correct predictions and Sanal
Edamaruku started to calmly unfold a pack of newspaper clippings and
showed them one by one to the rolling TV camera. They documented some of
Madan's predictions that history had clearly proven wrong. Before the
general elections in May 1991 for example, Madan had predicted: Jyoti
Basu will be Prime Minister, following a hung Parliament with Rajiv
Gandhi as care-taker PM. Everybody in India knows that this did not
happen. But strangely nobody remembered Madan's well publicized wrong
prediction, when some weeks later it was Narasimha Rao, who became PM.
Astrologers survive on the public's bad memory.
About the 1995 bye-elections, which were just over at that time, Madan
had produced even blunders in series: In Bihar, Laloo Prasad will loose.
(Reality: Laloo Prasad was re-elected.) In Orissa, Biju Patnaik will
remain in power. (Reality: Biju Patnaik lost power and the
Congress-party was elected.) In Manipur, President's Rule will be
established. (Reality: Congress came to power.) Sanal Edamaruku pinned
them one by one. But this was only the beginning of Madan's exposure.
What followed was the "Great Astrology Challenge in Doordarshan". It
took two further episodes of Question Forum, during which Sanal
Edamaruku put the astrologer's prediction skills to a fool-proof test.
Madan failed miserably in front of running cameras and studio audience.
The test was quite simple: all the astrologer had to do was answering
two questions each about five anonymous people, of whom the rationalists
had provided the exact times and places of birth one week in advance. If
astrology's claim was correct and the major stages of life as well as
the time of death were predestined by planetary positions at the time of
birth, Madan should be able to find out whether these five people were
male or female, dead or alive, proposed Sanal.
As harmless as this may sound, it unleashed a storm. After he had
already agreed during the program, Madan got panic and tried to escape
the little test by hook or crook. The state-run channel anticipated a
scandal and cancelled the scheduled recording of the next episode.
Forced by increasing pressure of the public via hard-hitting articles in
The Hindu and other dailies, the recording was rescheduled. Madan used
his considerable political influence. Allegedly he got even the Prime
Minister's Office interfere on his behalf. At that time, Narasimha Rao
was Prime Minister. He was one of Madan's followers, who would not make
any move without astrological advice. Finally the public sense for fair
play (and of course the public curiosity) prevailed.
The test was done and recorded. Sanal Edamaruku cornered the resistant
Madan to give his answers. Madan tried to avoid the yes-or-no facts and
made instead some more cloudy statements about the anonymous persons'
life. Since all of them were well known public figures and two were even
present in the audience, his astrological wisdom could immediately be
checked with reality. This was not to Madan's advantage. He saw for
example lucky times and great financial success in the life of a
politician at a time, the man spent due to Emergency in jail. Under
great laughter of the audience, he lauded the happy marriage life of a
divorcee and insisted on the physical disability of a person, who was
sitting in fine health and condition in the studio.
The test was a triumph for the side of rationalism. Madan was completely
defeated and according to the agreed conditions would have been bound to
close down his magazine Babaji. Needless to say that he did not stick to
the agreement later. The recorded version of the next Question Forum was
heavily edited and manipulated before the broadcast, to avoid too much
embarrassment for the Prime Minister's astrologer. But what was left,
was still more than enough to prove the failure of astrological
predictions in front of millions of TV-viewers. He should have been out
of business after that. But astrologers survive on the public's short
memory.
---------------------------------------------------
"Based on one of mankind's most time-tested sciences, Jyotish,
(no experimentation here!) the India-Pakistan reunification
should occur on our about July 26, 2000 (the date of the final
signing of the pact.)"
From: Jai Maharaj (cy...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu)
Subject: India-Pakistan Unification
Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Date: 1993-04-18 13:24:50 PST
Director
"P. Rajah" <us...@newsguy.com> wrote:
>
> Blunders of Lachman Das Madan
>
> Bluff & Blunder!
> Top political astrologer caught red-handed
>
>
Duh!
P. Rajah
This fellow says that having sex with particular males or females might
cause good or bad to you based on astrological match. So next time
before you open your zipper make sure you call your regular astrologer.
Soon we might be seeing ads from brothels hiring full time astrologers.
http://www.kenneyjacob.com/2010/01/13/brothels-in-red-street-are-hiring-astrologers/
One particular jyotishit who claims that all his "predictions" have come
true might just fit the bill for this "time-tested" profession.