International Sahaja Public School - Attitudes of Grandparents

Attitudes of Grandparents

There have been instances of objections by grandparents of children at the school which have resulted in legal action being taken. In Austria, a mother's guardianship was partly substituted, after legal intervention of the grandmother, as she was not willing to take her boy out of the Sahaja Yoga boarding-school in India. A French Court of Appeal allowed another mother custody of her children on condition that she did not send any of them to the school, again a result of grandparental intervention.

Coney says these instances are confined to the European continent partly because the anti cult movement there has successfully drawn attention to the differences between Sahaja Yoga and the mainstream, resulting in a media attack on the movement. Several European countries have been criticized by the U.N. for fostering religious intolerance through state funded anti sect organizations. Coney says in the UK grandparents have been more likely to give parents freedom to bring up children as they wish, in a couple of instances even paying for the child's education at the school. The enrolment form used in the admission procedure now asks for details of any resistance from family members to the child studying at the school.