Madras HC asks why Sadhguru encourages women to live like hermits: ‘Adults have freedom and wisdom…’

Emphasizing on the “freedom and wisdom” of adult individuals to choose their own paths, Madras High Court has questioned why spiritual leader Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev is encouraging young women to tonsure their heads and renounce worldly lives to live like hermits, especially when his own daughter married.

The comments of Madras High Court bench of Justices SM Subramaniam and V Sivagnanam came after a retired professor at the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University alleged that his two well-educated daughters had been “brainwashed” into permanently staying at the Isha Yoga Centre.

In a petition, S Kamaraj, had sought the appearance of his daughters in person in the court.

Kamaraj's daughters, aged 42 and 39, who appeared in the court on Monday, and said they were staying at the Isha Foundation out of their own will. They women clarified that they were not being detained.

In the decade-old case, the women had previously given similar testimonies after their parents alleged that their lives turned into "hell" following their abandonment.

The judges decided to further investigate the case and instructed the police to compile a list of all cases related to the Isha Foundation.

"We want to know why a person who had given his daughter in marriage and made her settle well in life is encouraging the daughters of others to tonsure their heads and live the life of a hermitess," said Justice Sivagnanam.

The Isha Foundation asserted that the women choose to stay with them voluntarily.

"We believe that adult individuals have the freedom and wisdom to choose their paths. We do not impose marriage or monkhood, as these are personal choices. The Isha Yoga Centre accommodates thousands who are not monks, alongside a few who have embraced Brahmacharya or monkhood," the foundation has said.

It also submitted it has only one pending police case while another was stayed by the court.