Seeking Foreign Accreditation

Ramachandra Guha on the general craze for seeking an overseas stamp of approval and also about Sri Sri Ravishankar:

I recently wrote a piece in a Delhi magazine about a Bangalore-based holy man lobbying for the Nobel Peace Prize. Among the mails I received was one which enclosed, as proof of the holy man’s holiness, the English translation of an article in an obscure Finnish weekly which praised him and his works. My article had made it plain that I too counted Bangalore as my home town and place of residence. Why then did the correspondent suppose that I would place the verdict of a Finnish magazine above the evidence of my own eyes? (Link)