>He may not be uniquely responsible, but for my money he still has the majority share. He may have listened to those 'family, mahatmas and honcho westerners', but the decisions he took were his and his alone.<

Absolutely right ! We are all (if we allow it) prisoners of our personal past - that can not be an excuse for present behaviour. This is always a difficulty when trying to explain the present in terms of the past, nevertheless it is an important aspect of understanding the history of both individuals and groups - the important thing is to make a distinction between explanations for behaviour and - excuses for behaviour. Explaining why Rawat has acted as he has is important - but that those explanations are not excuses.