To ISKCON GBC and Entire Krishna Community (Krishna Avatar Dasa)

MAR 1, 2020 —

This response letter to Guru Prasad Swami contains disturbing child abuse and neglect testimony. Trigger warning for those who may be sensitive to the following content.

This is a reminder that we continue to request that: The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) GBC make a public statement clarifying their official position on the Child Protection rulings regarding Dhanurdhar, available for the entire international community.

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Dear Guru Prasad Maharaj,

I have received your faulty defense of Dhanurdhar, the child-abusing sanyasa, that you are good friends with. Why did you want your defense hidden from devotees on Facebook if you strongly believed in it? Your defense was riddled with inaccuracies that I will correct in this response.

Guru Prasad Maharaja: “Hare Krishna. Please accept my blessings. All glories to Srila Prabhupada. I am in the middle of GBC’s meetings, but I know that you and other devotees are giving opinions regarding Dhanudhar Maharaja. I am sending this message, then you can share it. Not in Facebook, but with those devotees who have been commenting. Because it is my duty to oversee that my disciples and devotees in general do not commit offences against vaisnavas.”

api cet su-duracaro
bhajate mam ananya-bhak
sadhur eva sa mantavyah
samyag vyavasito hi sah

Translation: Even if one commits the most abominable actions, if he is engaged in devotional service, he is to be considered saintly because he is properly situated. Bhagavad Gita 9:30

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The “no criticize rule” has been abused in ISKCON for decades by those who want to abuse others, but do not want to be called out on it or suffer the societal repercussions. This loophole has led to unspeakable acts by abusers who want to take advantage of others using Srila Prabhupada’s own words to silence victims.

Here is an excerpt of the purport pertaining to this verse:

"They are a warning to the non-devotees that because of an accidental fall down a devotee should not be derided; he should still be considered saintly even if he has fallen down accidentally."

“On the other hand, one should not misunderstand that a devotee in transcendental devotional service can act in all kinds of abominable ways; this verse only refers to an accident due to the strong power of material connections. Devotional service is more or less a declaration of war against the illusory energy. As long as one is not strong enough to fight the illusory energy, there may be accidental fall downs. 

But when one is strong enough, he is no longer subjected to such falldowns, as previously explained. No one should take advantage of this verse and commit nonsense and think that he is still a devotee. If he does not improve in his character by devotional service, then it is to be understood that he is not a high devotee.”

Srila Prabhupada clearly disagrees with what you are saying about Dhanurdhar. Should we listen to Srila Prabhuapda or should we listen to you?

[PADA: It is amazing how the GBC keeps saying acharyas are often acting abominably. What is up with that anyway? A follower of Gaura Govinda Maharaja and his apparent successor Narayan Maharaja was just telling PADA the same thing, well the GBC's gurus "tried their best" but they had problems. Ummm, we do not "try" to do brain surgery when we are only the hospital janitor, we'll be arrested for manslaughter, or worse. Its a crime to promote oneself as a sin absorbing acharya when one cannot absorb one's own sins even.]

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"I know Dhanurdhar Swami since 1975; every time I visited Vrindavan, I used to stay with him at gurukula’s accommodation; I saw his behavior, how he contributed academically, I saw his brahminical nature. Almost everything they are saying about him is not true; there was another devotee, his name was Raghunath. He hit devotees sometimes. He was the person who pushed a devotee against a column and broke his nose. He was the person who hit devotees. He was the person who chastised using sticks. He was the person who forced devotees to eat vomit. Dhanurdhar Swami didn’t do anything like that."

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This is not true at all. During assembly sometimes Dhanurdhar would beat the kids severely. Not only has he punched kids, but he has kicked them and thrown them as well, like ragdolls. He has punched children so hard that their ears have bled.

Niragadeva sometimes used to beat the kids as well, but not as severely, and that was more of a random occurrence, depending on his mood. Once he beat me with his fist and beat me with a chair for kicking his lemonade (nimbu pani) over by mistake. Raghunath, the Gurukula Teacher, was the most severe because he was more muscular and aggressive. 

During the morning assembly, we would line up. Danudhar would randomly pick some kid to slap. He would lift us by our ears, and then on the way down, punch us with both hands on both sides of our ears. Doing this repeatedly caused hearing loss with one of my friends. The severe beatings sometimes resulted in teeth being knocked out, bones broken, kicked down the stairs or thrown against a marble pillar. 

DDS and Raghunath would use their fists to pummel kids, then kicking us hard. I got it bad. Ananda and Ganga got it worse. One time he got beaten very severely for stealing Mahaprasadam sweets. Except, he didn’t steal the sweets. I know it for a fact. One boy was deformed by a rabid monkey attack and another boy died at the Yamuna, but it was swept under the rug, because they were Indian and the parents were poor. We personally witnessed a village kid die, blood gushing out of his body. We pretended it never happened and never spoke about it again. There was no trauma counselor to help kids work through that. I had nightmares for weeks.

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"He committed some mistakes. His mistakes were: Once, maybe twice, he pushed a devotee. That devotee fell and hurt his arm a bit, but that was not his intention."

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When Dhanurdhara was beating me and the other Black kids he would also yell racist epithets at us, like, “Go back to Africa with the rest of the monkeys” and worse. Dhanurdhara would give us beatings for things like sending mail to our parents. When my mother sent me care packages, the teachers would steal half of the items. When my shoes were stolen, I walked around barefoot for months and my feet had large cracks in them. 

When my glasses were stolen, I walked around almost blind for months. Many kids had ringworm. Many of my friends got jaundice and malaria. I was sick for months and almost died with a fever before one of my classmates insisted that I go to the hospital. Dhanurdhara just didn’t care.

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"And those children were out of control, coming from broken families, carrying very serious psychological issues; I saw them. He told me about them, he asked me what to do with them. Some of those families didn’t care for their children."

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How dare you insult my parents when they are not here to defend themselves? Just because you wear saffron and have disciples does not give you license to commit offenses. You owe our parents a big apology. Please try to show some humility in the future. This is not a good look for you and you are confusing your disciples. Real Vaisnavas don’t attack people who have served Krsna and have sacrificed. No wonder you didn’t want the world to see this and tried to keep it private. Your words are abominable and offensive.

For the record, my father graduated from Columbia University, an elite Ivy League; not that it should matter. My mother was similarly well educated. I have an MBA from the one of the top schools in the US. My sister also has an MBA. The only problems my sister and I had were created by the GBC: who told us that we should renounce our attachment to our parents, since they are temporary, while teachers abused us. 

In gurukula, we were as well-behaved as any normal kids were. My parents took excellent care of us. Please stop slandering my deceased parents. They were great devotees. And its completely inaccurate. Now I see why you and Dhanurdhara are good friends. Birds of feather flock together
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"He also made the mistake of censuring the exchange of mail communication with their families, to avoid having the children expose the situation of the gurukula. His intention was to solve everything internally. That’s was his mistake."

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If we sent a letter to our parents complaining about the prison conditions we were going through, we got a beat down by Danudhara or Raghunath (the teacher) and then they made us change the letter to what they wanted it to say, like a dictator. The other teachers might have slapped us around a bit, but they were not vicious like these two. 

Sometimes Niragadeva would give beatings, but he was more into having inappropriate relationships (sex) with his students than roughing people up. There were other teachers having inappropriate relationships with the students, but Dhanurdhara didn’t care. Much of this was out in the open. Kids were lying down in Niragadev’s bed. Everybody knew, especially Dhanurdhara. The worst part about this is that we were coming into puberty, and confused about what our sexual orientation was, because our teachers kept on trying to have sex with us.
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"He did many mistakes, but he didn’t do these things they are commenting. I believe that those who are criticizing him, really don’t know him and are committing offenses."

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Our daily food had maggots, worms, rocks, cigarette butts (beedis), insects, and other inedible substances in it. One time, a former classmate was picking the worms out of the farina for the halava, and then they ran out of time, so the worms went in. It wouldn’t have cost that much more to make edible food. 

We were not eating vegetarian food the whole time I was in Vrindavan. I once ate a fried cricket that somehow made its way into the kichadi. The main cook, Padmalochana, was a baba who didn’t bathe and had insects on his armpits and had long dirty nails and dirty feet. When he would stir the lassie drink with his arms, his long armpit hair with the insects would drip in the lassi and the bugs would fall out. He seemed to be a nice devotee, but probably the wrong person to cook. If you vomited, the teachers made you lick it up from the ground. Imagine eating vomit off the floor that had maggots in it?

The way the food was distributed was backwards. Teachers first, then Monitors (Older Boys), then Second Initiates, then first initiates, then noninitiates. Sometime the food would run out before it made to the youngest students. But the food was making everybody sick so they were probably better off. I have a picture of me where you could see my ribs, like in commercials raising awareness of famine in Africa. Some boys took initiation just to get food, that wasn't gross non-vegetarian food that they served to us.

The bathrooms were dirty hellholes that had stool strewn throughout. Everyone was getting sick and many were not making it to the bathroom so they always were full of stool. But the teachers’ bathroom was great. You didn’t mention anything about these factors in your letter defending the horrific acts your friend committed.

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"Dhanurdhar Swami brought to ISKCON, two hundred or two hundred fifty persons in USA, India and Italy. Highly qualified people. His followers are more qualified than followers of any other preacher. They are bank managers and powerful executives. The quality of his preaching is incredible."

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Do you know how condescending you sound? No wonder you are against criticism and instead choose to commit offenses against senior devotees. You want to be the only one allowed to be doing the criticizing and want to be able to attack our parents with impunity. For the record, my friends have made far more devotees that than, but they have left the movement, because of the way you are behaving. You say that these disciples are better than everyone else because they are bank managers and powerful executive and everybody else is lower. Do you know how materialistic you sound?

Also, for the record, my father owned a chain of pharmacies in 2 states and donated a lot of money to ISKCON and the Vrndavana Gurukula, back in the day. Additionally, he used to give the Miami devotees free medicine when they were sick. 

My grandmother was a pujari, but she also gave money to the temple and let Bir Krsna Goswami borrow one of her brand new luxury cars for a month. But my family never thought that they were better than anybody else because of their stature in society, like you do. I have worked with CEOs and CFOs of global corporations (Enterprise Product, Kinder Morgan, NTR-Ireland, CRH- Ireland, Activision, VCA, eHarmony, Oracle to name a few) and know billionaires and famous journalists. That does not make me a better devotee and I am surprised that this is the way you measure a devotee’s value. Who are the names of Dhanurdhara’s powerful executives? I might know a few of them. This sounds like a big exaggeration on your part.

But your response is illuminating because it shows two things. First, the GBC considers Dhanurdhara and his disciples part of ISKCON, which they have claimed for decades that he wasn’t part of. Has the GBC been lying to its members for decades or are you lying now? Second, that you equate money to being a quality devotee. What you are asserting is that we should not expel Dhanurdhara because he makes money for ISKCON, a organization which the GBC claims he is not part of. Do you realize how opportunistic and calculating this sounds? Has Dhanurdhar personally given you money and that is why you are defending him?

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"So, I am just warning, please be careful, better you put more emphasis and attention chanting the Maha Mantra, spending less time on Facebook giving opinions regarding situations that you don’t know about. Many times the information from the internet is exaggerated or false. Please be careful."

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Here, you are telling your disciples not to believe the evidence before their eyes. Actually, you are warning them. What happens if they do criticize Dhanurdhara? Are you telling them they cannot go Back to Godhead if they criticize child abusers? That’s not a very inspiring message. What you are doing is gaslighting your disciples to think child abuse is okay, as long as you are good friends with the child abuser and he brings in money for you. Is this how you look at your disciples? If so, I feel very bad for them. Since money is all you seem to care about, how much would it take for you to renounce Dhanurdhar?

I sincerely hope you change your position, and that your close friendship with my abuser does not continue to cloud your judgement. Just the fact that you wanted to keep this private shows me that you know what you are doing is wrong, and didn’t want anybody else to find out about your volunteering for Dhanurdhara’s defense team.

Seeking the Truth,

Krsna Avatara

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PADA: What we have viewed herein is merely the teeny tiny tip of the giant iceberg to all the horrible crimes that went on against these children. I have heard way worse stories of: Anal rupturing; Beatings with sticks; Bleeding children not being cared for; No food, rotten food, no soap, no good blankets, no shoes; Physical and psychological torture of all descriptions, and so on and so forth. What kind of people would defend the individuals involved in creating these hellish attacks on children, especially Krishna's children? Where is the respect for Krishna, or for our fellow human beings, never mind respect for protecting our own society's little children?  

Of course its one reason ISKCON is bankrupted, this problem had to be taken to court -- to at least partially address it. Its no small wonder then -- that a number of these victims felt suicidal, or they committed suicide in actual fact. They were abused in the first instance. And as we see, many of the leaders still have a very cavalier, non-emotional, if not cover up mood to the issue, which is denying the actual extent of these crimes. 

Then again, we also have the GBC defense team of Sanat (Steve and Linda Voith), Mukunda UK, Prahlad das (Paul Coats UK), Dayalu Nitai and his "Hare Krishna Community" (HKC) Jaipur folks, Krishna Kirtan, Pancali and her husband and so on, saying -- PADA should have allowed these victims no voice, no help from us, and we should have allowed the suicides to continue unabated.

Apparently there is not enough blood on their giant children kicking jack boots to satisfy them yet. And then a number of these folks joined in a petition to have PADA removed from the internet, so they could drink more of these children's blood without being disturbed. 

Why? 

They said the "innocent" (Radhanath ilk followers) would have to pay their precious court money to the victims, and we cannot have Radhanath ilk followers missing money? Otherwise what will happen to our fund to bury pedophiles in the dham etc.? So there seems to be no mercy in sight for these victims on all fronts. Of course some GBC folks also vociferously argued with me about the money. Even Krishna Kanta's IRM folks like Kamsahanta argued with me about the money. People can die, as long as I can keep a few crisp bank notes in my wallet? Its all about worship of the almighty dollar, but can we take our dollars with us when the Yamadutta's come for us? Sorry, nope! These folks will thank me later for reminding them! 

In any case, we are glad more and more people are speaking up on these issues and finally, did I forget to mention finally, more opposition to the GBC bogus guru's regime is gathering more momentum. This is a good effort along this path. Bravo, well done! 

PS, a PADA reader in India tells me this is a dangerous bogus guru cult where they are, and their life is in danger if they DARE speak up. So its "the enforced cult ritualistic worship of deviants as messiahs program." Emphasis on enforced, which is what we said it was all along, and more people are waking up to it. Goody! ys pd]