ISKCON India's ICC Attacks USA GBC (Update)

Darn it! We just can't seem to get them Western Mlecchas 

to worship our pedophile acharyas from heaven!

Seems they have this thing about "Gurus" being as pure as God.

Not sure how we can fix that? 

---------- Forwarded message ---------

Subject: On the LNS issue

To: Badrinarayan Swami (San Diego - US) <badrinarayan.swami@pamho.net>, 

<govindaswami108@gmail.com>, 

Bhakti Caitanya Swami <bhakti.caitanya.swami@pamho.net>, 

<bhakti-bhusana.swami@pamho.net>,
Bhaktivaibhava Swami <bhaktivaibhava.swami@pamho.net>, 

<bir.krishna.das.goswami@pamho.net>, 

<devamrita.swami108@gmail.com>, 

<giridhari.swami@gmail.com>, 

<gpswami@gmail.com>, 

Prahladananda Swami <prahladananda.swami@pamho.net>, <ramai_swami@me.com>, 

Anuttama (das) ACBSP (IC N.America) <Anuttama.acbsp@pamho.net>, <dina.sharana.acbsp@pamho.net>,
Madhu Sevita (das) ACBSP (GBC) (I) <madhu.sevita.acbsp@pamho.net>, Virabahu (das) ACBSP (GBC) <virabahu.acbsp@pamho.net>, <chaitanyachandra@mail.ru>, 

<dndmvg@yahoo.com>, 

<gauranga.rns@pamho.net>, 

<govardhana.bcais@gmail.com>, 

<hrdaya.caitanya@pamho.net>, 

Praghosa (das) SDG (IRL) <praghosa.sdg@pamho.net>,
Sesa(ACBSP) <sesa.gbc@gmail.com>, 

<chandra08_8@yahoo.com>, 

<rkd@krisna.hu>,
<jpsmobile@gmail.com>, 

<rswami108@gmail.com>, 

<revati.raman.tpt@gmail.com>,
Gopal Krsna Goswami <gopal.krsna.goswami@pamho.net>, <bpswami1008@gmail.com>,
Bhanu Swami (Madras - IN) <bhanu.swami@pamho.net>, 

<bobcohen@ivs.edu>, 

<kavicandra.swami@pamho.net>
Cc: <brajahari@gmail.com>, Devakinandan(JUHU) <devakinandan.juhu@gmail.com>,
Pancaratna Dasa <pancaratnadas@gmail.com>, 

DrSahadeva Dasa <sahadevadasa@gmail.com>, 

Bhima(ACBSP) <bhimadas@gmail.com>, 

Shankhadharidas <Shankhadharidas@pamho.net>, 

Basu Ghosh Das <basughoshdas@gmail.com>,
sankarshan nitai das <sndas1008@gmail.com>, 

Krishnabhakta Das <kbd.lok@gmail.com>

P Dasa <angel108b@yahoo.com>

Dear members of the GBC ,

Please accept our humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

We, the undersigned members of the Bureau Committee appointed to deal with
the Lokanath Swami issue, are writing to you directly now, regarding a letter that we sent almost a month ago (on July 24th), to the GBC EC and members of their LNS committee.

That letter has been reproduced below, and unfortunately, it has yet to 
receive any formal response, despite the GBC Chairman's written promise (sent the next day, on July 25th), that a response would be coming "soon."

Please know that our LNS committee includes both the Chairman of the ICC, and the Chairman of the IIAC. They are on our committee representing their respective bodies, and the combined membership of these bodies comprises all the TPs for ISKCON India. Our letter thus represents the unanimous concerns of all Indian TPs about the LNS issue.

Additionally, the ISKCON India Bureau, and the ICC (where all 160 ISKCON India TPs voted unanimously), have passed resolutions calling on the GBC to now permanently close the case of Lokanath Swami. The ICC has also listed a number of consequences that will be forthcoming, as a first step, if this isn’t done.

Notwithstanding the unanimous resolution of the Indian leadership, Bhakti Caitanya Swami wrote to us and requested that our committee choose some people to serve on a panel that was being convened for the purpose of reviewing the case of Lokanath Swami.

Given that the entire Indian yatra resolved that the case should now be permanently closed, we wrote back right away and expressed disbelief at such a unilateral action being initiated, without even discussing it with our committee (that was appointed by the Indian Bureau, to liaise the GBC on this issue). Despite our shock and disbelief, we wanted to be the voice of reason, and so we proceeded to chalk out a way for everyone to work together fairly and cooperatively, and seriously look at the panel proposal, with a view towards moving things forward (again, our letter is reproduced below).

Strangely, Bhakti Caitanya Swami then wrote back to us (on July 25th), and said that because he had personally discussed India choosing people for the panel with Jayapataka Maharaja, that BCS had "lost sight of" our committee, and thought that maybe we weren’t “functional,” and thus he didn’t think to consult with us at all prior to convening said panel.

Ostensibly, Bhakti Caitanya Swami felt that receiving Jayapataka Maharaja's personal endorsement (an endorsement that would’ve gone against the unanimous vote of 160 Indian TPs, and the Bureau’s own resolution), was somehow sufficient to skip over bothering to consult with the very committee that had been tasked with being his liaison concerning this case.

[PADA: Here we go, Jayapataka is their local acharya, indeed he is the sum total of the demigods acharya, but who gives a hoot what that idiot says? We are superior to the acharyas! Wow, they say that all the time. Acharyas are now equal to village idiots, no one cares what senseless foolishness they are rambling on about.]

Of course, this type of behavior ends up perpetuating and exacerbating the very problems that got us to an impasse in the first place; the very problems our respective committees were supposed to be resolving through cooperation.

[PADA: But the ICC has just said they are not going to listen to their acharya JPS? Where is the cooperation?]

Thank you in advance for going over our letter of July 24th, and for considering the unanimous feelings and votes of ISKCON India’s leadership, who have called on the GBC to now permanently close the case of Lokanath Swami, because the entire GBC has already dealt with the issue twice in the past, and because no new allegations or evidence have been presented. 

[PADA: The GBC did not deal with the issue, that is why it is still an issue.]

Hoping this meets you well.

Your servants,

Members of the ISKCON India Governing Bureau committee on the issue of Lokanath Swami


Basu Ghosh Das – Bureau Vice Chairman

Shankhadhari Das – Bureau General Secretary

Braja Hari Das – Bureau Treasurer

Pancaratna Das – IIAC Chairman

Sahadeva Das – ICC Chairman

Sanak Sanatan Das – Vice President – ISKCON Vrindavan (representing the 
disciples of Lokanath Swami in India)

-------------------------

Dear GBC Chairman Bhakti Caitanya Maharaja, and members of the GBC EC,

Please accept our humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!

Thank you for writing. Now that you have explained your rationale in convening a panel, we (representing the leadership of the ISKCON India, the ones most affected by the said panel), should have been given time to respond to -- and even to challenge -- your proposal, prior to your convening said panel.

That would seem to have been the proper protocol. Unfortunately, this isn’t what you chose to do. The Indian Yatra even went so far as to preemptively outline multiple challenges to your position, giving myriad reasons for you to reconsider the clearly passionate and reactionary starting of an ICPO investigation and suspension of Lokanath Swami.

You eventually retracted these rash actions a bit, but now you have again moved forward without us. You did this by publicly convening this panel unilaterally, without having attempted to engage with us seriously by responding to the multiple issues we’ve raised about reopening the case.

Please remember that we are major stakeholders in this whole situation, as
Lokanath Swami is primarily based in India.

Consider that Lokanath Swami has more than five thousand of initiated
disciples, and some of who are leaders in ISKCON. There are also thousands
of congregational devotees who revere Lokanath Swami, throughout India.
Many of them are already highly demoralized by the actions adopted by the
GBC in this case.

By just sending us your rationale a posteriori, as almost an afterthought (and only when we requested it), you continue to exude the same colonialist mindset that has been straining relations for many years between the Indian Yatra and some mostly white, Eurocentric minded GBCs.

[PADA: Oh here we go, same thing Lokanath folks wrote me, you are mleccha, we are more advanced by our India heritage. Ummm, so you guys support illicit sex with men, women and children gurus, and pedophile gurus, and sex with cats gurus, because that is your heritage teaching of India? Sorry, nope, that is not what Krishna teaches.]

Your behavior is not unlike that of apartheid era South Africa, where the Whites who controlled the then government proved to be very late to adopt civil rights and egalitarianism, compared to the rest of the world (with long-term negative consequences).

[PADA: Hee hee, yep, we are supporting pedophile gurus because we are the advanced superior race from India! You Western fools are not supporting our pedophile gurus because of your less advanced race! Ummm, supporting pedophile gurus is bogus, whatever race one is from.]

Why do you persist in treating us like second-class citizens? We are more successful than any other yatra in the world at spreading Krishna Consciousness, and we work jointly and successfully together on a level never achieved in our movement before, even by the GBC itself.

[PADA: Yep, you have made a nice pedophile and sex with cats samadhi, and a porno swami samadhi, and us lesser class people do not do such things. And we mlecchas would also never even dream of committing these Dham-aparadhas. OK!]

It’s disturbing, but as we become more capable leaders ourselves, we can increasingly see the serious lacking in how power has been concentrated in
the hands of a few individuals, clinging to the successes of the past,
coupled with a condescending and bullying “we know what Srila Prabhupada
wanted better than you” mentality.

Will you hold the convening this panel in abeyance, until our arguments as
to why there’s no standing for it can be heard, as you did with the FDG
issue?

[PADA: Prabhavishnu is still getting Vyasa poojas and his feet washed, while that is fine, we cannot have female gurus. Yep, but you already have fools for gurus, does it matter if they are all men?]

That would show that you considered us to be partners in this situation.

You wrote:

*“The necessity of the Panel is rather simple. ISKCON is committed to
Child Protection”.*

Well, ISKCON India is committed to child protection too. And not just to high profile cases either. As such, it’s been disappointing and tragic for India to have had to let abusers go free, because the ICPO neglected to help us adjudicate dozens of cases of abuse in India that were reported to them (not even responding to many of them a single time for years on end, in the past).

[PADA: Here we go, tons of abuse happened in India because the CPO did not act. OK but child abuse is a criminal act and you GBC people should have made an FIR and had people arrested. You don't need a CPO for that process.]

Although the situation has improved a lot, it still adds insult to injury (and demonstrates hypocrisy), to see everyone suddenly champing at the bit to get a high profile case to champion. 

And for many years now things have been fine vis-à-vis Lokanath Swami and
the GBC.

[PADA: Well right, Lokanath swami never started a campaign to have molesters reported to the cops either.]

Recently though (as you well know), some devotees began complaining online about Lokanath Swami, and then suddenly the NALC and GBC EC reacted very quickly, and it seems this reaction can be most readily explained as them bowing to the pressure they felt from social media, and not because of some loftier commitment.

It’s also our understanding that there are a few, mostly white GBCs, that
wanted Lokanath Swami to stop initiating years ago, but were outvoted, and
the online complaints gave them an opportunity to quickly and summarily
appeal the vote of the entire GBC body, and reopen the case, sans new
evidence or allegations.

Given these points, we find it disingenuous to be given this narrative above as a justification for recent proceedings.

You wrote:

*“The incident with Lokanath Swami has arisen again because of new questions regarding”:*

*“Conflicting versions of the facts regarding Lokanatha Swami's actions”.*

What precisely are the new questions about conflicting versions of the facts regarding Lokanath Swami’s actions? Please be specific, because we understand that nothing new has come to light since the issue was last adjudicated by the GBC over a decade ago, and we understand that the GBC has always had full access to all the information concerning this case.

*“The thoroughness of the GBC's investigation and decisions (which occurred
prior to the establishment of the Child Protection Office [CPO], and were not later reviewed by the CPO)”.*

Why did the investigation have to be reviewed by the CPO? 

[PADA: Correct, why was the matter not given to the police?]

If something is fully adjudicated prior to a new law being enacted, or prior to a new body being formed, that’s not a justification to then retry someone again, after they’ve served their time.

[PADA: Here we go, gurus are often criminals, and they can be suspended and reinstated once they have served their time.]

And if there were any discrepancies in the thoroughness of the GBCs investigation, this may very well involve punishing the GBC members who
were found to be negligent or worse, but it still doesn’t justify retrying
Lokanath Swami.

[PADA: The GBC is at fault, well true, but how does that let Lokanath off? And if the GBC are gurus, how come they are faulty -- when the issue is child abuse.]

*“The appropriateness of the restrictions placed upon Lokanatha Swami”.*

At the risk of being redundant, it’s totally incomprehensible and disturbing to us that you are even considering to further punish Lokanath Swami more than thirty one years after the fact, and after he’s already been punished formally twice, and informally many more times. 

[PADA: But gurus are not criminals who are punished for crimes?]

Please explain your logic, because if a judge improperly judges, after having been presented with all the evidence, then he doesn’t get to retry the defendant decades later on the plea of not having considered the case carefully enough. Such incompetent judging never results in the defendant being retried, rather, it results in such judge’s losing their judgeships. 

[PADA: Wow, so the GBC are also gurus, but incompetent judges who make bogus rulings. Where is the confidence in their gurus?]

In vedic culture it is impossible, and wrong, for someone to have to tolerate such public humiliation, time and again. As we have it from Bhagavad-gita, “for one who has been honored, dishonor is worse than death”. 

*“New legal reporting requirements in the US”.*

Are those new reporting requirements retroactively applicable? Why convene
a panel for this? Just look up the statutes and / or have a lawyer answer the question for you. If ISKCON has some reporting obligations, then report the case, and that’s it. No need for any panel.

[PADA: OK but the GBC stopped the family from going to the police at the outset, claiming they would make a panel to address this. Now you ICC folks are saying that the original panel was incompetent. So that begs a new panel. And begs another panel to discuss -- why incompetent people are being voted in as acharyas.]

Additionally, it’s the Indian Yatra’s understanding that if the allegations in toto were presented to the appropriate authorities in the USA, that the allegations themselves wouldn’t even be considered to rise to the level of criminal activity, and we have seen a fair bit of law that backs up this understanding.

[PADA: Nope, false, this case and many other cases were never brought to the police. As you guys just pointed out ...  not dealt with by so-called CPO, ICPO or GBC or anyone else, and not brought to the police. Of course the CPO was also swept under the carpet for the most part and not allowed to make proper rulings.]

*“The application of ISKCON Child Protection policies”.*

What specific policies are you referring to? We are prepared to discuss this with you in great detail, but prior to your convening a panel, we should be told what your specific policy concerns are, and then we should be given a chance to tender a response. 

Rather than responding to the rest of your letter now, we would like to:

1. Begin discussing with you the perceived lack of justification in even considering to retry Lokanath Swami, while the panel’s convening is held in abeyance.

2. If / when we can reach a consensus and overcome this hurdle, we can then
discuss the panel’s mandate with you.

3. And finally, we can discuss who the panel members should be, rather than
just being told by you who they are, despite some of the candidates you’re
proposing having serious and easily demonstrable conflicts of interest
(which can be presented in due course).

Please don’t let your legacy be that you succeeded in bifurcating Srila Prabhupada’s mission. Please don’t complete today’s operation and kill the
patient.

Please understand that the days of just ruling it over India because of having all the manpower and money are over. Please consider the repercussions of becoming persona non grata over here, and the far-reaching implications this will have.

We are not representing the most extreme elements of our Yatra, which are ready for you to sell your flats here, and ready to expel colonialism from India. In the coming years, these voices will inevitably become even more powerful, and so it’s our hope that we can work together to navigate this situation carefully, keep our society healthy and whole, and prepare for a future together.

Thank you for your most serious consideration of all of the above.

Hoping this meets you well.

Your servants,

Basu Ghosh Das – Bureau Vice Chairman
Shankhadhari Das – Bureau General Secretary
Braja Hari Das – Bureau Treasurer
Pancaratna Das – IIAC Chairman
Sahadeva Das – ICC Chairman
Sanak Sanatan Das – Vice President – ISKCON Vrindavan (representing the 
disciples of Lokanath Swami in India)

Meanwhile a Lokanath follower V Dasa says Lokanath is actually acting like a Christian Church priest and not a guru: 

How many things went wrong with Christianity? How many Priests were caught having affairs? So what do you people think when they hear of Christianity? They think of lord Jesus Christ. Incidents happen in all organizations, some haters can’t see the good work many sanyasis and Brahmacharis in iskcon did to the world, they just see the spots and spread venom. 

*** PD: Notice the Lokanath people think he is both a ritvik priest and another Jesus simultaneously, he has their brains spinning so they cannot tell what is who. And he is another guy who gets his feet washed ... and his people told me he is taking sins (like Jesus). ys pd