ISKCON Lokanath Swami Attempts Curbing Dissenters

https://iskconnews.org/gbc-releases-decision-on-lokanath-swami/?

PADA: Lokanath swami's folks have petitioned the courts in Delhi to block some of the people complaining about Lokanath swami. It looks like the "dissenting" people complaining about LNS are citing -- already widely known and publicly available documents -- that have been floating around, maybe for decades, including documents found on ISKCON GBC's own sites. It seems to me -- this is a little late in the game to change course -- of his being exposed? 

Why weren't Lokanath's counter complaints made a long time ago? The victim has also never withdrawn her complaint. This is another example of the trouble us "mlecchas" are having with these "India scholars" and ilk. For example, Lokanath swami was an adult who touched a young girl over a period of time because (we are told) "he was immature, and did not know how to deal with females." 

OK swell, but when I was maybe seven years old, I knew I could not just start  touching a female -- period, never mind touch her private areas. It is just forbidden, and most of us "mleccha" folks know that already. 

Then I was told, the reason I think adult men touching minor aged females is wrong is because -- "it is an India cultural thing, you would not understand." OK so now some in the alleged India scholar sector are telling me -- the mleccha culture is superior to the India culture. Wait! They are throwing their own culture under the bus. Sorry, adult males touching minor aged girls is not acceptable as "an India cultural thing," it is equally abominable everywhere.

Overall I would say -- any open forum that is discussing ISKCON's child abuse, not only in the case of Lokanath, but in a number of other cases, has to be shut down by the Lokanath ilk people -- because it will erode their power structure if allowed to continue. They are worried their power base will be dismantled. A little late ain't it? Many people already know about the molesting issue. 

Anyway! For all of you naysayers out there who are critical of PADA's "going to the public police, media and courts," now you know why. Because any effort to discuss this issue among dissenters and the leaders ends up being suppressed, therefore our best option is to go public, and public media when possible, and we have a new surprise in the works doing exactly that. 

SD: 1. The documents we have shared came from ISKCON. This is an ISKCON News article that shows the same information that Damodara and I have been sharing.

https://iskconnews.org/gbc-releases-decision-on-lokanath.../

2. ISKCON has a history of hiding child abuse. Lokanath's child abuse is one of many cases they have hidden. Another more recent case was that of Anirdesya Vapu (formerly known as Bhaktividya Purna Swami) who was found to be "the child abuser with the longest span of activity in the history of ISKCON" - ISKCON Child Protection Office. 

Anirdesya Vapu (fka BVPS) had EIGHT child abuse investigations/reports done on him, since he was placed in charge of the Mayapur gurukula in 1982. It wasn't until 2022 that he was removed from leadership in ISKCON.

https://iskconnews.org/iskcon-imposes-ban-on-bhakti.../

Publicly sharing documents about Lokanath's child abuse is a matter of public good. We are (a) letting the ISKCON community know that Lokanath has a history of child abuse, and (b) asking the ISKCON community to ask the ISKCON GBC to follow their child protection laws for Lokanath. Because of our public sharing of documents, another sexual abuse victim of Lokanath's came forward in May 2022.
Thank you,

SD

PADA: Most of these "Lokanath case" letters, including the original letter from the victim, the apology letter from Lokanath, the statements of Mukunda swami, Ravindra Swarupa, Bir Krishna and his so-called therapy expert, the response of the GBC folks like Badrinarayan, the public posting of all of these documents on various sites like Prabhupadanugas.eu, the GBC's sites, the discussions on GBC's pamho networks and / or a number of other sites, is all publicly known information that has never been legally challenged -- maybe for decades. 

It also looks like they have not made any suit in the USA, where people like us could be called to testify or add afadavits. In sum, it looks like a kangaroo court attempt to ram rod their case forward without allowing a proper response. Yes, sharing publicly known documents that have existed for a long period of time is called, sharing public info. The statute of limit to challenge these documents, i.e. 7 years, has long expired in the USA. ys pd

AK: Social media platforms get petitioned like this all the time (to block people who are exposing crimes and child molesting etc.) .... usually by celeb / politician types, blessed with equal parts sensitive egos, deep pockets, and, at the very least, the appearance of nefarious dealings. Sometimes the said personalities get court payouts (from the social media platforms), but it just tends to further tarnish their reputation, as opposed to absolve them of it. 

At the same time -- there are hundreds of thousands of negative comments on Twitter, Facebook, News Sites etc. about people like Narendra Modi, Boris Johnson, the British Crown family, Cher, Pink Floyd, and hundreds of thousands of other important people, and they never sue Twitter to have these comments removed. They know that will make things -- worse.

[PADA: Correct. Lokanath is connected to Jayapataka's people, who wrote to me to complain -- PADA's editor has cost the GBC $100,000,000 in legal fees -- because I supported various lawsuits. In other words, as soon as anyone is trying to defend children from a child abuse regime, the regime -- or its leaders -- will generally try to "lawyer themselves out of their problem" -- of being exposed. 

Oftentimes, that process back fires, because it creates the impression that the victimizers are trying to "buy justice," which is not actually justice, and it makes them look -- even worse. And that is evidently what the Lokanath project is doing now, it looks like they think -- buying their way through the karmi courts -- is going to save their reputation. It won't, it just makes them look like worse bullies and thugs -- all the more -- in the eyes of the Vaishnava community.

Same thing happened with the Windle Turley lawsuit, they spent a lot of money on legal, but they ended up looking even worse for trying to defend their molesting regime. They just increased the amount of people cursing them to go and find their master Beelzebub in Hades.

Of course, we have to give the Lokanath project a lot of credit, the general GBC program has improved from their former policy of banning, beating and assassinating dissenters, now they are more inclined to making lawsuits against dissenters, which is a big improvement over physical violence. 

At least dissenters are not being whacked. 

Good progress! Thus, instead of having dissenters banned, beaten and killed, now they are just being sued. But does that improve your image? Not really! I don't think the GBC folks quite get it, you guys have been already been exposed and exposed and exposed in all sorts of media, including various professional books, Rolling Stone Magazine, Time Magazine, New York Times, many newspapers, TV shows, radio shows, social media etc., and the cat is out of the bag. 

And we are working on a new expose as we speak. They might be able to stop the spread of info somewhat, temporarily here and there, but overall the information is spreading all over anyway.]

A lot of it is also bluffing, throwing money down as a legal joust to simply shut dissenters down. Sometimes that is effective, but sometimes, if the dissenters lean into it, they can actually power forth (google a recent escapade between -allegedly- corrupt politician john barrilaro and youtuber friendlyjordies .... jordies raised 1 million dollars from public appeals, and consequently relegated barrilaro as politically appealing as dog stool in a tiffin box).

On the surface of it, it wouldn't appear that LS has any recourse to deny any of the allegations laid against him (none of the ramparts of defense that were available to barrilaro) - LS voluntarily and publicly admitted and accepted disciplinary consequences (even if only a half-assed manner) for touching up a child .... 

[PADA: Yep, a lot of ink has been already spilled on this issue, including Lokanath's apology letter, writings from the victim, testimony from her relatives, and ISKCON officials -- and GBC's like Badrinarayan and others -- who have been discussing the Lokanath molesting case for years -- and in writing. And the GBC has openly posted numerous GBC reports and other articles on many other cases found in their regime also -- which have been discussed in written public documents, and for years. Even Anuttama publicly said -- we have a child abuse problem, and so on.  

Never mind Lokanath's whole GBC program was sued for $400,000,000 for molesting, and victims of the Lokanath program like Vedasara are detailing the abuses they received, and so on and so forth. In other words, there are a lot of EXISTING documents that prove Lokanath's regime is facilitating molesting, worshiping molesters in samadhis, etc. 

No one can ever scrub all that off ALL the medias, or hardly any of them, whether old newspaper stories, court case accounts, or whatever. It is too extensively and widely known now in public documents, penned by victims, and follow ups from us dissenters and / or ISKCON leaders etc. alike. So yep, ISKCON leaders have no idea how mass media and social media works.]

I guess there may be small victories in clarifying one's position as an opportunist child molester as opposed to career paedophile, but it would certainly appear to be merely a public affair in splitting hairs over the precise language one would prefer others use when they clarify the exact nature of one's spiritual disqualification as a leader. Hardly a path forward for a noble victory ....

Given that LS is now getting senior in years, and surrounded by the youthful gusto of many well established followers, one has to wonder to what degree this legal challenge is orchestrated from LS's say so ... and to what decree it was platformed by some spritely supporter, who is angling a valorous angle of "guru-seva" for themselves. 

I doubt whether LS comes from a generation of people familiar with the dynamics of social media, and would lack the forthrightness to conceive of this strategy. 

[PADA: The GBC has been clueless about mass media impact all along. The escapades of their gurus have been in public medias from the late 1970s, throughout the 1980s, and into the 1990s with the child abuse case, and they just could not understand how that impacts ISKCON, or they did not care. Now that everyone has access to social medias, they are really finding it hard to contain the expose news. And it is just getting worse, as we will be featured on TV news soon, and it will just keep getting worse.]

I would assume the current turn of events is a consequence of LS receiving "wise counsel" (although arguably equally ill informed about the dynamics of social media), and all this is is being set in motion by some disciples that are big in the mouth department, but less well endowed in the brains department. I say this, because the whole affair was literally teetering on the cusp of letting bygones be bygones and sleeping dogs lie .... media were not really interested because of the historical nature of the event, the diminishing relevancy of Iskcon in the west (or the increasing immersion of it into the Indian ex-pat scene) and the victim not coming forward. 

Now there is the angle of a self confessed child molester levelling "silly money" damages for being called as much .... so now there is the angle of the "degerate cult leader", the "zany Indian legal system" and a host of other journalistic tropes that can pump blood into a news story that was almost dead on its feet. In other words, Lokanath has just breathed new life into an issue that was almost forgotten. He is giving the issue a whole new mass audience. The Zombie army was almost finished, so Lokanath created a whole new Zombie army.

Of course it appears that there is a legal paper trail that affirms LS has accepted that other parties (namely the one or two followers mentioned in the paperwork ... and not just the lawyers) have the right to advocate on his behalf, but one has to wonder whether this indirect involvement by a claimant in their very own defense of allegedly slanderous accusations is an obvious clue as to how these things are catalysing. 

The indirect involvement of LS in his own defense could also be a safety valve, so that if his defense goes belly up, he can maintain 12 degrees of separation and say it was not his idea or it had nothing to do with him .... kind of like getting the best of both BS worlds .... advancing a court order for defamation, but doing it through an advocate so one can save some face in case it fails.

[PADA: It is always the same thing with these guys. We spent $100,000,000 on legal fees, why not spend more? We are digging our hole deeper, or as they say, digging our own graves. 

If anything, all this is making the spotlight bigger on Lokanath and the GBC. Now more people are getting interested and involved. In any case, I do not think the tide will turn on the GBC's favor, it is too little too late to fix with some legal shenanigans. All this has accomplished is, to make the dissenters even more angry and upset with Lokanath and his crew. It is adding insult to injury. Meanwhile, we are working on exposing them on yet another public media platform, and if that is what they want, that is what they get. You guys wanted to be famous, you will be. 

ys pd angel108b@yahoo.com]