OppositeRule - blog by Pandu das - June 12, 2009
Hare Krishna. ISKCON’s Child Protection Office is under assault by a small group of influential devotees who claim that it is biased against the accused. I find their accusations hard to believe. Several articles are appearing on the Sampradaya Sun and on Chakra.
The first article, titled “Snake Oil, Scapegoats, and the Hare Krishnas: The CPO’s Use of Bogus Science,” appeared on Sampradaya Sun over the weekend. I wanted to get a response out ASAP, so I wrote a letter to Rocana Prabhu that was published under the title, “CPO Official Decision on Vakresvara Pandit.”
A few days later I submitted a more thorough article titled “In Support of the Child Protection Office.” That article is copied below, with the related documents included for download:
——
Hare Krishna. Following up after my initial article countering Visnugada Prabhu’s misleading and incorrect facts related to the guilty verdict in the child molestation case against Vakresvara Pandit Prabhu, a few critical points are herein presented supporting the Child Protection Office’s verdicts in this case. But first we must briefly revisit Visnugada’s dreadful proposal to disempower the CPO.
Visnugada says:
“I also believe they didn’t understand the fact that in the US, as in many other countries, the functions of the CPO are, for the most part, already being carried out by civil authorities. Our position was it was unnecessary and legally unwise for the CPO to try to duplicate those functions.”
It is common knowledge that well over 500 former gurukula children in ISKCON are reported to have been beaten, raped, and/or abused in other abominable ways. Does anyone know how many perpetrators have faced criminal prosecution? I heard one relatively unknown “devotee” went to jail for child abuse. Maybe there were more that I have not heard of, but one thing is for certain: ISKCON is not famous for reporting criminal deviants to the police. On the contrary, we keep hearing of this or that rapist who gets moved to another temple or another country where the same activities are perpetuated. Visnugada’s proposal is to make ISKCON a haven for child abusers, as if it’s not bad enough.
He continues:
“In fact, in the Vakresvara case, the civil authorities did investigate at the time of the alleged offense and concluded there was no case to pursue.”
As I mentioned in my previous article, that statement is blatantly false. This was an issue of several counts of statutory rape over nearly a year. The child reported it when she was an adult several years after the alleged sexual encounters. The Texas State Police did not purse it because neither of the persons involved lived in Texas when it was reported, it had been years since the alleged crimes. These were good enough reasons for the police not to investigate. However it’s natural and right that ISKCON should be more concerned about alleged rapists in our community posing as devotees.
Visnugada complains:
“In the Vakresvara Pandit case, instead of weighing the actual evidence, the judges were directed instead to use a junk science method, the SCAN-View Questionnaire.”
I have not been privileged to read the entire case file, but I have carefully scrutinized key documents that have been made available and discussed the facts with both CPO Directors. The Official Decision describes the testimonies of the accused and the alleged victim with comparisons of the consistencies and other analyses of their reliability, including the employment of a “renowned expert in forensic written content analysis” who stated that the accuser’s testimony showed traits highly consistent with truthfulness. The Official Decision also mentions a questionnaire analyzed by the same expert, who found that Vakresvara’s responses indicated deception. Questioning a complainant and the accused can hardly be considered irregular.
The document goes on to describe several inconsistencies in the accused’s testimony. According to the Official Decision, these contradictions, verified by expert analysis, coupled with a consistent presentation of facts by the alleged victim, formed substantial basis for determining guilt.
Visnugada says,
“We found people whose testimony could have exonerated Vakresvara weren’t even interviewed, despite the CPO having been informed.”
What is the meaning of this vague claim? The accuser reported, “We did have sex around seven or eight times” over the course of about a year while she was 13 and 14 years old. Whose testimony could have alleviated Vakresvara’s self-incrimination? It’s easy to imagine how they would try. I know of a few big sannyasi gurus on the GBC who would say “He didn’t do it” and expect the CPO to beg their forgiveness. What ISKCON devotee would go against them? Anyone familiar with ISKCON knows the social effect that the resultant accusations of ‘Vaisnava aparadha’ would have. Who would be willing to call the sannyasi-guru-GBCs liars when they’re sticking up for their old buddy? I challenged some of these “gurus” a few years ago after they rolled out the red carpet for Vakresvara at my local temple, and the gurus’ many disciples were absolutely brutal.
I’ve also had several devotees contact me to say that Vakresvara was undoubtedly having sex with this child, that the nature of their relationship was too obvious to hide among the devotees in the area at that time. I’ve heard this from some devotees whom I did not know at all, others whom I knew somewhat over the Internet, and also from my trusted personal friends. None said they were interviewed by the CPO, and I don’t see why they should have been. The primary witnesses for these “bedroom” activities would naturally be the complainant and the accused, and it makes sense for a proper investigation to have been focused on these two individuals.
As stated in the appeal verdict:
“xi. There is no evidence that the original panels of judges neglected any statements that directly or indirectly project doubt, or remove doubt, concerning the character of the claimant or the defendant.
xii. A number of statements have been made to the effect that the original panel of judges neglected to consider certain pieces of evidence. However there is no proof for such a statement and such an accusation appears to be based solely on the fact that a guilty verdict was given to the defendant.”
Visnugada undermines the credibility of his “professional opinion” with this declaration:
“In my professional opinion, the CPO has never properly investigated the possibility that Vakresvara Pandita and others may have been falsely accused.”
The first investigation into this question went from December 4, 2000, to July 26, 2002, and resulted in a guilty verdict. (Apparently “properly” can only mean a not-guilty verdict in Visnugada’s opinion, though I can’t help but wonder about the nature of his relationship with Vakresvara Pandit if he presumes to know about Vakresvara’s sex life with such certainty.) Vakresvara Pandit had an attorney, Sesa Prabhu, who was presumably competent to raise any relevant issues in his defense. The complainant was not represented by an attorney, so it’s rather ridiculous to suggest that Vakresvara was disadvantaged by anything other than guilt.
After the original determination of Vakresvara Pandit’s guilt, an appeal was filed on his behalf and the matter was decided on June 8, 2005. The Defense made numerous claims attempting to undermine the finding of guilt, but the appeal judges found each of them to be without merit and upheld the original decision.
As stated in the appeal verdict:
“The appeal judges found no evidence supporting the claims that there was prejudicial treatment of Vakresvara Pandit das in the initial hearing of this case.”
Here it should be noted that this was after resignation of the CPO Director under whose authority the initial finding of guilt was made, so this was an entirely new CPO that ultimately determined the original CPO judges had made no mistake in this case.
In fact, the only findings the Appeals Judges determined in Vakresvara Pandit’s favor was to say that the rectification plan was too severe, based on the fact that the original judges failed to consider that it was a case of “consensual sex with a minor.” As it turned out, the Appeals Judges were in error on this point, as they had failed to realize that there is no such thing as “consensual sex with a minor.” Nowhere in the United States is a thirteen-year-old child legally able to give consent to sex. That is why it’s commonly called “statutory rape.” As Tamohara Prabhu (CPO, GBC) wrote to me on July 19, 2005:
“You are correct regarding ‘consensual sex with a minor’. Another devotee lawyer pointed this out, that there is no such thing as consent, as a minor is assumed to not have the maturity to give consent. I will change this wording in the decision, as it is legally incorrect.”
Bear in mind we’re talking about a 40-year old man repeatedly having sex with a 13-year young girl.
The appeal judges had also failed to consider the fact that Vakresvara Pandit had been in violation of his rectification plan the entire time of his supposed restrictions, even to the point of being Temple President of Puerto Rico, in gross contradiction of the Official Decision, during which time he was also found guilty of additional offenses resulting in another official decision against him. Following the original appeal verdict, the CPO was shown these facts and thereby forced to revise their ruling accordingly.
That devotees are still calling for this man to be exonerated, presenting their own twisted facts, is astonishing and reeks of corruption. If not for ISKCON’s shameful history of child abuse, it would be beyond belief.
The relevant documents are attached (in “Word” format). Hare Krishna.
Official Decision in the Case of Vakresvara Pandit das - July 26, 2002 (5)………….
Official Decision on the Appeal Case of Vakresvara Pandit das - June 8, 2005 (4)………….
Note of Clarification in the Sentencing of the Appeals Judges' Official Decision of Vakresvara Pandit das (6)………….
This article was found at:
http://oppositerule.govindapeacefarm.com/?p=696
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Hare Krishnas lift the lid on history of child abuse
ReplyDeleteReligion News Service, October 8, 1998
The Hare Krishna movement, one of the most controversial religious movements to emerge from the 1960s, has voluntarily detailed one of its darkest episode — the widespread abuse, sexual and otherwise, of children who attended the group’s boarding schools during the 1970s and 1980s.
Until now, only limited knowledge of the abuse by some teachers, older students, supposedly celibate monks and other Hare Krishna leaders had dribbled out in court cases, media interviews with victims and academic writings.
But in the latest issue of the biannual Hare Krishna publication ISKCON Communications Journal, two articles — one written by an outside academic with long experience studying the movement; the second by a member of the group — extensively detail the extent of the abuse.
They also note the movement’s long delay in fully addressing the problem despite the acknowledged trauma suffered by hundreds of individuals and the group as a whole through the wholesale abandonment of the faith by angry, disillusioned parents and their offspring.
“Children suffered denial of medical care for life-threatening illnesses, serious bruises, lost teeth, broken noses, scarring from caning, repeated sexual abuse and even homosexual rape at knife point,”wrote Bharata Strestha Das, a Hare Krishna since 1983 who has taught English literature at the University of Massachusetts.
“The perpetrators of these very serious crimes were none other than the teachers, the ashram leaders, the administrators, and in some cases even sannyasis (monks) and ISKCON gurus (spiritual leaders)…. An entire generation of children had been subjected to horrendous treatment at the hands of those entrusted with their welfare by parents who thought that they were doing what was best for their children.”
Middlebury College sociology professor E. Burke Rochford Jr. said in his article that the schools — known as”gurukulas”— “were staffed by devotees untrained and generally ill-prepared to take on the demands of working with children.
“The lack of institutional support for the schools”contributed directly to acts of child abuse by teachers,” he said.
As word of abuses spread through the movement, said Rochford, “some efforts were made to intervene. Yet this very intervention sometimes resulted in new strategies of coercive abuse. Most significant was enlisting older boys in (one school in India) to physically abuse younger students who were deemed troublesome and unruly by teachers.”
A Washington-based spokesman for the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), as the movement is officially called, said the group’s decision to publicly confront the abuse issue was made”to reestablish a level of integrity that the organization has to function on (and) to educate people inside the movement so that this can never happen again.
“We didn’t react as quickly as we should have, in large part because we didn’t know how to react … We’re trying now to be pro-active,” said Anuttama Dasa, who said his stepson was among the physically abused.
ISKCON is by no means the first religious movement born of the60s to face the issue of sexual and other forms of child abuse.
David Bromley, a Virginia Commonwealth University sociologist, noted the case of the Children of God, a group based on quasi-Christian teachings also known as The Family. The group has released internal documents detailing the movement’s own widespread child sexual abuse.
Nor are established churches immune from the problem.
continued below
The Roman Catholic Church has long struggled with cases of priests molesting young boys. In Dallas recently, the Catholic diocese there agreed to pay about $30 million to settle the largest judgment ever ordered in a clergy sex abuse case in U.S. history. But elements in the church have repeatedly been accused of protecting pedophile priests and seeking to keep information about such cases from becoming public.
ReplyDeleteBy way of contrast, Bromley said ISKCON’s decision, no matter how belated, “reflects a decision within the organization that this has to be cleared up. They realized that the alternative is something like the Clinton thing; continual scandal that continues to ebb out and eats you up forever,” said Bromley, who co-edited a 1989 book about the Hare Krishnas.
Thomas L. Bryson, associate executive director of the American Academy of Religion, called ISKCON’s decision to allow Rochford to detail the abuse in the movement’s premier scholarly journal “highly unusual.”
“It’s rare for a group to invite an outsider in and give him carte blanche to say what he wants in one of their forums,” said Bryson, whose Atlanta-based academy is a professional group for academics whose specialty is religion.
In his article, prepared with the help of student assistant Jennifer Heinlein, Rochford said ISKCON’s philosophical emphasis on a”renunciate elite” and its denigration of sex and marriage as symbols of”spiritual weakness” laid the groundwork for the abuse.”
Children were abused in part because they were not valued by leaders, and even, very often, by their own parents who accepted theological and other justifications offered by the leadership for remaining uninvolved in the lives of their children,” Rochford wrote.
In the heyday of the Hare Krishna boarding school system, children as young as 3 or 4 were separated from their parents and often sent thousands of miles away to gurukulas established at movement ashrams, or spiritual communities, in India, North America, Europe, South Africa and Australia.
Roughly 2,000 young people passed through the gurukulas, which Rochford said were more”the functional equivalent of an orphanage” than educational institutions.
Freeing parents of the burden of raising children, noted Rochford, allowed the saffron-robbed adults to engage fully in proselytizing and selling Hare Krishna books and magazines on street corners and at airports — the movement’s hallmark and, until the early 1980s, its predominant source of income.
Rochford said some of the worst abuses at gurukulas in the United States occurred in Dallas — where the first such school in the United States was opened in 1971 but closed by the state in 1976 for a variety of health and safety infractions — and Seattle.
In Dallas and Seattle, where the school also has long since closed, “there were an awful lot of children with few adults, none of them qualified teachers or even interested in teaching,” Rochford said. “The adults least qualified to do other things were put in the schools.”
Perhaps the most widely publicized abuse occurred at New Vrindavana, the showcase ashram near Moundsville, W. Va., where the spiritual leader was charged with ordering the murders of two Hare Krishna members after they publicly branded him a pedophile.
In a plea bargain arrangement, the guru, Kirtanananda Swami, later pleaded guilty to mail fraud and racketeering and is serving a 20-year prison term.
But the worst abuse, according to Rochford, occurred in gurukulas in India, where adolescent boys _ on their own, far from their parents and in a cultural setting where corporal punishment is more accepted _ were”particularly targeted.
“To keep information about abuse from reaching parents, the India gurukulas ‘censured’ childrens’ letters home and forced them to write more positive notes, Rochford said.
continued below
ReplyDeleteRochford said it is difficult to know how many Hare Krishna children were abused, sexually or otherwise.
“Clearly, it was extensive in particular places, although it was not something present at all gurukulas,” he said. Still, “abuse directly and indirectly influenced the lives of a sizable number of children.”
Nor is it clear to what degree the movement’s founder, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami, an Indian guru in the Hindu tradition known to his followers as Prabhupada, was aware of the abuse.
In an interview, Rochford said Prabhupada, who died in 1977, was at the very least aware of reports of excessive”corporal punishment” through letters he received from upset parents, although there has never been a hint of his participation in the abuse in any way.
“He had an awareness, but it is not at all clear to me that he knew of sexual abuse. But he did know that things were not going as they should,” said Rochford, who has studied the Hare Krishna movement for more than 20 years.
Rochford also wrote that”Prabhupada himself discouraged parent involvement in the gurukula,” maintaining that away from their influence” a child would more readily take to a life of spiritual practice and renunciation.”
Spokesman Anuttama Dasa said, “Prabhupada was aware there were problems in the schools, but I don’t think he had an idea (abuse) was going on. He was juggling huge problems all over the world. When told of problems he would tell others to go fix them. I don’t think he conceived at all there could be sexual abuse in the schools. If he understood that he would have directly intervened.”
In any event, noted Rochford, the mid-`80s demise of the gurukulas —brought on by the movement’s general financial collapse — “all but eliminated the context” for the systematic child abuse he studied.
Today, Hare Krishna children generally attend day schools and live with their parents. Any abuse that continues, Rochford said, is “likely to occur within the context of the nuclear family, “just as it exists elsewhere in society.
In 1997, in response to the history of abuse, the movement — which at its peak numbered no more than 10,000 American converts and today claims far less —established a Child Protection Office.
Headquartered in Alachua, Fla., the site of one of the movement’s largest remaining U.S. communities, the office helps fund psychological counseling and vocational and educational training for those abused in the gurukulas.
Office director Dhira Govinda Das, who has a master’s degree in social work, said he also helps Hare Krishna temple leaders establish systems for preventing and dealing with abuse and investigates cases of past child abuse that continue to surface _ and reports them to local law enforcement when applicable.
“Practically every week we hear about cases we had never heard of before,”he said. “Some cases involve people still in the movement, so we’re obliged to deal with them.”
Some 25 years ago Christopher Walker _ whose Hare Krishna name is Chaitanya Mangala — was sent by his parents to the Dallas gurukula. He was, he said”four or five.”He attended gurukulas in Detroit, India and New Vrindavana in West Virginia.
At each school, he said, he experienced and witnessed sexual, physical and psychological abuse. Today, he still lives in Moundsville, near New Vrindavana, but is no longer connected to ISKCON.
As far as he’s concerned, the movement’s newfound desire to deal with its history of abuse is too late in coming.
“It’s always better late than never for the general health of a society. For individuals, it’s different,” said Walker, who owns a farm and markets incense and body oils.”For a large portion of people raised in Hare Krishna, it’s too late. They’ve left and they’re never coming back and they have been damaged by it.”
This article was found at:
https://religionnews.com/1998/10/08/news-story-hare-krishnas-lift-the-lid-on-history-of-child-abuse/