NB. The footnotes for this article are linked to
a separate footnote
page.
In his article in this issue, Professor Burke Rochford
has outlined the sociological factors that led ISKCON away from
any concern for healthy family life and into an era in which children,
especially, were marginalised. He explores some of the agonising
consequences of this marginalisation. The sad reality was that schools
and other child-centred environments were often managed by untrained
people, often lacking even rudimentary parenting skills. Unfortunately
ISKCON also attracted some child predators because it was a young
movement lacking in organisational strength at grass roots levels,
with few of the controls that a more established, experienced organisation
might have in place in order to protect its children. Professor
Rochrford analyses some of the darkest aspects of the history of
our institution, taking us up to the situation as it was in 1986.
This paper looks at some of the more recent events and trends which
have taken place since ISKCON as a society became aware of the tragic
consequences of assuming that young, untrained, devotee leaders
would be capable of creating an ideal environment for raising balanced
and healthy, spiritually directed children.
Recent developments As the 1980s drew to a close, the problem of child abuse developed
into an unavoidable issue that the ISKCON Governing Body Commission
(GBC) would have to address. ISKCON's momentum had stalled. An ageing
membership, bereft of its adored leader Shrila Prabhupada, drifted
away from the authority of the 'renunciate elite'.
1 Many married and settled down, returning to school or entering
into business ventures or regular employment. Although many continued
to follow the instructions of the Founder-Acarya, Shrila Prabhupada,
at the same time some no longer considered themselves part of ISKCON.2
Confidence in ISKCON leadership was at an all-time low. The ISKCON
leadership, plagued by scandals and political in-fighting, with
power seriously eroded by the Guru Reform movement, lacked a unifying
vision.3 Material ignorance,
inexperience, widespread deviation from the teachings of Shrila
Prabhupada (half the original GBC members withdrew or were expelled
from their leadership posts), and lack of confidence in their own
ability to carry forward Shrila Prabhupada's movement, rendered
the GBC ineffective. Powerless to respond to the accusations of
corruption, philosophical deviation, politically motivated cover-ups,
and charges of child abuse reaching to top levels, the GBC was faced
with either addressing the child abuse problem head-on or watching
what little authority they retained vanish. If ISKCON was to survive
as a coherent organisation, the GBC had to respond intelligently
and decisively to the accusations of child abuse. 4
In 1990 at the annual GBC meetings held in Mayapur,
India, Resolution 119 was passed. This Resolution reads as follows:
That the following is adopted as the official ISKCON policy on
child abuse incidents:
The local governing authority of each ISKCON school or community
is responsible to appoint 2 or 3 devotees to investigate and follow-up
on all suspected or confirmed cases of child abuse.
Suspected or confirmed cases of child abuse must be reported
to local government authorities for investigation and/or prosecution.
In India, the ISKCON International Office of Education may authorise
a waiver of this requirement if the perpetrator is willing to
sign a statement authorising the International Office of Education
to publicise the incident to all ISKCON-related educational projects
and other concerned parties.
All suspected or confirmed incidents of child abuse must be
reported immediately to the local GBC secretary, and, within thirty
days, to the ISKCON International Office of Education. The ISKCON
International Office of Education shall review the investigation
and give a finding as to the status of the alleged perpetrator
as confirmed, suspect, or innocent/not-suspected.
The perpetrator or alleged perpetrator must be immediately segregated
so that he has no possible contact with the victim or other children.
This segregation may take the form of relocating the perpetrator
to another part of the project, away from children; banishment
from the project (and possibly from other ISKCON projects with
children); or in severe cases, banishment from all ISKCON projects.
The degree of segregation will be determined by the nature and
severity of the offence; the attitude of the perpetrator; the
feasibility of protecting the children from further abuse or intimidation;
and the sentiments of the local devotees, especially the parents.
In no case should a confirmed or suspected perpetrator remain
in the local community unless the local ISKCON authorities obtain
the written authorisation of no less than 3/4 of the parents of
children at the project or in the community. The local government
authorities and/or the ISKCON Board of Education will make the
final determination of the appropriate degree of segregation.
Any confirmed child abuser may never again serve in association
with children in any ISKCON project. The Board will also make
available to all ISKCON educational projects and temples the names
of all accused, admitted, confirmed or convicted child abusers.
Abused children must get appropriate professional counselling
so that the serious ill effects of the abuse can be minimised.
All ISKCON educational projects must have preventative programs
which train children how to avoid and report child abuse incidents.
The local GBC man (or men) are directly responsible to implement
the measures outlined above. Should the GBC Body find a GBC man
or other ISKCON manager responsible for suppressing or covering-up
complaints of child abuse, or supporting intimidation of those
who might complain, the GBC man shall be open to censure or probation,
and the ISKCON manager shall be open to appropriate disciplinary
action.
This Resolution, with its carefully considered and worded provisions,
is clearly aimed at rectifying future allegations of abuse. But,
as Maria Ekstrand, a Psychology professor at San Francisco University
and an initiated devotee (Madhusudani-Radha devi dasi) points out,
there are no means of enforcement built into the resolution, and
in addition, there are no provisions for addressing past abuses
(1997). Nevertheless, it was a start. Resolutions 90-119 establish
that:
The GBC recognises that there are inevitable cases of abuse
within the ISKCON community.
The GBC has a moral obligation to address allegations of such
abuse.
Responsibility for prevention, investigation and prosecution
rests with the local ISKCON authorities, not with the GBC or any
other central authority.5
Given the eroded authority of the GBC, there was no way in practical
terms for the GBC to enforce its guidelines. Although worded as
Law, Resolutions 90-119 carries the force of recommendation to local
authorities, who in many cases had never even read the Resolution,
much less followed its suggestions.6
It is not so difficult to understand how local authorities, managers
of once opulent temples and preaching centres but now managers of
decrepit relics, under-funded and under-staffed, with little cooperation,
but a great deal of criticism from the disorganised and disenchanted
householder community, might find a new rule, well intended as it
might have been, simply too much to deal with at that time. Even
if a temple authority desired to comply, they encountered enormous
obstacles as hardly any devotees now lived under the roof of an
ISKCON building. Nevertheless, the problem had been faced -at least;
there were now some guidelines.
However as time passed it became clear that more needed to be done.
Six years would pass before there was sufficient groundswell of
support for additional measures. In the meantime, it would appear
that the GBC felt that they had dealt with the problem of abuse.
There was reason for them to believe so. For instance, in the early
1990s there were two cases of abuse in the Chicago area. The temple
president followed the guidelines in Resolutions 90-119 very carefully,
thus protecting the Chicago centre from liability, encouraging a
prompt and thorough investigation by local authorities, and protecting
the children from possible further abuse. The suspects were removed
from their ISKCON positions and eventually prosecuted and convicted
by local authorities. 7 With
increasing regularity, ISKCON authorities found that when such a
serious matter as child abuse came up in their sphere of responsibilities,
the Resolutions 90-119 guidelines gave them the tools they needed
to handle the situation surely and swiftly, with regard to the rights
of both the victims and the accused. ISKCON schools formed Child
Protection Teams (CPTs) when their communities were hit with allegations
of abuse, and a few of those committees remained as standing committees,
as required under Resolutions 90-119. Most (but not all) ISKCON
schools formed CPTs. It seemed that the problem was solved, or could
be if everyone followed the recommendations of Resolutions 90-119.
Or was it? In reality, all Resolutions 90-119 does is guide a community
through the process for removing and investigating a case of alleged
abuse. However the provisions of Resolutions 90-119 do not address
the issue of prevention (other than saying that it should exist
8), and the guidelines it does
present carry no force of law. They were effectively unenforceable.
In addition, Resolutions 90-119 does precious little to address
the problem of what to do with the victims. Some progress had been
made to be sure. The guidelines were working to some extent, and
as time went on compliance increased as local communities heard
how useful it had been to the communities which had had to face
a case of child abuse in their midst. But the issues of prevention
and victim rehabilitation were crying out to be addressed, and nothing
more was happening.
An increased impetus for change came in May 1996, at the North
American GBC meeting in Alachua, Florida. Here a group of former
gurukula9 pupils, invited to speak by the leadership,
detailed case after case of heart wrenching suffering at the hands
of school authorities which reduced the entire audience of educators
to tears.10 Virtually every
former student (these included those who had attended schools over
the last twenty years) at the conference was either a witness or
a victim. Children suffered denial of medical care for life-threatening
illnesses, serious bruises and contusions, lost teeth, broken noses,
scarring from caning, repeated sexual abuse and even homosexual
rape at knifepoint. The perpetrators of these very serious crimes
were none other than the teachers, the ashram leaders, the
administrators, and in some cases even sannyasis and ISKCON
gurus.11 The leadership
of ISKCON, particularly the GBC, simply had to address the issue
of past abuses or face a crippling credibility crisis. In fact,
the whole of ISKCON had to do something. 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. The children,
now adults, had complained before and no one had listened. But,
their voice had now been heard collectively, and their parents'
generation began to initiate measures on its own instead of demanding
that the GBC take action. In addition, the children, now young adults,
some of whom had been victims, organised themselves.
The first 'grass roots' organisation formed was the Children of
Krishna. This group was formed during the May 1996 meetings of the
North American GBC and was a spontaneous response by participants
of the meeting. Children of Krishna are composed of both first and
second generation devotees. The mission of the Children of Krishna
is: 'To support, further, and protect the education, economic, emotional,
and spiritual advancement of the children of the Hare Krishna Movement.'
They are principally a grant-dispensing organisation that has helped
young devotees finance college and other post-secondary training,
and they have helped fund therapy for victims of abuse.
A small group of second generation adults formed a World Wide Web
news site, called VOICE.12
While VOICE clearly colours its postings understandably with
cynical bitterness, they were probably the single most important
vehicle for translating the 1996 North American GBC meeting experience
into a global revelation and a global problem for ISKCON. Case after
case of reliable testimony transformed child abuse from a 'local'
or 'isolated' problem into an issue which had to be dealt with by
each and every member of the devotee community, regardless of which
generation they belonged to or whether they had, or had not been
a victim of abuse. Although one still could hear the GBC and the
gurus being blamed for all the ills of the Society, one also heard
a lot of mature devotees expressing personal responsibility. In
other words, the mood changed from 'They [meaning ISKCON authorities]
ought to do something' to 'We [meaning local communities and parents]
ought to do something.'
Less than a year after the May 1996 testimonies, the GBC had enacted
a proposal put forward by the ISKCON Communications team in Europe
which proposed that a Task Force be created to deal not only with
future cases of abuse, as Resolutions 90-119 outlined, but also
to address past cases. This became the GBC Task Force. That Task
Force presented its findings at the annual Mayapur GBC meetings
in early 1998. GBC Resolutions 98-305 enacted the recommendations
of that report as ISKCON policy. 13
The new Child Protection Policy outlines acceptable standards of
behaviour for those in contact with children, sets up a review panel
to investigate and, if necessary, reopen past cases, sets up a tribunal
court system to hear cases, creates a permanent Child Protection
Office, and, perhaps most importantly, funds the office,
the judges, and at least partial costs of victim rehabilitative
therapy.14
Where does ISKCON stand? Dharmaraj dasa a second generation devotee based in Sweden,
who is also a member of the GBC Task Force, is now coordinating
the Child Protection programme in Europe. In his opinion, abuse
seems to be very nearly under control in the schools.15
In the last year, two high profile cases have come to light and
which have been handled decisively. The first case concerns a man
who was Head of a school in India for 15 years; he was a sannyasi
and initiating ISKCON guru. The result of an internal investigation
meant that he was stripped of his authority, censured and banned
from ISKCON communities. Another case concerned the Head of a school
in the USA who had, ironically, become a Director of Child Protection
and was also authorised to accept disciples (although he had never
done so). This case resulted in having him removed from all offices
and barred from ISKCON communities while the investigation continues.
Although it would be impossible to state with certainty that child
abuse has been rooted out of all of ISKCON's schools, the general
impression is that the schools are far safer than they once were,
and that when cases do surface, they are handled sensibly, compassionately,
and legally. 16
On the other hand, few communities have a CPT. Few have even an
awareness of practical prevention measures. Compliance with the
provisions of Resolutions 90-119 (7) has been very poor. Part of
this poor performance may indeed, as ISKCON's internal critics like
to point out, be due to a residual 'renunciate elite' attitude which
relegates child abuse to the minor category of 'householder problem'.17
Another, more probable, cause is the ineffective but pervasive
management strategy of addressing all problems when, and only when,
they become emergencies. High level authorities are more like firemen
than managers: all they do is 'put out fires'. Thus any sort of
prevention programme remains unstudied and unimplemented while the
authorities rush about controlling crises which might have been
preventable had prevention programmes been enacted. It is not until
a community is hit with a high profile abuse case that they invest
energy into prevention programs, such as a sitting CPT. Fortunately,
modern communications, such as the Internet, are having a positive
effect in this area. Since bad news travels swiftly (almost instantaneously
on the Internet), members of communities can grasp the magnitude
of the abuse problem and ring the 'alarm bells' before the 'fire'
hits their communities.
A third possible reason for poor compliance is, regrettably and
paradoxically, poor communication. Despite the Internet, mass mailings
and word of mouth, for some reason rank-and-file devotees, especially
in areas outside North America and Western Europe, simply remain
unaware of the scope of the problem of abuse, or obtain their information
from questionable sources, which puts them in the position of either
acting on unreliable information or disbelieving information which
is accurate. These are all management issues, and they affect not
only the Child Abuse programmes, but also all aspects of ISKCON's
operations. The GBC and other authorities are well aware of the
magnitude of the problem. Considerable resources have been dedicated
to solving this problem, from management seminars to web sites to
the international Bhaktivedanta Book Trust bulletin board known
as COM.
As channels of communication improve, one would suppose that compliance
with GBC Resolutions 119 and 305 would also improve. At least local
people will be more readily aware of resources, should they resolve
to address the problem locally. Additionally, materials on Child
Abuse have been developed and are distributed widely. Among these
are:
Help save our future (small pamphlet of facts on child
abuse prevention)
A guide on interviewing children (compiled by Yasoda
devi dasi, a professional in the field)
Normal Sexual Development of Children
Preventing Child Abuse in ISKCON (An in-depth manual
on Child Abuse Prevention published by the ISKCON Board of Education).
A guide to screening (a short, easy-to-use manual on
screening prospective school staff).
What does the future hold? Although any prognostications are speculative, there are two
areas in which I think that we can make reasonably accurate predictions.
One area is the scope of the problem and the other is a prognosis
for ISKCON's ability to address the problem satisfactorily. The
latter is more easily dealt with, as GBC Resolutions 90-119 and
98-305 set policy, outline procedures, set up an international office
to disseminate information, conduct screening, keep records, collect
statistics, conduct investigations (especially in areas of the world
where civil authorities lack competence), and provide at least some
measure of policing. One would hope that such endeavour, complete
with provisions for funding and follow up (98-305 mandates this),
would bode well for ISKCON's ability to redress past abuses and
develop effective prevention programmes. Over the next few years
the Child Protection Office will collect enough data so that we
can have the statistical evidence needed to evaluate and adjust
the effectiveness of the new policies.
The other area, the scope of the problem, is far more speculative.
I have looked at other organisations, especially the Boy Scouts
of America, to see if ISKCON is unusual in the breadth and scope
of the abuse problem. The short answer is that it is not. However,
in what could be seen as a case of hubris brought on by humility,
ISKCON devotees seem to have firm faith that their leaders are more
incompetent, more prone to 'fall-down' than other religious groups,
and that ISKCON's miscreants are worse than those in the larger
society, believing that simply because they have spiritual knowledge
they should be better able to carry out any role of management or
leadership. My research into this premise highlights that this is
quite a naive outlook.
While accepting that child abuse is wrong and should be eliminated
from our society, we must place our problems in a broader context
by comparing ourselves to other institutions and seeing things in
a historical context. Abuse has been around a long time. In historical
times, Dante relegates the unjustly condemned Count Ugolino to the
ice of the lowest level of Hell in his thirteenth Century masterpiece,
Comedia, because he abused his child. In later times, the
children in Dickens's tales are almost universally abused: Oliver
Twist is literally starved by the Church-run orphanage and Pip is
brutally beaten by his father, who as a blacksmith must have had
very powerful arms. Even in our scriptures we find abuse was going
on-King Kamsa physically abused children, as did Hiranyakashipu.
Whether in ancient India, medieval Italy or modern England, the
perpetrators of abuse are condemned and their actions vilified.
However, the Information Age brings every heinous act into our collective
living rooms all at once, giving the impression that the problem
is much larger than it used to be.
What has changed is consciousness-how we perceive and react
to the issue. What used to be considered a regrettable and pitiable
part of some children's lives, now is considered a crime against
every child and the whole of society. The role of childhood in the
life of an adult has changed dramatically since Freud. So many social
aberrations can be traced back to a childhood trauma, and the role
of childhood experience has become vastly more important in the
last half-century. There is no doubt that child abuse has resulted
in lasting psychological trauma in many adults. What has changed,
however, is the awareness that abuse is pervasive in most societies
on the planet today, and the results of that abuse not only have
permanent effects on the victims, but also transcend generations
as the abused become the next generation of abusers.18
As the public became more aware of the all-pervasiveness of child
abuse, they demanded accountability. Although statistically most
abuse occurs within a child's family circle,19
organisations that engage children, particularly those making a
claim to providing moral and religious guidance, have increasingly
come under attack for harbouring child abusers. There are two principle
reasons for this: one is that these kinds of organisations use volunteers
(who are therefore more 'noble' than mere employees); the other
is that these organisations claim to foster moral and religious
character superior to the child's family or the society as a whole.
Thus, child abuse in such a context is regarded as far worse precisely
because the perpetrators were trusted to be the moral guides of
the children. These groups include no less than the Roman Catholic
Church and the Boy Scouts of America.
At the same time that ISKCON was discovering that it had an abuse
problem, the Boy Scouts were finding out the same thing.20
In late 1988 a lawsuit in Reston, Virginia brought by a man claiming
to be an abused former Scout revealed that Boy Scout records indicated
that over 200 scout leaders had been dismissed over the past twenty
years for abuse. The Washington Times commissioned an investigation
team that looked into the matter more deeply. When the story broke
in 1991, it established that 1871 leaders had been dismissed throughout
the country over twenty years. Everyone was shocked, not least the
Boy Scouts, who had not kept a database of this information. The
press naturally reported the Boy Scout files as 'secret', which
implies a conspiracy to cover up, when actually they are 'not public'
and therefore no statistics had been tabulated. In other words,
no one had noticed how many Scout leaders were abusers until someone
pointed it out, even though the records were all there in the files.
Each embarrassing case had been quietly 'resolved' without a collective
awareness of the breadth and magnitude of the problem.
A reporter for the Washington Times, Patrick Boyle, wrote
a book about it that went on sale about the same time as the wire
services picked up the story.21
Curiously, the Times story had not been hot news. The Associated
Press and major newspapers did not run the story until October 1993,
18 months after the Times story. In 1991, the major press
did not sense that the public would be particularly interested in
a story about abusive Boy Scout leaders, but in 1993, it was News!
The Boy Scouts were faced with a huge public relations nightmare,
not to mention a moral crisis. Fortunately, in 1990
22 the top leaders of the Boy Scouts had sensed as they prepared
for the Reston case and others that abuse was a major problem in
its ranks, and had begun developing a Youth Protection Programme.
This Youth Protection Programme had five parts:
Educate Scouting volunteers, parents and Scouts themselves to
aid in the detection and prevention of child abuse.
Establish leader-selection procedures to prevent offenders
from entering the BSA leadership ranks.
Establish policies that create barriers to child abuse within
the programme.
Encourage Scouts to report improper behaviour in order to identify
offenders quickly.
Remove and report alleged offenders swiftly.
This programme soon revealed another 400 cases, but since then
the number of incidents has slowed to a trickle and the Boy Scouts
are heralded for their Youth Protection Programme. In fact, elements
of the ISKCON programme appear to be similar to theirs.23
If the Boy Scouts story turns out to be similar to the ISKCON story
yet to unfold, devotees can take heart in the facts that while ISKCON
reels from high profile cases, bitter criticism from the victims
and their advocates, and a perception that ISKCON is thoroughly
infiltrated with perverts and bullies, the reality is that steps
already taken have encouraged victims to face their abusers and
enabled communities to respond intelligently, compassionately and
justly to local situations. While much more work needs to be done,
both at global and local levels, ISKCON has taken significant measures
that closely resemble those which are beginning to produce measurable
results in at least one other similar organisation.
Author: David Gordon White
Publisher: The University of Chicago Press Ltd., London,
1996
ISBN: 0-226-89497-5 (cloth)
The Alchemical Body excavates and centres within its Indian
context the lost tradition of the medieval Siddhas. Working
from a body of previously unexplored alchemical sources,
David Gordon White demonstrates for the first time that
the medieval disciplines of Hindu alchemy and hatha-yoga
were practised by the same people, and that they can only
be understood when viewed together. White opens the
way to a new and more comprehensive understanding of medieval
Indian mysticism, within the broader context of South Asian
Hinduism, Jainism and Islam.
Themes and
Issues in Hinduism
(A volume in the World Religions:
Themes and Issues series)
edited by Paul Bowen
Publisher: Cassel (London and Washington)
First published 1998
ISBN 0-304-33850-8 hardback
ISBN 0-304-33851-6 paperback
This book offers useful insights into the complex and internally
diverse realm of Hinduism. It is intended to acquaint the
reader with themes and issues that, while of relevance to
all religious traditions and systems, contribute to an understanding
of the abstract nature of Hinduism as a whole. Beginning
with Hindu religious understandings of the human condition,
the chapters are arranged so as to form a thematic survey
and overview of Hindu religious beliefs and practices. The
themes of morality and ethics, the role of women in Hinduism,
the Hindu religious construction of nature, and issues such
as mythology, the status of texts, forms of worship, and
sacred time and place can be systematically considered;
or, alternatively, focus can fall upon those topics that
are of particular personal interest. Readers should find
this book a wide-ranging and balanced introduction to Hinduism's
inner diversity.
Written for students of comparative religion and the general
reader, and drawing on the chapters originally edited by
Jean Holm and John Bowker in the Themes in Religious Studies
series, the volumes in World Religions: Themes and Issues
explore core themes from the perspective of the particular
religious tradition under study.
Tantric Visions
of the Divine Feminine: The Ten Mahavidyas
Author: David Kinsley
Publisher: University of California Press Ltd., London,
1997
ISBN: 0-52020498-0 (cloth)
ISBN: 0-520-20499-9 (pbk)
What is one to make of a group of goddesses that includes
a goddess who cuts her own head off, a goddess who sits
on a corpse while pulling the tongue of a demon, or a goddess
who prefers sex with corpses? Tantric Visions of the Divine
Feminine deals with a group of ten Hindu Mahavidyas, who
embody habits, attributes or identities usually considered
repulsive or socially subversive. It is within the
context of tantric worship that devotees seek to identify
themselves with these forbidding goddesses. The Mahavidyas
seem to function as 'awakeners' - symbols that help to project
one's consciousness beyond the socially acceptable or predictable.
Kinsley not only describes the eccentric qualities of each
of these goddesses but seeks to interpret the Mahavidyas
as a group and to explain their importance for understanding
Tantra and the Hindu tradition.
Hinduism for Our
Times
Author: Arvind Sharma
Publisher: Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1996
ISBN: 0-195-63749-6
No religion ever remains static: it affects and is in turn
affected by material reality. It is the creative tension
embodied in this dynamic which makes the world of religion,
rich with possibilities.
This book examines the contours of this creative tension
in the context of Hinduism in our own times. For Hinduism,
a religion of unknown antiquity is also, in several ways,
surprisingly modern. Hinduism for Our Times is an attempt
to raise this dimension of Hinduism to an unprecedented
level of self-awareness. Thus the choices that Hindus
must make in the context of modernisation and globalisation
become conscious as opposed to random choices, choices which
will place Hinduism at the cutting edge of the contemporary
world instead of consigning it to the periphery. This
book will appeal to all those interested in giving religion
a modern agenda.
A Hare Krishna
at Southern Methodist University
Author: Tamala Krsna Goswami
Publisher: Pundits Press, Dallas
ISBN 0-9643485-2-7
A Hare Krishna at Southern Methodist University is a collection
of award-winning essays mapping the convergence of East
and West by Hare Krsna leader Tamala Krsna Goswami. Readers
are invited to enter the world of a unique spiritual pioneer,
who in reality is the seeker in all of us.
