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Anonymous b. 1996. Letter, VOICE web site (December 28)

 

Footnotes 

1. This article has been painful to write, and certainly many readers will feel distressed by the story told here. Many past and present ISKCON members-second generation devotees and their parents alike- have personally been touched by child abuse. And, as I suggest here, ISKCON's larger membership has also been affected. One result is that child abuse has become an issue of growing political significance within ISKCON and the broader movement. While I am not so naive as to believe that this paper will not become part of this ongoing politic, my attempt here is to maintain a sociological stance to the issue. Yet it seems likely that some readers will find reason to charge me with partisanship of one sort or another, and perhaps even dismiss what is said here (see for example, Rochford 1992). I would only ask that devotees in and outside of ISKCON who care deeply about this issue do something constructive to aid young adults abused as children within ISKCON's schools. In need of support too are the largely forgotten parents, who often suffer in silence, riddled with guilt because of what happened to their children.
   
    
2. I had planned to address the ongoing efforts by ISKCON authorities to address the problem of child abuse, including assistance for abuse victims, child protection policies, and so forth. Because of the length of the present article this did not prove feasible. See Bharata Shrestha Das in this volume for details of the response that members of ISKCON made in the 1990s towards the problem of child abuse.
   
    
3. Yet there is no reason to assume that child abuse is absent from ISKCON's communities. To the extent it does exist, it is far more likely to occur within the context of nuclear family life. Thus child abuse within ISKCON today likely mirrors causes and patterns found within mainstream cultures.
   
    
4. While research and official statistics demonstrate that child abuse has been on the rise, the question of why remains less certain. Surprisingly, before the 1960s there were no laws which prohibited child abuse in the United States (Pfohl 1985:309). Yet within a few short years all fifty states 'discovered' the problem and passed legislation to control it (Pfhol 1985:309). The question is why, then? Violence against children was hardly new in the 1960s. One researcher has shown that 'child abuse' only gained legal status as the medical profession-specifically paediatric radiology-was able to 'break the legal hold that parents held over children' (Pfohl 1977, 1985:309). Thus the legal basis of child abuse is derived from professional expertise and power. Beating a troublesome child, an act taken for granted by many parents even a single generation ago, is now often considered 'abusive', if not illegal behaviour. Obviously these issues are critical to understanding child abuse as a social problem. Just as obviously, such a treatment goes well beyond the scope of the present paper. (For a social constructionist account of religion and child abuse, see Jenkins 1996.)
   
    
5. Some researchers have expressed concern that data from the American Association for Protecting Children (AAPC) overstates the amount of child abuse in the USA. This is because the AAPC data fails to account for duplicate reports involving a single child. In counting the total number of abuse reports these data overstate the actual number of abuse cases. Costin et al. (1996:136) assert that the result is a 20% inflation of the actual incidence rate. This conclusion seems born out by a study conducted by Westat (1981) who found an incidence rate of child abuse in the USA of 22.6 per 1 000 children. By contrast the AAPC incidence rate was 32.8 per 1 000 children, 23% above the Westat figure (Costin et al. 1996:136).
   
    
6. Defining what we mean by child abuse and child neglect is an important yet difficult task. Moreover, how we use the term 'child abuse' in ordinary language often differs from legal and social science definitions. What one person defines as physical abuse, for example, another may view as necessary discipline for an unruly child. Physical abuse is often defined as inflicting physical injury by other than accidental means (Costin et al. 1996:5). Corporal punishment by contrast is 'the use of physical force with the intention of causing a child to experience pain, but not injury' (Straus 1994:4). Physical abuse and corporal punishment involve the use of violence in that both intend to cause pain and suffering (Straus 1994:7). Child sexual abuse involves a number of specific acts from fondling a child's sexual organs, vaginal intercourse and sodomy (including oral and anal intercourse). It may also involve an adult forcing a child to fondle his or her sexual organs and child pornography. Psychological abuse involves the attempt to inflict 'mental or emotional injury that results in the child's physical or emotional deterioration' (Costin et al. 1996:5). Child neglect is even a more ambiguous concept to define. Typically, a neglected child is one that lacks proper care and supervision from a parent or adult, or where the environment represents a threat to his or her health (Costin et al. 1996:5). Apart from these formal definitions there is another offered by Rabbi Lawrence S. Kushner. While he speaks specifically about 'parents' we could substitute 'adult'. In his address on the occasion of Yom Kippur, he argues that child abuse 'is when parents deliberately treat children as objects so as to gratify themselves. It is using a child for one's own pleasure, without regard to the child as an autonomous person . . . using them as lightening rods for our own misdirected hostility, manipulating their trust and love for our gratification against their will . . . The child is deprived of personhood, autonomy, spontaneity, the ability to respond freely and appropriately, sense of self worth and holy uniqueness' (1990:7).
   
    
7. Medical neglect of children has also been identified as a form of abuse associated with religion. The Jehovah's Witnesses, who do not believe in blood transfusions, and Christian Scientists, who often favour prayer over medical expertise and procedures, are perhaps the two most well known examples (Bottoms et al. 1995:88). Citing First Amendment protections against government intrusion in religion, these, and other religious groups, have generally retained the right to refuse medical treatment. This trend may be changing however as some states have successfully challenged these legal exemptions, especially when a child's life is placed at risk. (See for example, Skolnick 1994, on changes in Massachusetts' exemption laws following the death of two and a half year old Robyn Twitchell who died of a bowel obstruction after his Christian Science parents denied him treatment.)
   
    
8. These figures should be viewed with a certain amount of suspicion, however. Information collected relied heavily on individuals already undergoing therapy. Cases included were therefore selective, and the findings reported unrepresentative. It is worth noting however the relatively large number of sex abuse cases for both celibate and non-celibate clergy. This questions the view that the Church's policy of celibacy explains paedophilia among Catholic priests (see for example, Berry 1992).
   
    
9.  The noted author, sociologist and Catholic priest, Andrew Greely, wrote the following in the foreward to Jason Berry's book Lead Us Not into Temptation: Catholic priests and the sexual abuse of children: 'Bishops have with what seems like programmed consistency tried to hide, cover up, bribe, stonewall; often they have sent back into parishes men whom they knew to be a danger to the faithful . . . Catholicism will survive, but that will be despite the present leadership and not because of them' (1992:xiiv-xiv).
   
    
10. In 1979 I served as a teacher's assistant for a boy's ashram at the Los Angeles gurukula. In 1989, thinking about the young boys who I often took to the park and beach, I began an investigation of ISKCON's second generation. I began by interviewing seventy first-generation parents in four ISKCON communities in the USA Over the past eight years I have also interviewed dozens of second generation youth about their experiences in the gurukula. In 1992-3 I conducted a non-random survey of second generation youth in North America (N=87). I have also attended four gurukula reunions in Los Angeles and at New Vrindaban, and served as a member of ISKCON's North American Board of Education.
    
     
11. It was assumed that adolescent girls would marry at an early age and hence none were sent to India for further schooling. The rather 'primitive' living conditions in India also were deemed unsuitable for adolescent girls. At ISKCON's New Vrindaban community in West Virginia, for example, it was not uncommon for girls as young as thirteen to be married or betrothed in the late 1970s. When many of these marriages failed, and girls and their parents began to resist the idea of early marriage, adolescent girls began attending local public schools. Lacking secondary schools for girls within ISKCON, and with few other acceptable alternatives such as home schooling, schooling children outside became a solution, even if it was not always a preferred one. (For a discussion of how attending state-supported secondary schools has influenced the collective identity and religious involvements of ISKCON youth in North America, see Rochford forthcoming.)
    
     
12. In the midst of writing this article the teacher and Headmaster of the Vaisnava School for Boys in Alachua, Florida, was accused of sexually molesting four of his former students some 10 years ago. He admitted his sexual misconduct and left the ISKCON community in Alachua. The case was investigated by Florida State officials, as well as by the Alachua ISKCON community and ISKCON's Governing Body Commission (GBC). The school now only accepts day students, having disbanded its ashram in response to the molestation charges (Das, N. et al. 1998).
    
     
13. Relying on estimates of child abuse is especially tricky. For the fact is child abuse and children in general represent ongoing social and political issues within ISKCON. Dedicated 'moral entrepreneurs' (Becker 1963) are actively at work attempting to make child abuse and the plight of ISKCON's children a publicly defined social problem. As one might expect, many of those involved are young adults who attended the gurukula. Many were themselves abused. While opposition within ISKCON appears to be lessening, a few leaders and some other ISKCON members continue to argue that child abuse was only a minor and isolated problem involving relatively few children. I raise these issues here not to in any way diminish the seriousness of the abuse that took place. Rather, I want to underscore the fact that no one knows with any degree of precision how extensive child abuse actually was. Obviously, systematic research on this question is long overdue.
    
     
14. The reader will note that normally individual's names are avoided in order to maintain the anonymity of my interviewees. In a limited number of instances, where I quote from published sources, names are used, including the author's. However, in every case, I avoid using names of alleged abusers in published and unpublished sources, including the VOICE Web Page. The latter source is an internet site established by ex-gurukula students to expose the child abuse that they and their peers suffered. This web site has become very controversial within ISKCON. Because ISKCON leaders are concerned about the adverse public relations impact of VOICE, the latter has exerted considerable pressure on the leadership to respond constructively to the problem of child abuse in general, and to the young people abused as children.
    
     
15. It appears that sexual abuse of children was not limited to teachers and others working within the gurukula. There are reports that single renunciate men (brahmacaris) were involved in molesting children in India (Brzezinski 1997). Allegations also persist that some male leaders associated with the Mayapur, India, gurukula were involved in sexually abusing children (Brzezinski 1997; Prabhupada Anti-defamation Association 1993).
    
     
16. This situation contrasts sharply with other groups that have communalised children and child-rearing. In the Oneida community, founded in northern New York during mid-1800s by John Humphrey Noyes, children were also raised separate from their parents in a community school. Yet as Kephart explains this system of communal child-rearing was based on 'ample affection and kindness . . . [and] that childhood in the Old Community was a happy and exhilarating experience' (1963:268). This suggests that the communalisation of children and child-rearing is not in itself neglectful or abusive. (For a discussion of children in the Kibbutzim, see Spiro 1958; Talmon 1973.)
    
     
17. There is a fourth factor that I have been forced to forego considering here because of limitations of space. This involves a selective understanding of Prabhupada's views on disciplining children held by some teachers and others working in the gurukula. Simply put, some teachers felt that corporal punishment was fully sanctioned by Prabhupada as a means to deal with unruly children. And it appears that there is some evidence to support such a conclusion. Yet, a close inspection of Prabhupada's ideas on child discipline suggests that overall he was not in favour of physical punishment.
    It is worth noting however that Prabhupada's letters and conversations, now widely available from ISKCON's Bhaktivedanta Book Trust, were not available to any great degree during this period. Most members of ISKCON, including gurukula teachers, had limited and certainly incomplete information concerning Prabhupada's views on child discipline and other issues.
    
     
18. Ravindra Svarupa dasa (1994) states that Prabhupada refused to sanction any further marriages beginning in 1974. His 1972 letter suggests the decision came earlier, although it is possible that Prabhupada did not actively withdraw from marital concerns until sometime after the letter was written.
    
     
19. The findings reported should be taken as reasonable estimates rather than precise figures. Neither the 1980 or the 1991-2 surveys were based upon probability samples.
    
     
20. Prabhupada provided somewhat mixed messages on the spiritual status of householders. He often reminded his disciples that the entanglements associated with marriage and family made it 'difficult to make any progress in Krishna Consciousness' (Prabhupada 1992:852). The spiritual ideal therefore was to remain an unmarried renunciate. Yet Prabhupada also said that,
    
    . . . if you cannot [avoid sex life], then get yourself married, live with wife, but have sex only for progeny. Not for sense enjoyment. Therefore even [if] one is married, then the husband is also called brahmacari. Even though he is grihastha [householder]. And wife is called chaste (quoted in Devi Dasi, U. 1992:6).
    
     
21. This attitude continues to the present day. ISKCON's leaders remain hesitant to engage issues relating to children and family life, claiming that neither is the proper domain of sannyasis. The result is that leaders have essentially turned their collective backs on those issues most salient to the lives of ISKCON's membership. There is evidence that this stance may be changing however. See Das, B. in this volume.
    
     
22. During the 1970s and early 1980s it was common for marriage partners to be selected by the leadership with an eye toward reducing the likelihood that a particularly productive sankirtan devotee would be lost to his or her local ISKCON community (See Rochford 1997).
    
     
23. As one second generation devotee commenting on an earlier draft of this paper said. 'I agree one hundred percent. Every day in the morning, sankirtan scores [were] read out to inspire the devotees and praise the individuals who [did] good collecting money, or distributing the most books. Never, never ever [were] the teachers praised, or the kids who [did] good at school.'
    
     
24. It also resulted in long-term emotional consequences for some second generation youth. As one reported:
    
    We don't want to trust anyone else with our feelings, our emotions, our love . . . because we 'know' that that person will just turn around and hurt us . . . They'll leave, they'll reject us . . .'They don't really care about us . . . ' we think. I'm 26 years old. I'm still struggling to trust someone on an emotional, 'feelings' level, and to share my feelings with them. It's hard for me. Damn hard. Being raised by 26 parents/caretakers from age 7 to 15 makes it damn hard to place my love and trust in someone again. (Personal communication 1998)
    
     
25. Things became so bad financially that one winter the school ran out of funds for coal to heat the school. Realising that the GBC man responsible for the school was unlikely to help, the Headmaster was forced to call on some of his temple president friends for assistance. As he said, '. . . and they sent money just because they realised "Our friend is in need." '
    
     
26. Questioning of Prabhupada's role in the child abuse that occurred in the gurukula has only recently surfaced as an issue among second generation youth. In fact the VOICE Web page has given considerable attention to the issue. Those implicating Prabhupada charge that he knew that children were being physically punished, yet failed to directly intervene, or have leaders under him put a stop to such behaviour. It does seem clear from Prabhupada's letters that he was aware, as early as 1972, that physical punishment was being administered to children in the gurukula (see for example, Prabhupada 1992:797, 799). There is also evidence suggesting that he did intervene (Prabhupada 1992:797). In a 1972 letter to a disciple who had complained that her child was being mistreated in the gurukula in Dallas, Prabhupada wrote:
    
    But you may be assured that I am always anxious about the welfare of my disciples, so that I am taking steps to rectify the unfortunate situation . . . [C]hildren should not be beaten at all, that I have told. They should simply be shown the stick strongly. So if one cannot manage in that way then he is not fit as a teacher . . . [H]e must have two things, love and education. So if there is beating of child, that will be difficult for him to accept in loving spirit, and when he is old enough he may want to go away-that is the danger (1992:793).
    
    Yet physical punishment and various forms of abuse only escalated in the years to follow. Some former gurukula students believe that Prabhupada ' . . . did not implement appropriate measures to guarantee the safety of children in his movement from his disciples. [And] that the programmes he established and interpretations of his words greatly fostered an environment under which child abuse flourished' (Hickey et al. 1997).
    
     
27. This raises another issue about parental involvement. Many of those who attended the gurukula had less than close relationships with their parents. This may have dissuaded some from telling their parents of the neglect and abuse present within the gurukula, including their own abuse.
    
     
28. In one instance parents sending their child to the Vrindavan gurukula developed a strategy to circumvent the monitoring system in place. Responding to rumours about child abuse, and the censuring of student mail by the administration, the parents and child developed a code that would sound the alarm if harmful things were occurring. In a letter to his parents, the student would request pizza be sent to him through the mail. This served as a request to be removed from the school.
    
     
29. I am aware of one influential ISKCON member whose son was sexually molested.
    
     
30. It may be worth noting here that the state-supported school system in North America and elsewhere also serves the latent function of providing childcare. In my own community some parents were outraged when teachers at the local elementary school wanted to release students early one afternoon a month so they could discuss curriculum. Working parents were upset largely because they had to find alternative child care arrangements.

Jennifer Heinlein is an undergraduate student in Sociology and Anthropology at Middlebury College, Vermont, USA. She helped to research the literature on child abuse for the present paper.
 

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