Editors Note: This article is in response to some articles being posted in various websites which support the ISKCON Guru Camp.
It was the 3rd year of medical school which involved clinical postings in the hospital, and we were excited at being able to see patients. There had been no second year, so to say. The first year which actually went on for 1 ½ years had been simply terrible. Anatomy was such a vast and volatile subject with so many different subsections like embryology, histology, gross and microscopic anatomy. I would be weep not only in the dissection hall because of formalin soaked cadavers that we had to dissect, but also in the solitude of my room where different parts of the human skeleton scattered around me reminded me of how little I knew about osteology. And just when I would begin to memorize the course of the damn median nerve in the forearm, thoughts of branched chain amino acid metabolism from biochemistry would pop up and I would feel a deep sense of hopelessness. There was no way I could remember all these subjects! However I had miraculously managed to clear the first year and here I was all geared up to see patients and bring them solace. It was a week into psychiatry postings when the HOD gave us all individual cases to work up. My patient was a 30 year old engineer who was certain that his co-workers were scheming against him and were out to get at him by some fraudulent means. He began to feel that there was such a big conspiracy that he could think of nothing else. To make the long story short he had a condition called paranoid schizophrenia.
Paranoid schizophrenia is one of several types of schizophrenia, a chronic debilitating mental illness in which a person loses touch with reality (psychosis). One of the classic features of paranoid schizophrenia is having delusions. About a year back I began to read fairly often in newspapers charges being leveled specifically against Sri Madhu Pandit Dasa whom I hold in very high esteem. These were immature, passionate, emotional outbursts centered on the same theme “conspiracy”, “fraudulent amassing of properties and assets by Sri Madhu Pandit and family”. I was surprised to see that these statements to the press were being made in the name of ISKCON Mumbai. Soon it became obvious that there was an insane, deeply troubled mind at
work behind these press releases. That insane mind was dangerously obsessed with Madhu Pandit Dasa. The obsessions were being manifested as these repetitive newspaper allegations against Madhu Pandit Dasa that lacked objectivity. A pattern of delusional thinking was also quite obvious in the repetitive framing of baseless charges with same vocabulary, “conspiracy, amassing wealth by family”. I was reminded of my very first psychiatry patient with paranoid schizophrenia who was convinced that his co-workers were conspiring against him. Today Sri Madhu Pandit Dasa is highly respected for his dynamic leadership of the movement started by Prabhupada, and has been instrumental in envisioning and implementing numerous flagship projects. I contribute regularly to the movement because the leadership has a vision, has constructive goals (not destructive like the other Madhu Pandit Dasa obsessed group) and is clean and dynamic. I would continue to contribute even if it is a “family run affair “as the Madhu Pandit Dasa obsessed group says. It is rare to find people of such integrity as Sri Madhu Pandit Dasa. It is not only I, but several thousands of people, hundreds of corporate headed by brilliant minds, which contribute regularly to various projects under Madhu Pandit Dasa’s leadership.
The faction that has been leveling these charges should realize, that we, the donors and life members of Srila Prabhupada’s ISKCON are not brain dead individuals bereft of discretionary capabilities to donate it some cheat or fraudster. Their assumption that everyone except their esteemed selves is incapable of proper judgment reflects heights of arrogance. Actions speak louder than words. What has this Madhu Pandit Dasa obsessed, so called ISKCON Mumbai group done for the people of this country, besides trying to destabilize major social service initiatives of Sri Madhu Pandit Dasa.