By: Vrindavan Dham Dasa, ISKCON Bangalore.
Hare Krishna.
I am Vrindavan Dham dasa serving in ISKCON Bangalore for over a decade; I have rendered various services in the temple from serving the deities and cleaning the temple to preaching and raising donations for various Srila Prabhupada centric projects of ISKCON Bangalore group of temples.
Sampradaya Sun has published an article by one Subala Dasa, http://www.harekrsna.com/sun/editorials/06-12/editorials8648.htm, which makes wild allegations against me and ISKCON Bangalore. I am surprised to see that Sampradaya Sun has published an article sent by a third person which specifically insinuates that I am a liar I am a mere puppet in the hands of Madhu Pandit Dasa I am deliberately kept in dark about the various issues concerning ISKCON Bangalore by MPD I and other general devotees in ISKCON Bangalore are prevented from fraternizing with congregation devotees All the above assertions are totally false and I am pained by the fact that Sun team has not cared to clarify with me on any of the above insinuations made but have published Subala’s article. Principles of natural justice entail that before concluding anything about a person one should first talk to him and take his side of the story. Sampradaya Sun has failed to practice ethical journalism by publishing Subala Dasa’s story without taking my side.
In wanting to increase traffic to their site the editors of Sampradaya Sun have published Subala’s article without consulting me. This act of theirs shows that they are totally unfair in their reporting and hell-bent on sensationalizing issues rather than report facts. They know ISKCON Bangalore has many followers and any posting about IB will give them more traffic. In their greed to get more traffic Sun has failed to follow the simple principle of morality – do not bad
mouth others or be party to such an act.
Subala Dasa tries to spread a web of misinformation around my meeting with Mr. Tumkur, consequent email and style of management on Hare Krishna Hill. Wish to present the facts to all the readers. I met Mr. Manju Tumkur, as he expressed his wish to receive more information about ISKCON Bangalore’s activities and how he could participate. I explained to him about the various projects of ISKCON Bangalore. We had good informative talk and most of the our discussion was about various initiatives of ISKCON like Akshaya Patra, Krishna Lila theme park, he was genuinely appreciative of ISKCON Bangalore’s programmes. He asked about the privileges of the donor I explained to him that the donor gets an opportunity to contribute to Krishna’s mission and that we offer some privileges like guest house stay as means to help donors to associate with our spiritual programmes. I also left behind with him a list of ISKCON Bangalore group of temples and other collaterals concerning our movement. We had to wind up our discussion and we could not extensively discuss all the aspects of the ISKCON Mumbai and Bangalore fight. This is what transpired in my meeting with him.
I am really surprised why Mr. Tumkur has stated in his email “You also did indicate that your facilities abroad are currently not being offered to Life Members because that they have been closed due to misuse of properties abroad…” only inference I can draw is that this misreading would have occurred primarily due to some communication gap or due to the fact that we could not extensively discuss the matter due to paucity of time.
The fact that ISKCON centres are harassing the donors of ISKCON Bangalore by not giving guest house to ISKCON Bangalore donors is already admitted by Subala Dasa himself in his article. He states, “ISKCON offers its facilities only to its members and not Madhu Pandit Dasa’s bogus society.” As if the donors enrolled in Bangalore are participating in some alien mission and not Srila Prabhupada’s mission. He wishes to deliberately misinform the readers as if the ISKCON Bangalore society was a figment of Madhu Pandit Dasa’s creation. But Subala should note even the High court has said that ISKCON Bangalore society was indeed registered. Civil Court in its order which had ruled in favour of ISKCON Bangalore had stated “…the registrar may, after giving a reasonable opportunity of being heard to the society, by an order, cancel the registration of such a society and direct its dissolution. In the suit on hand, it is not the case either of the plaintiff (ISKCON Bangalore) or the defendants (ISKCON Mumbai) that the Registrar of societies has cancelled the registration of the plaintiff…” (Para 65 of Civil Court Judgment on OS7934/2001 date 17th April 2009). Subala has just acknowledged in writing another direct example of harassment, obfuscation and alienation that devotees of ISKCON Bangalore are facing for having embraced Srila Prabhupada as their only guru in ISKCON.
In the past I have explained the dispute to donors and they have understood our stand and have agreed to contribute and many have even sympathized with our struggle against the impostor gurus of ISKCON. But due to lack of time I could not discuss the issues concerning the same at length. Post our discussion he has apparently searched the web about the dispute and found these anonymous sites mentioned in his email and has been totally biased against ISKCON Bangalore, which is understandable given that the sites which he has mentioned in the email give only twisted misinterpretations and it does not give a fair chance to ISKCON Bangalore’s side of the story. Thus his conclusion “…Your affirmations & statements during our meeting in our office were irrelevant, unconnected and inconsistent with those in reality” need not be taken
as final. It will not be totally out of place to say that his conclusion can change on hearing our side.
I have already replied to him via email but he has not yet responded, mostly he will be checking our side of the story and I am sure his legal team on hearing our side of the story will be in a better position to give a fair opinion.
I also wish to point out that sites which have been mentioned by Subala, links to which have been openly provided by Sun in the article are hate campaign materials. Readers will be convinced if they go thru it. I quote one such excerpt, “…Remember these prostitutes have been giving services uninterruptedly to Madhu Pandit Dasa…” It plainly accuses that MPD is associating with prostitutes, un utter blasphemous lie! I have quoted only one defamatory baseless statement, there are hundreds of such baseless lies and false propaganda in these sites and how can anyone not get confused on reading these sites? The fact that sites have not been pulled down does not mean that it is all truthful; this is a very flimsy argument to make. I checked with our IT team they told me that these sites have used “whoisguard” services, which means one cannot trace out who owns these sites. Initially the site was uploaded from somewhere in Croatia now where it is being uploaded from and who is uploading it is not traceable. The cowards who set up these sites have deliberately hid behind anonymity just so that they are not booked for libel; hence it is practically impossible to block these sites. The fact that it is remaining inspite of a complaint does not mean everything that is said on it is true. It is as absurd as saying that I am actually a thief but the fact that I am not yet caught by authorities means that I am innocent.
These sites are anonymous and they are very vituperative and obnoxious in their language and presentation. Whenever any reference to Madhu Pandit Dasa is made it is made with utmost contempt and prejudice. All of them hurl wild allegations without any proof. The website on Akshaya Patra claims that Madhu Pandit Prabhu is siphoning of thousands of dollars of the donations. They keep asserting misappropriation but do not show any evidence of bank accounts or assets in the name of Madhu Pandit Prabhu. On the contrary Madhu Pandit Prabhu has filed before a magistrate voluntary disclosure about his assets. All ISKCON Bangalore Governing council members file the voluntary disclosure of their assets so to say that anyone of them has siphoned off funds is a fly by night bogus propaganda. It may be recalled that a house committee (a ten member committee of legislators (Mlas) of Karnataka) gave a clean chit to ISKCON Bangalore. For more details click link 1 and link 2 By going to these proxy sites floated by agents of bogus impostor gurus of ISKCON effect will not be “Bangalore Public Finding out the Truth about Madhu Pandit dasa” as claimed by Subala Dasa. Rather they will get to know “False Propaganda of Unauthorized ISKCON Gurus”. The gurus are trying to build a smoke screen so that they can go scot free and go on exploiting the ISKCON machinery for their aggrandizement. Gurus have made Srila Prabhupada a figure head or a convenient vehicle for sustaining their fiefdoms.
Unfortunately Sampradaya Sun is giving space to these bogus propaganda mongers who hide behind false names. It is an open secret that ISKCON Mumbai’s gurus especially Jayapataka Swami and his disciples are behind these sites as they keep sending these links to various people in their emails. Even Jayapataka Swami in one email had said, “By the way, our new legal advisors have given us some new ideas that civil route is very slow, but the criminal route
is quicker. Madhu Pandit Dasa has good reputation, but it does not take long to lose it if we do criminal cases against him.” Jayapataka Swami (GBC member and one of the self-proclaimed gurus), (2001) email message TEXT PAMHO: 4259580.
Besides giving negative spin and not taking inputs from me Subala Dasa further lies and paints a picture that Madhu Pandit Dasa our president is some kind of control freak. He states “…to illustrate, the temple car they go "preaching" in is said to be driven by a paid driver who at the end of the day reports to Madhu Pandit's security apparatchiks exactly where they went and any stops they made. Thus any stop at a cyber café would be reported.” This is a total bluff till date neither Madhu Pandit Prabhu nor any of the temple leaders ever have called me and taken me to task for going to a cybercafé. They have not run a check on the calls I made nor where I have gone and questioned me or chastised me on these counts. All these are figments of Subala Dasa’s imagination. Subala Dasa wants to paint a picture that the management of ISKCON Bangalore on Hare Krishna Hill is in a state fear psychosis and trying to keep its flock together by autocratic means, hiding facts and arm twisting individuals and curtailing their God given freedom. Sorry this was never ethos by which the management on Hare Krishna Hill worked. It worked on the principle of inspiring everyone to follow the instructions of Srila Prabhupada. Leaders here are busy discussing how to expand the preaching they have no time for spreading gossip like Subala Dasa wants to do. Also there is a saying atmavatmanyate jagat, meaning I am like this so I expect everyone else to be similar.
Subala is having firsthand experience of management by bogus ISKCON Gurus whose style of management is one of fall in line or get out, which they have been doing to all rtviks and he thinks everyone manages in a similar way.
I am also preaching to congregation devotees and am trying my best to serve Srila Prabhupada to the best of my ability and purity. Devotees like Subala and some disciples of Jayapataka and Radhanatha Swami who are camped in Bangalore have no other work than to bad mouth the various preaching efforts of ISKCON Bangalore and disrupt its smooth functioning. In his article Subala qualifies the word preaching in quotes to indirectly snub me as if me going out to garner laxmi for various projects of ISKCON is something other than preaching. For a person infected with the disease of envy everything appears in a different perspective. He and disciples of Jayapataka and Radhanatha Swami are all of the same kind who only wishes to denigrate our services to Krishna and Srila Prabhupada. Instead of wasting everyone’s valuable time by spreading gossip and falsity they should focus on expanding preaching.
The websites mentioned in the article have the sole and sinister purpose of vitiating the minds of donors and well wishers of ISKCON and force them not to support the preaching. It aims to cut the lifeline of ISKCON Bangalore. This episode of Mr. Tumkur demonstrates it aptly; we have before us a live example of how misinformation spread by some hate sites can put road blocks in our society’s garnering of support. The only (dis)service that devotees like Subala being inspired by the unauthorized gurus of ISKCON are doing as clearly shown in this case is that they are preventing souls from contributing to Srila Prabhupada’s mission. The funny thing is he proudly states it also in his article. As far as ISKCON Bangalore is concerned these are temporary setbacks, when people understand the true intentions of ISKCON Bangalore temple they have confirmed and supported it. This is directly proved by the fact that inspite of various efforts of bad mouthing by guru camp the services in ISKCON Bangalore have only grown but
not diminished, by the blessings of Srila Prabhupada.
I am very confident that I will be able to convince Mr. Tumkur about the bonafides of our struggle against the unauthorized ISKCON gurus. I have already sent an email to him from my side. Please find below portions of my email. I have sent this article to Sun and to many websites hoping that they will publish and clear the misinformation. _________________________________________________________________
From: Vrindavan Dham Dasa Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2012 1:22 PM To: '[email protected]' Subject: Our Concerns about ISKON Bangalore Hare Krishna Sir, We deeply appreciate your concern for the temple.
But before making conclusions we request you to go through the attached file. It gives the synopsis of the differences between Mumbai and Bangalore ISKCON.
Regarding the websites like ISKCON BDA (Bangalore Devotees Association), you can see the links below in which various Bangalore devotees themselves disclaim their names in the website: http://www.harekrsna.com/sun/editorials/01-09/editorials3887.htm http://www.harekrsna.com/sun/editorials/01-09/editorials3866.htm http://www.harekrsna.com/sun/editorials/01-09/editorials3895.htm http://www.harekrsna.com/sun/editorials/01-09/editorials3873.htm http://www.harekrsna.com/sun/editorials/01-09/editorials3882.htm http://www.harekrsna.com/sun/editorials/01-09/editorials3897.htm In fact we had made a police complaint against these websites and one of the people who was posting has himself confessed: http://www.prabhupadanugas.eu/?p=2998 Regarding Akshaya Patra, after the allegations were made by DKS & Mumbai there was a house committee formed in which Akshaya Patra was given clean chit: http://www.daijiworld.com/news/news_disp.asp?n_id=93287 http://www.struggle-for-truth.org/articles/house-committee-exonerates-iskcon-bangalore- akshaya-patra/ Hence we request you to deliberate on the issue accurately. _______________________________________ The devotees of ISKCON-Bangalore are determined to stand together against all odds to see that ISKCON-Bangalore, a legally independent society registered in Karnataka, is dedicated unto Srila Prabhupada's service alone, and not for the self-aggrandizement of the self- proclaimed 'gurus'. ISKCON-Bangalore is Srila Prabhupada's society and only his will may prevail here.