Should the GBC resign? A good question.

[Guest guest]

Good question. When the extent of the abuse started to come light in the

latter half of the 1980's, there was a big push to clean things up and

prevent future abuse. First there was research to understand the nature of

child abuse, how it happens, and why it's so wide-spread. The biggest lesson

learned was that if you want to prevent abuse, the children must be taught

to understand how they can be abused, that abuse is wrong, and if anyone

attempts to abuse them, they should tell an adult whom they trust. If they

are not believed at first, they must continue telling until they are

believed.

 

To that purpose, a manual on preventing and dealing with child abuse was

published and distributed to all schools, temples, GBC and other leaders,

etc. The schools were directed to copy the manual and give to all parents,

teachers, and other interested parties. The issue was heavily reported in

the ISKCON Education Journal, the ISKCON Gurukula Newsletter, and I believe

there was also an article in ISKCON World Review, though I can't remember

for sure. Once the schools began educating the kids, two thing happened: 1)

abuse that had been unreported, sometimes for years, very quickly came out

and many abusers were identified. Schools were directed to report abusers to

local law enforcement authorities where possible, and 2) by 1992, the number

of reported abuse cases dropped to a small fraction of what had happened

prior to 1989.

 

Of course, if a school or community chose not to follow the directives,

there was little that could be done about it. New Vrindaban is a good

example. There were a good number of persons there who did not want to

follow because it would have exposed their own crimes. So, it was simply

ignored. New Vrindaban was impervious to outside influence by anyone during

this period. Fortunately, the majority of schools and communities complied,

at least in significant part.

 

 

However, after 1993, certain substantial problems remained:

 

-- The organized effort was not followed up with the same aggressiveness.

-- Many abusers escaped punishment for reasons beyond ISKCON's control.

-- The previous effort was mostly focused on sexual abuse. The horror

stories of other kinds of mistreatment at still-open schools had not

surfaced in a major way. One former Vrindaban student recently told me that

the children simply didn't know that this mistreatment was abnormal. They

thought this was the way all schools were, so they didn't report it. There

are undoubtedly other reasons as well.

-- The dam broke when Dhanurdhara Swami tried to get reinstated as the

headmaster of Vrindaban gurukula. His former pupils rose up in frenzied

state of anger and indignation--and rightly so. Now, all the stories of the

non-sexual abuse started to pour out. It is at this time that most of the

devotees who are now following the story become consciously aware of the

issue.

-- ISKCON didn't do enough to deal with the problems and feelings of the

victims.

-- ISKCON failed to apologize and ask forgiveness from the victims.

-- Many devotees were extremely unsatisfied with how several high-profile

cases were handled, which gave the appearance that abusers were being

protected. However, this is not actually the case. I understand at least one

of these cases is currently being re-examined.

-- Certain leaders may have down-played the issue to the point of denial.

However, I've never seen anything to indicate this was the attitude of the

GBC body. Personally, I found the GBC pretty cooperative, as long as no

money was requested.

-- ISKCON was not in the position then to publicly name most of the known

abusers. A large number were never brought to trial because the civil

authorities decided not to prosecute for a variety of reasons. If an abuser

isn't tried and convicted, but ISKCON goes ahead anyway and public ally

calls him and abuser, then he can sue for defamation and libel and/or

slander. Since almost all the abusers would not be legally considered

"public persons," the onus would be on ISKCON to prove the charges are true.

If the prosecutor couldn't prove the case, how is ISKCON going to do it?

 

Individually, none of the above sounds so bad. But if you look at it all

together from the point of view a victim, the leadership can come off as

insensitive and uncaring. Out of the ensuing frustration and anger, the

lawsuit was born. I feel certain that if the leadership had acted quicker

and more responsively, this lawsuit would never have happened. But still, I

don't think we are looking at major crimes on the part of the GBC.

Unfortunately, major crimes were committed, but most of the perpetrators are

going to walk away scott-free -- at least until Krishna decides their time

for punishment has come. And in the past, Krishna has shown ISKCON just how

much more clever He is at doing that then we could ever be.

 

I continue to be surprised and shocked every time I hear a new story.

 

 

Harsi.HKS (AT) pamho (DOT) net [Harsi.HKS (AT) pamho (DOT) net]

Friday, July 14, 2000 1:47 PM

Varnasrama development

RE: Should the GBC resign?

 

 

> No, that was not. ISKCON began dealing with its abuse problem in about

> 1987. It was not at all a secret, but was rather widely publicized.

>

> I've posed a question several times to individuals who repeat the charge

> that there was a conspiracy to cover-up the problem by the GBC: Can you

> please give the names, dates, locations, etc. of these conspiratorial

> events? So far, no one has provided the info. Perhaps you can tell us?

 

It was just a simple question which came into my mind, I have also no

evidence, was just wondering why many were so surprised and shoked, me

includet, about this things when the devotees who went to our schools were

revealing there experiences in 1996. If it,s true wat you are writing than

actually there would be nothing to fear from the law suite, or?

 

Ys, Harsi das