Is Hare Krsna dasi being fair to Saranagati devotees?

[Guest guest]

Published on CHAKRA just now at http://chakra.org

 

Is Hare Krsna dasi being fair to Saranagati devotees?

 

By Vipramukhya Swami

 

CHAKRA (Saranagati, British Columbia, Canada) - November 24, 1999: Hare

Krsna dasi, who writes a regular column for Back to Godhead Magazine on cow

protection, says that devotees at Saranagati Farm in Canada are accepting an

$11,000 per year tax exemption in return for grazing beef cattle for

slaughter on their land and that this is wrong to do. But Balabhadra dasa,

ISKCON's cow protection minister, doesn't agree with Hare Krsna dasi's

perspective and thinks the devotees at Saranagati are doing the best they

can under the circumstances.

 

The Saranagati farm is located in beautiful British Columbia, Canada. It's

about a four hour drive North-East from Vancouver, Canada and about a six

hour drive north from Seattle. Yamuna devi dasi lives there. So does Visaka

devi dasi and her husband Yadubara. They are senior disciples of Srila

Prabhupada who recently relocated to this remote part of Canada. Besides

these newcomers, Saranagati is resident to over 100 devotees who live in

about 25 homes along their five mile long, 1700 acre valley.

 

As for cows, the Saranagati corporation owns only one cow. Besides that

there are about 20 cows or oxen owned by individual members of the

corporation as homesteaders which do not belong to the corporation.

 

Saranagati is unique in that it is not owned by ISKCON, but by a corporation

called Saranagati Village Holdings, Inc. which is owned by shareholders.

Originally purchased by Bahudak dasa for ISKCON, it was later sold to

Saranagati Village Holdings which is comprised of the devotees who have

"bought into" the project. Shareholders own a piece of the farm and

participate in shareholder meetings. As such, there is no GBC for Saranagati

because it is not technically an ISKCON owned or controlled farm.

 

But even to call Saranagati a farm is not completely accurate, because it is

not a farm in the traditional sense. There isn't any farm. Rather there are

individual devotees who, along with their share, receive 5 acres of land

upon which they may build a house and grow a garden.

 

In some cases, if approved by the shareholders meeting, they may also have

an animal such as a cow or a horse, as long as the shareholders are

convinced the individual devotee is willing to make a long term commitment

to take care of it.

 

And then there is the issue of telephones and electricity. There isn't any.

Saranagati is in a remote part of the geographically 3rd largest country in

the world, and there isn't phone or electricity service to all of the more

remote areas. Whatever electricity exists is made by personal generators for

individual homes.

 

And yet they do have Internet access because the government has put a school

on the land and Internet access was achieved by the school through a

satellite link.

 

Because the school located on Saranagati land is run by the local government

school board, it is tuition free. Only devotee children attend the school.

 

But there is controversy. Hare Krsna dasi, who writes a regular column for

Back to Godhead Magazine on cow protection, says that devotees at Saranagati

Farm in Canada are accepting an $11,000 per year tax exemption in return for

grazing beef cattle for slaughter on their land.

 

"What is a horror to me and to just a few other devotees who own stock in

Saranagati, is that each year the Saranagati Corporation provides a letter

to the owner of the cows for his signature. This letter states that

Saranagati land is used for cattle grazing for his cows. With this letter

Saranagati is able to file tax returns as grazing land or farm property,

thereby reducing our property taxes from an estimated eleven thousand

dollars per year to under five hundred dollars. This is formally called our

Farm Status."

 

She has been on a campaign to get the practice stopped and sending messages

to many COM conferences and devotees around the world.

 

But is Hare Krsna dasi telling the whole story or a distorted version of the

story?

 

Balabhadra dasa, ISKCON's minister for cow protection, doesn't think Hare

Krsna dasi has got the story right. After reading the report contained in

this article, he said, "First, I would like to thank you, Bala Krsna das and

Hari Lila dasi, for taking the time to present a report on the situation at

Saranagati. By straightforward communications all rumors are put into proper

perspective. It seems that this is an insurmountable problem with the range

cattle, and I agree with you that the residents of Saranagati have done what

they can to deal with it."

 

To get to the bottom of the story, CHAKRA interviewed Saranagati shareholder

and resident Bala Krsna dasa and Hari Lila dasi. Hari Lila is in charge of

the Saranagati financial accounts.

 

They confirm that the actual Saranagati corporation owns only one cow and

besides that there are about 20 cows or oxen owned by individual members of

the corporation as homesteaders which do not belong to the corporation. Bala

Krsna dasa reports that all the individual devotees who own their own cows

are prepared for winter, including the one cow owned by the Saranagati

corporation. They have ample salt licks, hay, etc.

 

The devotees here have made a conscious effort to keep the number of cows

low because they are aware that in other communities they have too many cows

that have not been taken proper care of and a great deal of abuse of cows

has taken place as a result. Any increase of cows at Saranagati is based on

individual devotees being able to make a long term commitment to take care

of them and is communally discussed before any devotee acquires a new cow,

bull or oxen. Bala Krsna says devotees at Saranagati are conscientious of

building the proper infrastructure for cow protection before acquiring many

cows.

 

As for the karmi beef cattle that graze on Saranagati land for about 2

months a year, Bala Krsna says it is a complicated situation and it takes a

little time for people to grasp. He says it is bureaucractic nonsense that

the devotees here have to deal with. He explains it below.

 

"In British Columbia," says Bala Krsna, "there is the 'Agricultural Land

Reserve' or 'ALR.' The idea is any land that is appropriate for agriculture,

including cattle ranches, has to be protected from subdivision and housing

development which would destroy the agricultural development of the land."

 

Bala Krsna and Hari Lila report that Saranagati's 1700 acres is almost

entirely within the ALR boundaries. "Not only that, but the Saranagati land

is legally divided into 5 sections. Each section, in the view of the

government is viewed as a separate farm. These 5 separate farms, even though

within ALR land, is not classified as a farm unless there is a certain

amount of agricultural activity according to the government's definition -

and in this case this agricultural activity must be going on within the

boundaries of 5 separate farms. Each farm has to separately qualify as a

farm by selling commercially viable produce according to a strict and narrow

government definition. Even if one of those 5 parcels of land were to

qualify, all of the rest would not qualify. Each of the 5 farms at

Saranagati has to qualify individually."

 

Unfortunately, it so happens that Saranagati is within a cattle-ranching

district. "All the crown land (government land) is classified as range

land," Bala Krsna says. "Neighboring ranches have leased that land from the

government as range land to connect with their ranches. They don't own it

but they have rights to range their beef cattle."

 

He says that these cattle are ranging in our area and they naturally wander

on to Saranagati's private land. "It's been impossible so far to fence them

out."

 

According to Canadian law, it is not the duty of the ranchers to fence out

range animals but rather the responsibility of private owners of land to

fence them out if they desire. Hari Lila says that Saranagati is too big to

build such a fence. It is over 5 miles long and would require 15 miles of

fencing.

 

"Every year the devotees attempt to fence off the entrance to the valley,

but the big karmi bulls just break right through the fences," Hari Lila

says.

 

Bala Krsna says it is important to note that beef cattle are a little

different than dairy cows in their ability to break fences. "They are

strong, determined animals."

 

"These animals eat the devotees hay and create many other problems, and to

date devotees have been unable to get them out because they break through

the fences," adds Hari Lila dasi.

 

Hari Lila, who acts as the treasurer for Saranagati Village Holdings, says

they are not taking money for beef cattle grazing on Saranagati land. The

neighboring rancher, who they have friendly relationship with, has agreed to

sign a paper stating his beef cattle are allowed to graze on Saranagati

land.

 

"Of course," says Bala Krsna, "this is untrue. We don't 'allow' them to

graze on Saranagati land. In reality, we can't stop them from grazing here

and they are grazing whether devotees want it or not. It's not a question

that they are 'allowed' to graze on Saranagati land."

 

Bala says, "This silly letter satisfies the tax man to qualify the farm as a

farm, and they save thousands of dollars a year and keep Saranagati from

being lost to the government in high taxes." He says it is only beaurocratic

nonsense and a meaningless signature. They can't keep the cattle out anyway.

 

The important point to understand, report both Bala Krsna and Hari Lila, is

that there is no agreement to allow these animals to graze on Saranagati

land. Neither the devotees nor the cooperative rancher who is friendly with

devotees can get the animals off Saranagati land when they want to crash

through. It's not an agreement to allow them to graze. It is the reality

that they are grazing. The letter signed by the rancher is only his offer to

help the devotees get a tax break as a friendly gesture on his part. The

letter has no meaning except that it convinces the tax man to charge less in

taxes, they claim.

 

"To qualify for farm status for these 5 farms in order to get the tax break

that farm status brings, is otherwise almost impossible," Hari Lila says.

"Saranagati pays about $10,000 a year in taxes to the government. All the

devotees who live here live very simply. Hardly anyone who lives here has a

lot of money. Devotees are trying to live off the land. Without the farm

status the taxes would be about $18,000 a year."

 

She says it's not a question of having the money. "Devotees here don't have

money. They pay the government as much as they can pay, but they don't have

the extra money to pay the government if there were no farm status."

 

Bala Krsna says the farm might well be lost because they could not pay the

high government bills.

 

It isn't a situation they feel they can change.

 

Even if they could somehow build a huge stone wall, it would have to be 15

miles long (5 miles on each side up and down and allowing for some zig

zagging). "And if that could be done, which isn't practical, it would mean

paying hundreds of thousands of dollars over the years in increased taxes as

a penalty from the government for not meeting their narrow definition of ALR

land," Bala Krsna says.

 

But even if they could pay the taxes and keep the cows out, it is not a

possibility to build such a structure, "so why should we have both the cows

and the taxes?"

 

In answer to one of Hare Krsna dasi's arguments, "Why don't you take the

$11,000 you get as a tax break each year for building a fence," they first

of all point out that it's not an $11,000 tax break. The figure is

exaggerated. "Anyway Saranagati Village Holdings doesn't have any money to

set aside. We are poor."

 

Even if they could somehow build an impenetrable wall, which they say they

can't, Hare Krsna dasi's idea would cost the devotees hundreds of thousands

of dollars over the years in increased taxes, Bala Krsna points out.

 

But Hari Lila frowns when Bala Krsna keeps bringing up the money aspect. She

says the main point isn't the money. It isn't possible to build an

impenetrable wall 15 miles in length here and therefore they would still

have the karmi beef cattle because they just come in anyway. "It does not

solve the problem." She says the point is that the animals break whatever

fences they put up or just find a way to walk around them.

 

Devotees here say they are deeply offended because they feel other devotees

don't recognize that there are mature, senior devotees who would never think

of harming cows. They feel Hare Krsna dasi especially is making offences to

them and they take strong objection to her public messages. They are angry

with her specifically.

 

"One long time solution might be to try to qualify for commercial farm

status by growing commercial food, but this is not in line with their goals

for self-sufficiency by each devotee growing enough produce to live off the

land," Bala Krsna says. "Unfortunately the government of Canada does not

recognize self-sufficiency as land qualifying for farm status."

 

Saranagati devotees say they are not hurting the cows. "These karmi beef

cattle come on to their land and we can't keep them out because of the

immensity of the Saranagati project. All the devotees are trying to do is

live within the means that they have and the government is trying to charge

them huge amounts for living a self-sufficient life style."

 

"The beef cattle do extensive damage to Saranagati property and crops,"

reports Lola devi dasi who lives in Vancouver. "I spoke with Bhava dasa who

told me fencing does not even stop the bulls who can get through almost any

fence, unless electrified. He said the bulls ravaged Bala Krsna's alfalfa

field which much money and time had been spent on, for one example." So is

Hare Krsna dasi telling the full story, or is her story distorted according

to a particular view point that she has chosen to adopt? You decide.

 

© CHAKRA 24-Nov-1999