Paper Tigers

In the past day or so it has come out that Gauri das, temple president of Bhaktivedanta Manor, was found guilty of child abuse. I'm sorry to see another embarrassment for ISKCON. I don't personally know Gauri das or have any experience with either Bhaktivedanta Manor or the Vrndavana Gurukula; however, his restrictions look a little familiar. Precedent has shown that these restrictions can be easily ignored. I wonder if that is still true.

Others can comment on the case of Gauri das. What I want to say is that ISKCON would appear a lot more credible as a spiritual society if we made sure these kinds of things didn't happen, but if they somehow did happen, that we not promote the perpetrators, and in any case we need to strictly enforce the restrictions on those who are found guilty.

The brief statement on Dandavats gives more space to the paragraph emphasizing his accomplishments than to the paragraph indicating his abuse of children, and of course comments are not allowed. I don't really care how much so-called service a child abuser has done, rather I consider it disservice. One cannot even guess what service would have been done by any children who may have been driven away by abuse. How many members of the innocent public won't take one of Srila Prabhupada's books because of ISKCON's reputation of promoting child abusers and other criminals? Instead of banning the whistle-blowers, we really ought to consider how much we want abusers among us. If we can't prevent child abuse in our schools, then for the sake of our children, our preaching efforts, and our own tender devotional creepers, I would say we should ask the abusers to chant Hare Krishna at home.

I can hardly believe we're still dealing, or rather being confronted, with this kind of nonsense.