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As many readers of this journal know, there has been
considerable media interest generated by my article, "Child
Abuse in the Hare Krishna Movement: 1971-1986." Although I
anticipated some interest on the part of the media, I never imagined
the extent of media coverage that was to occur. In this short essay
I want to reflect further on the issue of child abuse in ISKCON
and address the publicity generated by my article. I also want to
comment briefly about what has happened within ISKCON in the wake
of widespread understanding that children were previously abused
in the movement's schools.
I would like first to draw the readers attention to
the title of the original article. The dates, "1971-1986"
are significant. The paper I wrote is ultimately historical. It
tells about child abuse within the context of an institution (the
ashram-gurukula) that, for all practical purposes, no longer exists
within ISKCON. Apart from two schools in India and a small secondary
school for young women in Florida, there are no ashram-based schools
remaining. Yet some in the media, and therefore the public, have
implicitly and wrongly assumed that child abuse is a recent or present
problem within ISKCON. I have no evidence to support such a view
and I certainly never cited any in my article. While it may be true
that some ISKCON children presently face abuse, there is no reason
to assume that the incidence of abuse or the circumstances under
which it takes place in any way differ from mainstream societies.
My point here is that the story told in my paper is about the past,
not about the present or some projected future. It is a report that
represents an excursion in historical sociology.
I suspect many people believe that the story emerged
on the front page of the New York Times simply because child abuse
and religion is always "news." Obviously child abuse within
various religious groups and denominations, such as the Catholic
Church, has created headline making stories in recent years. Yet,
in the present case, this is only one aspect of the story, and not
necessarily the most significant one. I find it interestingly ironic
that a story about child abuse and the Hare Krishna movement would
appear on the front page of the Times on the very day that the headline
revealed an "open-ended impeachment inquiry" of President
Clinton. Here we have a headline story about a President who apparently
lied under oath about his own sexual conduct. At the bottom of the
same front page we have another story about a "controversial"
religious group that is telling the truth about past child abuse.
In other words the President of the United States, whom we might
assume would be forthright and honest, was lying to the American
people while the Hare Krishna's were telling the truth about a dark
part of their past. I can only guess that the Times editors were
aware of this irony and, precisely because of it, chose to put the
child abuse story on the front page with the byline "Hare Krishna
Movement Details Past Abuse at Its Boarding Schools" (see New
York Times, Friday, October 9, 1998). Indeed the story here was
largely about the surprising willingness of a "controversial"
religious group to tell the truth, even when an American President
apparently wouldn't. Many many members of the media, who called
me for interviews about my paper, including the New York Times reporter,
started by asking, "Why did the Hare Krishnas come forward
with this story about child abuse in their own journal? Why would
they tell the world about such a troubling part of their past?"
To most journalists this was the story. Without this news angle,
I think there is every reason to believe that the child abuse story
would have been a page three article, or even buried in the religion
section of the newspaper. Yet making the front page of the Times
signaled to the worldwide media that this was a major story which
obligated them to cover.
Let me reflect further on a few other matters neither
included in my article, nor fully in the accompanying one by Bharata
Shrestha Das. First let me say that I am, and have been, a member
of ISKCON's North American Board of Education. I was asked to take
on this position in 1991. At the time I was researching for another
book on the movement dealing with family life and ISKCON's second
generation. Because of this, some educators who were members of
the Board thought I might be able to contribute usefully to their
efforts to improve education within ISKCON. After some initial hesitation
I decided to take their invitation.
Because of my participation on ISKCON's Board of Education,
and from my own research, I have come to appreciate the commitment
of ISKCON's educators toward the movement's children. During a time
when resources are scarce throughout the movement, it has often
proven difficult for ISKCON's educators, and others committed to
improving ISKCON's schools, to make needed changes. Despite challenging
circumstances improvements have been made, with an eye toward protecting
children and making them productive citizens. ISKCON now has an
International Office for Child Protection, it screens candidates
for teaching positions in ISKCON schools and children, movement-wide,
are taught about child abuse and what they should do if someone
mistreats them emotionally, physically, or sexually. Moreover, when
an ISKCON school has been found lacking in its efforts to protect
children, it faces probation or, in one instance, has been pressured
by the leadership to close down, or face being decertified as an
official ISKCON school. The movement's leadership has also been
a force behind the creation and funding of "Children of Krishna"
an organization whose purpose is to help young people who were formerly
students in ISKCON's ashram-based gurukulas. Because of this initiative,
young men and women abused as children have been helped with counseling,
funds for vocational training, college study, and the like. The
tragedy of child abuse within ISKCON has thus resulted in a number
of positive changes that have helped protect ISKCON's children,
and lent support to those young men and women abused years earlier.
Yet child abuse has been directly instrumental in bringing
about a fundamental change in ISKCON's identity and purpose as a
religious organization. As I said in my article, child abuse occurred
within ISKCON in part because children and families weren't sufficiently
valued. This has changed considerably in recent years. Within ISKCON
communities worldwide one hears a great deal about "social
development." Social development has become a mantra recited
over and over by devotees in and outside of ISKCON. What social
development means quite simply is the support of family life. How
can ISKCON find ways to better integrate and meaningfully support
families in its communities? This year, ISKCON's Governing Body
Commission (GBC) created a new ministry devoted specifically to
social development. Also created in recent years; the Grhastha Ministry,
the Youth Ministry, and the Women's Ministry, all were established
to respond to the needs of parents, women, and children. These and
other efforts are directed toward bringing family life into the
mainstream of ISKCON, culturally and religiously. And, in fact,
as I have argued elsewhere, ISKCON's fundamental unit of social
organization today is the family; communalism having given way to
the nuclear family in most locations. Without meaning to suggest
that child abuse, by itself, brought about these changes, there
still can be little doubt that it has forced leaders and rank and
file members alike to rethink what ISKCON represents as a religious
organization. Married people and their children have increasingly
come to the front and center of ISKCON life. Indeed they represent
the movement's future.
I know many ISKCON members have been dismayed and distressed
by the publicity generated by my article in ISKCON Communication
Journal. I also have been taken-back by the reaction. I think it
important to be reminded however that the publicity generated was
as much a result of ISKCON's candor about what happened as with
the child abuse that occurred. Now, I believe, ISKCON must go forward
full-steam in its efforts to protect children and build a system
of education that nurtures the lives of ISKCON's future hope. Like
you, I pray that this will be the lasting legacy of child abuse
within the Hare Krishna movement. All best wishes.
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