What’s Wrong with the GBC?
BY: Y. DOHPEN
May 05, 2011 — USA (SUN) — What has the world of Hare Krishna been presented with in the wake of the latest GBC Annual Meeting in Mayapur, 2011? A check of the GBC's semi-official e-mouthpiece notes the names of new members, new zones, etc. Whether these newly-empowered hopefuls are starry-eyed, ambitious power-seekers or genuine servants of the Transcendental Community remains to be seen. But we can't be blamed if we have come to understand that GBC history warrants a healthy dose of cynicism.
This year's GBC's report does not outline any factual plans for pushing on Srila Prabhupada's movement, increasing sales of his books, supporting Gaudiya scholasticism or recognizing Herculean tasks performed by the Society's many genuinely unmotivated devotee preachers. The message to the "other devotees" that is wafting through the Internet's e-ink is -- as it has been since the disappearance of the Sampradaya Acarya -- "Shut up and serve, you worthless peons." Their autocratic manner is the architect of a very clear two-tiered society. It is the old story of the haves and have-nots, and blind autocrats have a habit of setting themselves up for rebellion and revolution.
This year we learn that one of the GBC good old boys was given the trumped up title of "GBC Emeritus." We don't know if he got a gold-plated Seiko with that honor along with a brahmachary assigned to him as official guard-dog-servant-for-life. We can imagine that an all-expense paid vacation came with the honor (since many GBC members seem to revel in the profile of being on an eternally paid vacation that you chipped in for).
But along with such gentle pats on their own shoulders, the GBC has issued two humiliating letters. GBC Letter #307 is to former guru (what, pray tell, is "former guru") Umapati Swami, now officially Umapati das. Umapati was getting his feet washed in the Mayapur temple just last year, as seen on The Sun. Apparently foot wash soap is getting expensive: now he requires permission just to visit an ISKCON center.
The GBC's Letter #308 is to a member of the body who is apparently this year's recipient of the "GBC Sitting Duck Award," Bir Krishna Goswami. Well, everyone loves a scandal and devotees are no different. Our thanks to the GBC for the ongoing sap opera… I mean, soap opera.
There was a time when devotees in ISKCON loved their GBC members, and vice versa. The brilliantly effulgent Shyamsundar would arrive and devotees would crane their necks to hear what he had to reveal about Srila Prabhupada. Shyamsundar loved communicating his realizations about the World Acarya's latest savvy moves of saving a planet. Rupanuga taught a college course and made the entire class (almost) into devotees. Now the only word one hears whispered in the background when the topic of ISKCON's GBC arises is "politics." This, of course, means "dirty politics", and not the form of the word that is related to the word "polite."
The GBC members no longer have any charm or effulgence; they are dry as dust. They appear like a rule-conscious gathering of mid-level, by-the-book college instructors at a Midwest seminary. The official list of ISKCON gurus has all the charm of a dentist's office. The GBC is a public relations disaster, and since they don't drink coffee, that is probably why they won't wake up and smell it. Such holier-than-thou-ism never ran a spiritual organization, though it has proven a sound formula for running a continually-splintering church with a flock of slaughterhouse sheep for members.
To understand the term "politics" when it is aimed it in the direction of the GBC, we simply have to do a brief study of the British Empire and their colonization of the world, which continues today. Their foul methods of divide and conquer have spread like a virus to America, which today is the muscle of the One World not-so-hidden agenda centred in London. It is business as usual for the British Raja, but their agents are grinning Washington, DC salesmen for Haliburton posing as US politicians.
One of the ever-convenient tactics of the British Raja was to scare its own ranks into submission by executing a member of their own team when the dirty policies of the leaders became unmasked. That is why America launches a war on drugs and arrests street corner pushers while giving immunity to CIA cargo planes landing on secretive airfields with suspicious cargo. The charade keeps both the left hand as well as the right hand busy. That is why American can bomb itself to create wars whenever they are convenient and profitable.
One of the best exposés I've seen that reveals this policy of appointing a sacrificial goat out of one's own flock is the book Scapegoat for an Empire by Lieutenant George Witton. Lieut. Witton was an Australian national serving in the British Forces in South Africa. Scapegoat of an Empire was made into one of the best films that ever graced the silver screen, an Australian masterpiece entitled Breaker Morant. The true story is a simple one: Three Australians are ordered into battle during the Boer (Farmer's War) that pitted the British against the Dutch Africaans. When the British policies are disclosed, they blame their own men, who conveniently happen to be the Australians and not the English. Three Australians are tried and found guilty.
Witton is pardoned while the other two meet their maker at the wrong end of a firing squad. Witton returns to Australia and writes his book about one-sided British policies. One of the two executed men is Lieut. Harry Morant, who was known as "The Breaker" for his skill at taming wild horses. Wikipedia has plenty of information on the events surrounding the staged kangaroo court in which the men were found guilty. The eye of the historian doesn't miss the fact that the most visible and daring of the team, the Breaker was the one's whose life was terminated by the authorities as a lesson to the others that conformity is good. To understand the absolute politics of an "Ultimate Authority," see the movie.
Today, the GBC's letter of censure against Bir Krishna Goswami rings as loud as the Breaker Morant trial. In their letter, "your servants" on the GBC body have written for the entire world to see:
"In 1996, as GBC of ISKCON Hillsborough, North Carolina, you (Bir Krishna Swami) received a credible allegation that a member of the congregation had committed sexual abuse of a child some years earlier in another country. While some investigation was done, and some cautionary steps taken, you failed to properly report the incident to local authorities, or later to the CPO. Most significantly, the local community and householders were not notified or made or aware of this potential threat, contrary to ISKCON Law 3.5.5.1.3.9. This put the community at risk and created serious potential exposure to repetition of these incidents."
Apparently "ignorance of the law is no excuse" in ISKCON, just as it is in the totalitarian governments of the world. But the fact that ISKCON even has such a thick lawbook is news to me.
As we read in the letter, the offense took place some fifteen years ago. If the GBC body was so adept as it thinks of itself as the "Ultimate Authority", then why did not some other member of the GBC do a follow-up? Do they not share the guilt and the blame? And if the GBC member is to be publicly humiliated in this way, then why are not the actual crimes and their ramifications discussed in the public document instead of vague allegations and insinuations? Does the GBC enforce hard and cold laws that are executed based upon innuendo?
But the real nagging question is why the GBC has allowed Bhavananda to remain housed and fed in Mayapur and in Australia many decades after many never-refuted allegations of child molestation against him have never gone away? "Bhavananda Prabhu" continues to remain sheltered by his cronies and he is even listed on the planetarium as the Art Director. Are his talents as an art director more valuable than the lives of children? There is no justice in the GBC's Justice Committee when their actions tell us that to them, buildings are more valuable than devotees
From the Mayapur website, a current photo of the notorious "Bhavananda Prabhu", one-time "His Divine Grace Srila Bhavananda Maharaja Vishnupada, ISKCON GBC/Acarya" who has never answered to the scandalous charges made against him; charges that have rocked the Society for decades. To the left of Bhavananda is Ambarish das (Alfred Ford).
Therefore, should not the entire GBC body be censured? The censure against the GBC should be written in the same official-sounding, heartless, ice cold language that they have directed against their own member who, like the rest of the body, was asleep at the wheel. The situation is obvious and wide open. Like the Hans Christian Anderson children's tale, "The Emperor Has No Clothes", the GBC is being scrutinized by the entire Society. Only the GBC remains blind.
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