Romapada Swami more Interested in
"Milking The Indians" in Chicago
BY: KISHORE KISHORI DASA
Feb 21, 2011 — CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, USA (SUN) — Since this very shrewd and questionable character of a sannyasi has been the GBC here in Chicago, so many good devotees have been either driven out of the temple, censored by him over the years, or replaced by his own "yes men". It is sad about the state of affairs here in this once thriving sankirtan temple, but it only reflects the operational focus being to "milk the Indians" for money and tithe them to a "sannyasi" from New York.
Yesterday's Sun article, "The Chicago Cloud", illustrated some of the disillusionment of the devotees, and I feel that much more should be added in support of the devotees who are no longer cared about, but who still live in the greater Chicago area.
There is one very wonderful devotee in our Chicago community, a Prabhupada disciple, Kalki das, who used to be the Temple President, and his good wife who for many years was the head pujari of our beloved Deities. Devotees here loved them when they were in charge, and they worked very selflessly in nicely managing Sri Sri Kishore Kishori's temple. Today, although they are living only a few blocks away from the temple, they have not even visited the temple for years because of Romapada Swami's impersonal, unethical, and "cold" management tactics. No encouragement nor apologies have ever been made by Romapada Swami to bring these devotees back into the temple fold. They are just ignored so as not TO get in the way of Romapada's plans and politics.
Romapada Swami's mistreatment of them and other wonderful devotees in Chicago, who have quietly moved to the sidelines over the years, reflects the cold heart of someone who is rumored to be making private fortunes in lending money to individuals and temples, money which he has amassed from donations over the years. He has even become the butt of Hindi jokes, as the "Jewish rupee lender". This is not the true business of someone in the renounced order of life. Why does the international GBC condone this kind of behaviour? Unfortunately, the innocent Indian people show respect to anyone wearing the saffron cloth, even though they may be a wolf in sheep's clothing.
A few years back, some of our outside grihasta community arranged for participation with a grand sankirtan in the largely attended Martin Luther King Day parade. Almost a million people attend the yearly parade. When Romapada Swami learned that these devotees, on their own and with no organizational help from the Chicago ISKCON temple, had gathered 200 congregational devotees to chant in the festival the glories of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Romapada Swami offered that he could be in charge if we wanted. But we did not want someone to get the fame and credit, with no love for the devotees.
To expand his money empire even further, ten years ago Romapada Swami started his very own temple called ISKCON of Greater Chicago, and bought a big house that cost nearly one million dollars, in a heavily populated and posh Hindu suburb. Some very wonderful devotees of our own community who were in charge there, rumored to be disappointed in Romapada Swami's mood of wanting to collect more and more money for himself, have abandoned the Swami's personal project and are today preaching the sankirtan elsewhere.
We are not very hopeful about Srila Prabhupada's real mission in this third largest city in the USA.
