Vrindavana Gurukula, 40 Years of Child Abuse Cover-up and Counting, Part 3
BY: SANAKA RSI DAS
Dec 06, 2011 — ITALY (SUN) — This is the third part of a series of four articles on the current child protection hazard posed by the lack of concerned and qualified individuals amongst ISKCON's child protection authorities in general, and more specifically amongst the Vrindavana Gurukula Staff.
This third part is composed of a letter sent to me by His Grace Deena Bandhu prabhu ACBSP, and a comment written by Jaya Dayini mataji, one of the academic teachers in the Vrindavana Gurukula, on a facebook thread to one of the previous articles in this series.
From: Deena Bandhu (das) ACBSP (Vrindavan - IN)
Date: Tue, Nov 29, 2011 at 1:30 PM
Subject: Radhe Shyam!
My dear Sanaka Prabhuji,
Please accept my humble obeisances _/\ò_. All glories to Srila Prabhupada!
I'm sorry I missed getting much association with you when you were in Vrindavan. I was busy with parikramas and then became quite ill with a serious chest infection.
I was very happy to see your reports on the Vrindavan Gurukula. I myself was quite surprised to see that such a large Gurukula was turned over to such young and inexperienced boys to run. But since they put up the wall, I don't have much contact with what is going on over there. And I was surprised that Lila Purusottama was put in charge as I knew he had important service in Kanpur. Sure enough, the authorities in Kanpur did not let him go to Vrindavan, so it was finally agreed he could come a couple of days a month! So then everything fell on the shoulders of Radhakanta. Now they are both very nice devotees and all, but it seemed like total irresponsibility on the part of whoever decided to put 300 lives under this young boy's care!
Just recently while on parikrama I was discussing with a recent graduate of the school (I can't call it a gurukula!) and I was telling him that one of the problems of the early Gurukulas was that young and inexperienced people were running them. They didn't know what to do as the incidents of abuse came up and in their immaturity tried to cover things up, fearing that they would lose their service and the schools would get a bad name.
He looked at me and said that history is going to repeat itself! Again we have very young inexperienced people running the school. And again they are more interested in their reputation, rather than the protection of the students. He said that the authorities made a
student council, of which he was a part, to try to monitor and discipline the boys. The idea being that students have a better idea what's going on with the boys than the teachers would!
Sure enough they found out so many things. Of course, now that it is not a gurukula but a karmi school with 99% karmi kids, they found out boys smoking and drinking within the school! What was the reaction of the authorities?? They disbanded the student council realizing that their reputation would be spoiled if this got out!
In an email yesterday, he confirmed what was in your report, and had felt helpless to do anything about it. He was very glad you were pursuing it. He added that while he was at the school, he saw with the new management "externals and money alone were becoming the primary concern."
In recent years the Gurukula has pushed to get more and more rooms that are currently occupied by temple devotees. Their argument has been that they need the extra rooms to accommodate more students to be able to break even financially. There has been too much emphasis on money and not enough on the children.
I also have seen that most Indians have no understanding of the CPO or its importance. It's just not in their blood! Partly because of this, we will never know the real extent of the horrors of the abuse that took place in the Vrnindavana & Mayapura Gurukulas. The western kids talk about it, but mostly the Indians are ashamed to say anything. I remember a God-sister from the USA was sponsoring a Nepali boy __________ so that he could attend the Vrindavana Gurukula. This boy was abused and later turned himself into an abuser. When she was trying to get info from him, his refrain was 'Mataji, we don't talk about these things.' Even she tried to convince him that it was for the future benefit of students to come that these things and persons need to be exposed, he just hid behind his refrain.
Whoever selected the current management for the school thought that by putting some academically qualified people in charge they were making a smart move! These fellows are not ill intentioned, they lack maturity, experience, training, and an understanding of the history of Vrindavan Gurukula. Radha Kantha prabhu, with his qualifications can easily secure a job that will earn him a handsome wage for Indian standards (80 or 90 thousand Rupees a month). Academically he is very qualified, but he does not have the qualifications and experience to hold such position. It is not his fault, the people that are to be blamed are the ones that put him in this position.
But to me the biggest sin, is that with the reputation of the Vrndavana Gurukula, there was no CPO rep for the last 2 years. Even I didn't know that Nirguna Mataji had quit. What is the CPO doing?? They're not getting any reports from such a hot spot and they don't make a big fuss about it??!
Anyway, good luck! I have seen how hard it is for you to get anything done with these people. And a good part of the problem is that now it's just a karmi school with karmi kids, hardly any devotee kids, no one really pays any attention to the school any more.
In service of Srimati Vrinda Devi,
Deena Bandhu dasa
From: Jaya Dayini dd
I can confirm this – yes, I know it must be true because Tejasvini matani has behaved in a very strange fashion with me and the other teachers who tried to give her suggestions on how to carry out her service.
I serve in the academic department and have nothing to do with the ashram, but I have always seen that she had a strange behaviour, in a morbidly closed manner she interacted with the children as if "they belonged to her, as if she "owned" them.
I have no personal experience with the small children because I teach to the older boys, I am therefore not in a position to confirm the specific details, but Vrajabhumi is a friend of mine and I have heard her express her disappointment with Tejasvini's behaviour and for the fact that RK (Radha Kanta) and company did not want to listen to her concerns.
I am also aware that there is a sort of Orya (individuals from the Indian state of Orissa) Mafia in the Vrindavana temple. They favour each other, this happens amongst the brahmacaris and the temple management and in the Gurukula.
I am working in the Gurukula becuse Ananda Vrindavana asked me to serve in the capacity of English program coordinator, but I am about to quit because way too many things are wrong in the whole system. Both on this level and on the educational department – everything is managed with too much superficiality, without being aware of the gravity of having the life of these children in their hands...
I will be in the States till the end of December. At the moment I am doing long-distance teaching to the children online and working on other projects for the school – I just spoke with Radha Kanta, I'll see what I can do from here to help the situation – I felt so sick
when I learned what that psychotic (Tejasvini) has done, and that nobody is doing anything about it.
Vrindavana Gurukula, 40 Years of Child Abuse Cover-up, Part 2
Vrindavana Gurukula, 40 Years of Child Abuse Cover-up, Part 1
