ISKCON has now become a place of faith and fear

The ISKCON temple opened its doors in London 50 years ago. It is located in SOHO, a place for devotion and peace amidst the city hustle. It is a religious organisation that provides spiritual knowledge and educates its followers on the same. Over the years, ex-devotees have opened up on the abuse cases that happen within the organisation. Krithika Iyer investigates to know more about these issues within the religious organisation.

By Krithika Iyer

A silent room filled with devotion and prayers. People are sitting on the floor meditating and waiting for the curtains of the altar to open up. The room has different paintings of Krishna and various quotes for the disciples to follow. One of the quotes read: “The best way to be recognized by Krsna is by preaching. The best way to preach is by distributing books. And the best time for distributing books is during the month leading up to Christmas- during the Prabhupada marathon.”

As the curtains are drawn, Sriprada Das the receptionist at the temple, who has been meditating in one corner, gets up to play the Dhol [a drum]. Everyone stands up and joins him to chant the mantras. A priestess is doing the aarti [a Hindu ceremony in which light is offered to one or more deities] inside the shrine. An idol of Krishna and Radha can be seen inside the shrine, which is decorated with flowers and Bhagavad Gita [Hindu scripture] books on the arch of the temple.

Video credits: Krithika Iyer

After the aarti, Sriprada goes downstairs to sit at the reception where he greets everyone by saying: “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna!” He has been a part of the ISKCON temple in London for 20 years. His first encounter with ISKCON devotees was in Croatia. This brought a complete change in his life. “I stopped doing all the things that I did in the past. I became a vegetarian, I stopped smoking and drinking,” he said reminiscing about his journey that began 35 years ago.

Reading the Bhagavad Gita gave the knowledge about the different aspects of God. This was a journey that gave Sriprada Das answers and clarity about life.

Image credit: Krithika Iyer

Image credit: Steven Gelberg

On the other hand, this faith gave Joy, a devotee originally from Calcutta, hope. Her faith got her through some dark times in her life.

She spoke about her faith in Krishna that grew in the last few months. Her journey with ISKCON began when she was 16 years old. She has been in the UK for 19 years and went through a rough time during the pandemic. But soon enough a lot of miracles kept happening to her that strengthened her belief. Joy shared multiple instances which she believes are all miracles.

While sharing her most recent experience, she spoke about her 13-year-old daughter who mysteriously one day went into a coma. Multiple doctors did multiple tests but could not understand the medical condition. Her daughter was diagnosed with encephalitis.

Sriprada Das gave her Charnamrit [a sweet drink made with yoghurt] in the last week of November and told her to feed it to her daughter. “On 4^th December I tried feeding her the Charnamrit and the next day she began to talk herself and even started walking. I have never seen such a miracle before,” Joy said as tears rolled down her eyes.

Such miraculous stories show the power of faith. Many times, a lot of criticism comes in with such stories and belief systems. Sriprada Das told: “just give them a big hug,” when asked about how he reacted to all the criticism.

Image credit: Krithika Iyer

Image credit: Krithika Iyer

But what if there is a darker side to this? There have been a lot of rumours that went around regarding the abuse that happens at the ISKCON facilities. During the 1970s and 1980s, there were many cases of child abuse were reported. Many people have left the community due to differences in ideologies.

Steven Gelberg who is currently based in the USA is one among them. He joined the ISKCON community in 1970 and was a part of it for 17 years. He wanted to leave the capitalist society and live a lifestyle where he could explore things freely. It was ideal for him as he was always drawn to concepts like higher states of consciousness.

He stayed there throughout his youth and was a very devoted follower. After two years, he began going on his own and visiting universities that taught religion. It allowed him to understand Hinduism outside of ISKCON. “Unlike the other devotees who followed what was told to them, I had a lot of independence,” he further added.

After being in ISKCON for 10 years, he married another devotee. It was also around the same time when the founder of ISKCON, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, passed away. “The situation got unpleasant. My wife and I found it very delusional, and started talking about leaving.”

According to him, one of the fundamental issues of the community was their attitude towards women. At ISKCON the belief system was very traditional, which meant that they saw it as men controlling the women. Steven said: “I always had a dislike for this idea. I have respected women and was not comfortable with the idea of women being treated as second-class. If you ask devotees this, there are very few today who would accept this. Others would call themselves as being liberal. It is a misogynistic organisation.”

Another issue he witnessed was that of child abuse. “ISKCON has its schools, good schools. And it turns out, there's been so much sexual and physical, psychological abuse of children, that has just started to come out when I was still in the movement. But now it's become a big theme,” he further added. Many ex-devotees speak up on this issue.

Current devotees do not acknowledge the issue, there are very few people who accept the truth. There are many ex-devotee Facebook groups, where they talk about these abuses and how the leaders did their best to cover these instances. There have been cases where the leaders were found to be exploiting women and children. According to Steven, there is a lot of anger and disgust towards the leaders as well for not taking any action.

There are very few incidents that have been reported, yet no action has been taken. The ISKCON community denied these allegations. Incidents like these have left a black mark on ISKCON. This raises a question about the path that the ISKCON organisation follows. Do they help people in connecting with themselves or are they causing a breach of faith?

Image credit: Krithika Iyer