What a twist the Bangalore Correspondent has given to the purpose of my recent visit to ISKCON Mumbai temple. I never went to ISKCON Juhu temple to talk compromise with them. I went to ISKCON Juhu temple directly from Delhi after the Supreme Court hearing as a thanks giving visit to the Deities of ISKCON Juhu temple, and was there for not more than 15 minutes. They are the first Deities whose mercy I received in 1979, when I walked into ISKCON after reading Srila Prabhupada's books for two years in my IIT library without knowing that there is an organization called ISKCON.
It has always been my practice to visit Sri Sri Radha RasaBihari to take their blessings after every hearing in the Supreme Court. I have done so after all the victories we had in the last 10 years in the Supreme Court. On three earlier counts our matter had reached the Supreme Court and ISKCON Bangalore received a favorable judgment. The recent one is the fourth such victory before the Supreme Court. On each of these occasions I had flown directly from Delhi to Bombay. Brajahari das, the President came to the Temple Hall and met me.
Just while leaving, Bhima das appeared there and we exchanged some words standing there. He said, why don't you sit and talk compromise and said that it is too risky for me if I did not, as they will file criminal charges against me if I lost in the Supreme Court, and that I have to be on the run like Adhrdharan Prabhu. I replied that I will never run, as I have never abused a single penny of Srila Prabhupada's, and that I will face such false criminal charges and come out clean. No question of running. He appeared shocked. He thought that, file a few criminal cases and that is end of this war.
The other twist in the article referred above is the interpretation of the order of the Supreme Court. All these twisted stories are merely to save their face from the fact the Supreme Court heard us and gave the interim order of status quo. They thought they would be inside the Hare Krishna Hill next day of the High Court Judgment. Unfortunately for them, the same judge gave us six weeks relief. Now the Supreme Court has given us relief till the court opens after vacation.
The correct understanding of what relief the Supreme Court gave ISKCON Bangalore against the aggression of ISKCON Bombay to forcibly enter and take possession of Bangalore temple is evident from the fact that they are not able to take possession till date for fear of contempt of the Supreme Court's order. If the Supreme court had not given us a status quo order and if that status quo order of Supreme Court meant that the branch of Bombay should be managing the temple and not the Bangalore society, as interpreted by them, then why they are not able to manage till date to come in? Less said the better about their bragging.
Let me throw a few challenges to the anonymous Bangalore Correspondent, to call his bluff regarding "family trusts" and stealing Hundi money that he repeats many times. I want to stop this false propaganda doing the rounds again and again, taking advantage of my silence and misleading the worldwide devotees. Hence this challenge is posed to counter the specific lies of the so-called correspondent from Bangalore, who prefers to be anonymous. Here is the challenge to the Bangalore Correspondent:
Please list the name of the trustees of various associated trusts of ISKCON Bangalore, the date of formation of these trusts and show who the family members are in that body.
Answer whether Jayapataka Swami and Bhanu Swami were founding Trustees of many of these associated Trusts before the theological issue began. Where was family allegation then?
Please list any single property held in my name. Or in the name of my wife or Chanchalapathi or his wife. We came empty handed to Srila Prabhupada and we love to remain empty handed, simply depending on the Lord for everything.
Please provide even prima facie evidence for the allegations of transferring Hundi money to "family trusts". Can he explain the documented system of handling Hundi money in this temple, right from Hundis in the temple to the bank? It is a very serious allegation. Probably he needs to be anonymous so that he can't be sued for defamation.
Are there several non-ISKCON Trusts operating in Mumbai temple, Delhi temple, and more than 40 Trusts in Mayapur and who are the Trustees of the same, and can you name them in a manner transparent as we do?
If the Bangalore correspondent fails to reply 1), 2), 3), 4) and 5) in the next one week, and establish his allegation of family control and stealing of Hundi money, then he will be proved to the readers to be a cheapster misusing the Sampradaya Sun to repeat a lie many times to make it appear like truth. After one week I will provide detailed answers to these questions on how everything is structured, and also explain how Hundi money is handled from the time money is dropped in the Hundi. No ISKCON has such foolproof transparent process as we have to secure the Hundi money.
I have not maintained any connection with the family I was born into since I joined ISKCON in 1981. Further, my personal life is an open book and there are no secrets. That is why more than three hundred well educated intelligent devotees dedicated to Srila Prabhupada stand by us as their Temple President and a spiritual leader. My wife, Bhaktilata dd too is a missionary, and was Principal of a leading school before she joined ISKCON in 1981. She is a Vaishnavi first, dedicated to the mission of Srila Prabhupada and the tag of being my wife-comrade comes only next. She has done yeomen service to Srila Prabhupada's mission.
They go on saying family, family, family. Did Srila Prabhupada not allow family to depend on the temple if they live under brahminical standards? What is wrong materially and spiritually with family dedicated 100% to Srila Prabhupada's mission and have no personal life outside the mission, living like brahmanas in the temple in separate single rooms. I have no children. Same is the case with Chanchalapati das, except that he has one daughter. His wife and my wife are sisters who joined ISKCON to serve Srila Prabhupada's mission, and not to eat and sleep and make merry. They were serving as brahmacarinis first and then got married. They sweated it out going on sankirtan and collecting in the early days, when ISKCON Bangalore was nothing but a two bedroom rented house in 1984, and we were only less than ten devotees in the temple. Mahashringa Prabhu, Sattvik Prabhu and Tattva Darsha Prabhus will know all this, as they were here just before I came.
This is the whole family they are talking about and perpetually attacking. Just to malign me as a ‘pound and shilling man' to the outside world, as they do not have other ammunition to hit us with, except to repeat them again and again. And the irony is that many of these people know that they are not speaking the truth. I do not know who the Sun's Bangalore Correspondent is, whether he is one of those who know the truth or one who had heard it repeated by them and started believing it to be true.
These kind of allegations were raised at the instigation of ISKCON Mumbai by a member of the State Legislative House and a Commission of ten all-party legislators was constituted by the Chief Minister to look into the allegations of family control, real estate , financial impropriety in Akshaya Patra, etc. The Commission spending several lakhs of rupees for this investigation worked for nearly a year and gave its report. The report gave a clean chit to us and praised our services to the society. Thus it fell flat on the face of the agents of ISKCON Mumbai. Today the people do know that all the mischief is played by ISKCON Mumbai. I will extract below what the House Committee report says about family control.
"On examining the documents available about ISKCON and its associate institutions, it is clear that there are ten trustees who are ISKCON missionaries who hail from different parts of the country and also there is an election process adopted for its governing council. Hence it is not a family trust or a trust controlled by any particular family."
Such cleverly cooked up stories they were creating to malign us that even karmis cannot think of it. One such example is their reply to people's question to them, "If MPD is as bad a person as you are saying, how he is doing good work and expanding the same day by day?" Their stock reply: "MPD is making a personal profit of one rupee per meal served to the children. So naturally to earn more everyday for him and his family he is expanding the feeding program." They sang this song for ten years, damaging the faith of thousands. But by their own action, the government spent lakhs to find the truth and now the people know the truth. The media gave wide publicity to the House Committee report. They are beaten by their own actions. They once and for all lost a perpetual weapon they were using to malign us. Ultimately truth prevails.
We are very confident that the unsubstantiated bland and vague allegations of fraud made in the recent High Court judgment against me will also proved to be false in the Supreme Court, when I am heard. As a fundamental right enshrined in the Constitution of India, enjoyed by every citizen of this country, I, as an individual, will be challenging through a Petition before the Supreme Court how such findings could be made against me in person, when I was never a party to the suit and conclusions were made about me without hearing me. (The Bangalore Society was the party and not me.)
When a person reports as a correspondent of the Sun, it bears more weight in the eyes of the readers as a neutral person. I place before you through this letter a complaint against your Bangalore Correspondent for filing unverified articles, directly making false personal allegations of a serious nature against the leaders of a temple, that too of stealing Hundi money of the temple. Probably it has slipped the attention of the Editors and hence this appraisal of the editorial. Or else how can Sun publish such defamatory cheap articles to serve false propaganda machinery of vested interests? Not at all fair. It is painful. May I request you to look into this matter and if you find that this person cannot provide reasonable prima facie evidence to support his allegations, the Sampradaya Sun rip him of his title as its correspondent, as he will tarnish the image of the Sun by his yellow journalism. Let him courageously post his article in his individual capacity and receive rebuttals from us.
I would greatly appreciate if you publish this letter in your columns in the spirit of best Vaishnava journalistic practices followed so far by Sampradaya Sun.
Your servant,
Madhu Pandit dasa
