Braja Bihari: A Fuller Picture
BY: JAGADEESH DASA
May 12, VRINDAVAN, INDIA (SUN) — When looking at the problem of Braj Bihari’s role within ISKCON we must look
further at the whole system that he has created and see how complex it is. In order to do this we must look at where his ideas came from and what impact they have had upon the movement.
The Vrindavan Gurukul and the Vaishnava Institute of Higher Education (V.I.H.E) were run by Dhanurdhar Swami and Bhurujan das respectively. Both of these devotees were black listed from India and had to leave the country, leaving Braj Bihari to run both the Vrindavan Gurukul and the V.I.H.E. This all happened during the period of the Turley Class Action case against ISKCON for Child Abuse in the mid 1990’s.
At that time, the role of Principals of our schools was primarily “Damage Control” and the easiest way to achieve this was through the process of “Cover Up”. It appears that Braj Bihari excels at this.
The Principals and senior devotees (namely Braj Bihari, Lakshmi Moni and Murli Vadika) of both the boys and girls Gurukul established Child Protection Units and
wrote up protocols for these units. They then staffed the units with their own people and so began the “Structured Cover Up Process”.
Once he unified all the schools under the guise of “Child Protection”, they began to systematically erode the Vaishnava Educational Principle, corrupting it into the Western karmi system. So, instead of linking our children with our Vaishnava community they linked them to the karmi higher educational system, which leads to a future in the karmi workforce.
By increasing the educational superstructure they gained more power, influence and control. At this time they were also facing extreme pressure by the devotee community with regards to the problems within their individual schools, so this unification proved invaluable to withstand the pressure.
Murli Vadika was responsible for the development of the Child Abuse protocols for ISKCON and he was proposed by the same group of Principals to head up a new Gurukul in North America, which was subsequently found to have sexually abused Gurukul boys.
The Vrindavan Gurukul needed a huge effort in order to “cover up” its past child abuse history and its present lack of senior devotees, so Braj Bihari brought in the most useful “puppet” in ISKCON - Sesa das - to “figurehead” the Vrindavan Gurukul. Braj Bihari quickly promoted him to the Minister of Education. Sesa das will go on to be Braj Bihari’s most useful lackey, filling positions on many of Braj Bihari’s departments / boards / projects, etc.
The next step was to secure the adult educational field so he expanded his “bag of tricks” including karmi management and teacher training in the form of seminars and workshops. He then went on to secure other projects such as Radhadesh.
Forming the M.E.D (Ministry for Educational Development), he now had total control over the educational ethos and direction of all the training for devotees in ISKCON.
Due to the intense pressure of complaints from the devotional community regarding the M.E.D’s educational ethos and the unsatisfactory resolution of child abuse cases, ongoing cases of child abuse and bad management from the G.B.C and Temple management, Braj Bihari formed ISKCON Resolve and the Ombudsman office to give the impression that corporate ISKCON cared for its devotional community.
We are now finding out that this complex array of Boards / Trusts / Departments / Ministries are simply constituent parts of an elaborate illusion created to make us believe that this corporate ISKCON has our best interest at heart. But they are just “parts” used to turn ISKCON into a corporation.
When we see the career of Braj Bihari we see that he is now “evolved” into a self-styled Corporate Acharya. Braj Bihari is highly respected and revered by the GBC, facilitating their meetings. He is the senior-most deputy GBC and so has tremendous power and influence within ISKCON.
Braj Bihari sits above the M.E.D-Adult / Child Education, ISKCON Resolve,
Ombudsman’s office, International Child Protection Office (Appoints its Directors - currently Tamohar das), facilitates GBC and Temple President boards etc, (As Vrindavan das claims, Braj Bihari controls the Vrindavan GBC (V.E.B). He also has his men in New Vrindavan - Sesa das, Tamohar, Ravindra Swarup, Malati.
With such power and influence comes great responsibility and so for such a position to be held, a person whose career path has been based on covering up - crimes / injustice / bad management, as well as orchestrating the most serious philosophical deviation ever to be “inflicted” upon Srila Prabhupada’s ISKCON, it is imperative that he be the subject of intense and vigorous investigation.
Your servant,
Jagadeesh Das
