At the close of the letter excerpted yesterday, from the Jaipur Ritvik devotees to Madhu Pandit dasa, we find this word of warning to the Bangalore leaders:
So we can see that it is not only those of us opposed to Ritvik-ism who take note of the hypocrisy of the Bangalore Ritviks and associated temples in not keeping to Srila Prabhupada's standards -- it is now the Ritviks themselves who recognize it. This has to be seen as progress. Eventually, the Ritviks will be forced to acknowledge that their community is plagued with many of the same ills the GBC/ISKCON suffers, and that the cause of this is philosophical deviation. The only alternative is that they will slide into the same abyss of denial the GBC have fallen into.
Among the many interesting points in the open letter that follows is the history of the Jaipur Ritviks and their relationship with Madhu Pandit and ISKCON Bangalore, as well as the blurred line that now exists between the Bangalore temple and the secular Akshaya Patra program, and how the two relate to the devotee community and preaching. We also read with interest about the surprise of the author, Dayalu Nitai das, who apparently just began to read online reports and discover some of the facts of the court findings against the Bangalore side in the lawsuit. Here then is Dayalu Nitai das's open letter to Madhu Pandit dasa and Chanchalapathi das. Our comments will continue in the next segment.
Open letter to Madhu Pandit Das and Chanchalpati Das
from Dayalu Nitai Das
January 31, 2014
"For the convenience of all the devotees who are reading this letter I will use the word HKC to refer to Hare Krishna Community, Jaipur and AP to refer to Akshayapatra, Jaipur and I will use MPP to refer to Madhupandit Prabhu in all further references in this letter.
For the information of all those devotees who may not know about HKC, I will give a brief history of HKC before coming to the main points. I have been preaching the teachings of Srila Prabhupada since the year 2000, much before AP came to Jaipur. I started preaching under the banner of HKC from 2003. Finally HKC was formally registered as a Non Profitable Trust (order no- 24/3-09-10/2009-10/48) in May 2008. HKC has also got income tax exemption from the government under the clause 80(G).
The trust deed of HKC was executed strictly according to the Direction of management (DOM) which was given by Srila Prabhupada as the final document to manage his society ISKCON. According to the trust deed there are elections every 3 years wherein general members of the trust vote and the President, treasurer and secretary are re-elected. These general members are full time dedicated initiated disciples of Srila Prabhupada with a good track record of at least five years. HKC is dedicated to fulfil the same aims for which Srila Prabhupada founded Iskcon.
Initiation is performed as per the ritvik system as given by Srila Prabhupada in July 9th letter. I, as the current Temple President of HKC recommend devotees for 1st and 2nd initiations to some ritvik. Some senior disciples of Srila Prabhupada like Gauridas Pandit Prabhu (personal servant of Srila Prabhupada during his final pastimes) have played the part of ritvik in the initiation ceremonies conducted here. In the absence of a globally accepted GBC this is the best use of a bad bargain in order to strengthen the faith of devotees in Srila Prabhupada. At present there are 23 full time dedicated brahamcaris (mostly from reputed Engg. and Mgmt. colleges), 3 full time dedicated grihasthas, one brahamcari preparing for sannyasa, 15 gurukul students, 100 cows in our go-shala, 100 bigha land where development of "Hare Krishna Village" is going on in full swing.
There are many hostels where hundreds of boys are living in a Krishna Conscious atmosphere,worshipping Srila Prabhupada as their spiritual master, reading his books, hearing his lectures etc. There are preaching programs going on in almost all colleges. HKC has also started another centre in Uttranchal which will also serve as the destination for gurukul boys in summers. Uttranchal is in Himalayas and therefore the weather is pleasant there when it becomes very hot in summers in Jaipur. HKC is also going to start a new centre in Jodhpur very soon.
Dear Chanchal Pati Prabhu,
Please accept my humble obeisances. All glories to Srila Prabhupada.
I hope this letter finds you in high Krishna Conscious spirit and good health.
You must be aware of all the incidents which are happening in Jaipur since last 5 years as I have been marking a copy of all the mails which were exchanged between me and MPP regarding AP Jaipur devotees calling our group (HKC) bogus, telling the donors not to give donation to HKC, telling the students not to associate with HKC devotees as they are not bonafide, telling people that ritvik initiation of HKC devotees is unauthorized, telling people some false stories about me that I demanded some post so I was removed from AP etc. etc.
I have been complaining about this non-vaisanava behavior to MPP with a copy to you, Amitasana Prabhu and Ratnagada Prabhu (President of AP, Jaipur) but nobody cared to do anything to stop this unpleasant, false and malicious propaganda. Once around 3 years back I even talked to Ratnagada about it and he told me that better we maintain distance and not intermingle.
Unfortunately AP devotees have been acting duplicitly by telling us that you do your preaching and we are doing our preaching but behind our back continuing to propagate above mentioned malicious things. In spite of all this there has not been a single incident wherein myself, any of our full time devotees or even hostel boys have spoken anything against AP.
Many times our devotees raised these issues with AP Jaipur devotees but they would deny all these charges saying that they have not done anything like that. So I have collected the following proofs to substantiate my claims -
1. Recording of phone calls of senior AP Jaipur devotees directly telling students not to associate with HKC devotees because we are bogus, not bonafide etc.
2. SMS sent to students from mobile phones of senior AP Jaipur devotees including their Vice President Anantasesha Das that HKC is bogus.
3. List of many donors who are ready to vouch that AP Jaipur devotees told them not to give donation to HKC as we are bogus etc.
4.List of many students who are ready to vouch that they were told some false stories about me that I was removed from AP because I demanded some post, so I started my own organization.
If you remember how much I fought against Iskcon to establish AP in Jaipur and when AP finally started their centre here, Nimai Pandit Prabhu raised this issue repeatedly in Iskcon Bangalore GBC meetings to recognize HKC as an authorized Prabhupadanuga center. In response to that Iskcon Bangalore GBC gave a proposal to me through Nimai Pandit that 2 centres in one city will create problems later on so I should close HKC and move to Jodhpur and take care of AP and FOLK preaching there. This happened in 2009. I had replied to Iskcon Bangalore GBC though Nimai Pandit that if the 2 temple presidents sign a memorandum of understanding then we can co-exist peacefully. And still if all the devotees feel that there should be only one centre then instead of me going to Jodhpur, let Ratnagada go out of Jaipur and I will take care of Jaipur.
At this point I had given many reasons why it is not a good idea to ask me to move out of Jaipur as Krishna is utilizing my I.I.T degree, my being a local person from Jaipur etc. nicely for preaching. I had also stated that if Ratnagada is not inspired to go to Jodhpur then you can send him to a bigger city like Delhi and Jodhpur can be taken care of by Abhimanyu who is already preaching there. I had also mentioned in this letter that I do not need any organization's name for preaching as I am already getting good success in preaching in my current profile.
The AP Jaipur devotees are misutilizing this letter by showing some parts of this letter to the students and trying to twist the facts in order to prove that I was demanding some post etc. I am attaching that letter which was sent to Nimai Pandit and was forwarded by Nimai to all the members of Iskcon Bangalore GBC as a file "DND mail to NPD (Dec. 2009)" for everyone's detailed reference.
The purpose of writing this mail to you is to try for the last time to hold a meeting between Ratnagada, myself and some other senior devotees like you. I am sending this proposal to Ratnagada also. But seeing the seriousness of the situation and the distrust created here your presence in the meeting is essential so that some peaceful solution can be arrived at. Seeing the past record I am not very hopeful for a reply, still I am trying for the last time on the request of our mutual friend Nimai Nitai Prabhu of Ukarine. May be it will appeal to you that this meeting may prevent 1) so many offences against devotees, 2) causing faithlessness amongst general people towards Srila Prabhupada and Krishna, 3) children of grihasthas being deprived of studying in a Prabhupadanuga Gurukula etc.
AP Jaipur devotees are branding everyone other than themselves as bogus. They had put up a list of organizations in Jaipur which are bogus in AP's estimation in which the name of HKC and another organization GIVE was also included. I have a photograph of this notice which is now removed from their notice boards. GIVE is being run by a very senior devotee Vrindavan Chandra Prabhu who has disassociated himself from Iskcon and agrees with the 9th July letter. What about Hare Krishna Society, Prabhupada Sankirtan Society which are being run by senior Prabhupadanuga devotees ? Are they all bogus?
The worst thing which this false propaganda by AP can do is to deprive many children from getting trained in a nice Prabhupadanuga gurukul running strictly according to Srila Prabhupada's instructions since many parents will be put off.
If still we do not sit and talk then these things will increase. This I have been mentioning in all my previous mails from last so many years. You can see the attached file "DND mail to MPD (May 2010)"which was written to MPP 3-4 years back. I am reproducing the following few lines from this mail to MPP which was sent to him 3 years back on 7th May 2010 to substantiate my claims -
"I wanted to bring to your notice about some unpleasant propaganda being done by some of the devotees in Akshaya Patra, Jaipur. In reference to your discussion with Nimai Pandit Prabhu in a meeting of ISKCON inc. trustees in Bangalore around six months back about 2 Temple President's operating in one city, I would like to bring to your notice that the conflicts have started increasing and if you do not take some action it will have a increasing negative effect on Srila Prabhupada's preaching mission in Rajasthan and will drive away many sincere souls from the lotus feet of Srila Prabhupada."
And still if Ratnagada, yourself or MPP do not reply then I will be forced to believe that AP has nothing to do with Srila Prabhupada's mission and fighting for the ritvik cause is a farce.
I have always respected you and MPP as senior Vaisnavas. MPP's last mail to me was very confusing in which he was saying that he is secular under the AP brand and cannot appreciate Hare Krishna Village and he wears 2 hats one of AP under which he is secular and thus cannot talk of religion and other is Iskcon under which he can talk of Krishna.
So in the last few days I was trying to get some information about AP, ISKCON, High court case etc. to know the truth. Normally I do not visit internet much, though Raghav Pandit who is secretary of HKC informs me of necessary things which require my attention. But this time I was going through the internet and found some shocking truths which were also confirmed by many devotees. Some of those truths are as follows:
1) High court has given a judgement against MPP for forging papers and cheating. I knew that there is some case going on between Iskcon Bangalore and Iskcon Mumbai but I did not know about this forgery. I do not how far it is justified to forge documents in the name of serving Krishna. I also do not agree with Iskcon regarding the guru siddhanta and many other deviations from Srila Prabhupada's teachings but I believe that we should not go against the law for correcting Iskcon.
2) AP devotees are collecting money in the name of feeding children but putting the money in other trusts. When I tried to find the truth about it, I came to know of many cases in Jaipur wherein AP devotees have collected money in the name of feeding children but have given HKM receipt to the donor which does not even have 100 percent tax exemption which was promised to the donor. It is unethical even according to MPP's own words which he wrote to me – "Even Srila Prabhupada did not mix up feeding and iskcon and created a separate iskcon food relief set up and so strict he was that he said not a single paisa collected for feeding should be used for anything else . We are very careful and sensitive to the Akshayaptra board's decision not to mix up the two as they are two different organization especially in public eye . When we mix we loose very big corporate donors for the cause. Missionaries have two independent hats. One of Akshayaptra and other of Iskcon."
3) I came to know from the letter of Gokul Chandra Prabhu of Hare Krishna Society that MPP had a closed door meeting with Iskcon EC and proposed to them that if Iskcon agrees that the 1st initiation will be performed by Srila Prabhupada then the 2nd initiation can be performed by regular pancaratrika gurus appointed by the GBC. I had heard about it from before but I did not get into the details as I had full faith in MPP that he can never think of going away from July 9th letter even in his dreams. So, at first I did not believe it but when I saw MPP's refutal on Sun Sampradaya I was shocked as this is accepted by MPP himself that he did make a proposal like this.
The purpose of including MPP's favorable comments in the newspaper advt. which came on 19th January along with comments of other senior devotees like Gauri Das Pandit Prabhu and some college heads was to counteract the propaganda by AP devotees that HKC is bogus etc. But if I would have known of the above mentioned 3 things, I would have never included MPP's favorable comments for Hare Krishna Village along with comments of many respectable personalities because I do not agree with the above 3 points, first two of which are illegal even in the eye of the law.
I know that anyone can make mistake unless one is a liberated soul like Srila Prabhupada. The important thing is to accept and correct the mistake. We can discuss all these things in the meeting and if things are taken in a positive light then it will benefit everyone. We have left everything and come here to serve Srila Prabhupada and we should always remain with the truth. Please respond as important issues are at stake. I am ready to accept and rectify if there are some mistakes from my side but this negative propaganda from AP must stop for everyone's benefit.
I am sure you will see all that I have written with a positive frame of mind and try to organize a meeting wherein we can talk on these matters and come out with a peaceful solution. For all future mails regarding the "Struggle for Truth" by HKC, Jaipur devotees if some devotees to whom I am sending a copy of this mail do not want to be included in the cc list, please write to me and I will remove them from my cc list. I appeal to all the devotees who are reading this letter to stand for truth and help us to get justice?
If the senior Prabhupadanuga devotees do not intervene and if AP continues to do bad propaganda against HKC then in protection I will also have to take some steps to protect Srila Prabhupada's movement going on here by HKC devotees. The best way would be to call meetings of students, donors, general public etc. and tell them the truth. This way was suggested by MPP himself in my fight against Nimai Pandit.
Once again, right now my idea of co-operation is "Live and let live". Chanchalpati Prabhu, if you remember these are the lines you told me in relation to Iskcon, many years back when we met in Govindevaji in Jaipur. I am sure you will be able to identify with the pain which all the devotees at HKC are going through. I will wait for 2-3 days and if I do not get any reply from you then I will assume that you do not care for any other Prabhupadanuga group of devotees which are not part of „your' organization. In that case you should stop calling Iskcon Bangalore as Srila Prabhupada's Iskcon.
your servant,
Dayalu Nitai Das
