Cults and Society, Vol. 1, No.
1, 2001
Child Abuse in the Hare Krishna Movement:1971-1986
E. Burke Rochford, Jr., Ph.D.
Jennifer
Heinlein
All
these boys must be taken care of very nicely. They are the future hope
(Prabhupada letter, July, 1974, in Prabhupada 1992:795).
These kids
were growing up and seriously leaving [ISKCON]. Not a little bit leaving. Not
leaving and being favourable, still chanting and living outside. Nothing like
that. They were leaving. And suddenly it was like ‘What happened?’ And then
it started to be revealed that the kids were molested. (Long-time ISKCON
teacher, interview 1990)1
Religion and
child abuse, ‘ “perfect together” . . .and mutually attractive.’ So concludes
Donald Capps in his 1992 presidential address to members of the Society for the
Scientific Study of Religion. Mutually attractive in spite of the fact that
religion has often vigorously defended the rights of children, including
condemning child abuse and neglect (Capps 1992; Costin et al. 1996:47). Yet
research on child abuse suggests that religious beliefs can foster, encourage,
and justify the abuse of children (Capps 1992; Ellison and Sherkat 1993; Greven
1990; Jenkins 1996). Moreover, church structures may provide opportunities for
abusive clergy (Krebs 1998; Shupe 1995).
This paper
deals with how children in a religious organisation were abused physically,
psychologically and sexually by people responsible for their care and well
being. My purpose is to describe the problem as it existed within the
International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), more popularly known
as the Hare Krishna movement. This discussion of child abuse within ISKCON is a
historical one.2 I consider child abuse and neglect within the context of
ISKCON's boarding schools
symbol 151 \f "Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12
or ashram-based gurukulas
symbol
151 \f "Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12
as they existed from 1972 until the
mid-1980s. I develop a sociologically informed framework to understand how and
why child abuse and neglect took place. Thus my attempt is not concerned with
identifying or explaining the ‘causes’ of child abuse by focusing on the abuser
per se. Rather attention is given to a variety of organisational factors that
fostered, and indeed created opportunities for child abuse to occur within
ISKCON's schools.
I argue that
child abuse must be understood within the broader context of ISKCON's
development as a religious organisation. The expansion of marriage and family
life has defined ISKCON's transition from a communally-organised sectarian
movement, to one characterised by a loosely organised congregation of
financially independent householders and their children (Rochford 1995a, 1995b,
1997). As the number of marriages and children began to grow in the mid-1970s,
householder life was redefined by ISKCON's renunciate elite as a symbol of
spiritual weakness. As a stigmatised and politically marginal group,
householders were left powerless to assert their parental authority over the
lives of their children. Children were abused in part because they were not
valued by leaders, and even, very often, by their own parents who accepted
theological and other justifications offered by the leadership for remaining
uninvolved in the lives of their children.
In recent
years, child abuse has played an influential role in the ongoing politic
surrounding the authority and legitimacy of ISKCON's leadership. For many
ISKCON members, and devotees marginal to or outside of the organisation, child
abuse stands as a powerful symbol of the failure of ISKCON's traditionalist,
communal, hierarchical (that is, sectarian) form of social organisation. Child
abuse has come to represent a fundamental betrayal of trust, not only for abused
children and their parents but also for the membership more generally. (Also,
see Rochford 1998a on leader misconduct and changing sources of religious
authority within ISKCON.)
It is
important to make clear from the start that no one knows how many of ISKCON's
children were abused in the gurukula. It is also the case that ISKCON's
gurukulas did not uniformly experience problems of child abuse. Finally,
the virtual collapse of these institutions in North America and world-wide in
favour of community day-schools, has all but eliminated the context of abuse
considered here.3
Before turning
to the substantive issues raised above, I first want to build a broader context
for my discussion. One only has to pick up the local newspaper to realise that
child abuse occurs all too frequently in the communities in which we live.
Moreover, while we might assume that religious life would remain immune to the
tragedy of child abuse, the facts suggest otherwise. Various religious
groups
symbol 151 \f "Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12
conventional and unconventional
alike
symbol 151 \f "Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12
have been shaken by allegations of
child abuse, especially sexual misconduct on the part of church authorities
(Jenkins 1996:50symbol 150 \f "Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12
52; Palmer 1997; Shupe 1995, 1998).
Defining the Problem of Child
Abuse
Reported cases
of child abuse and neglect have been on the rise in the USA in recent years
(Costin et al., 1996:136symbol 150 \f "Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12
7; Daro 1988).4 More than a
million young people suffer abuse and mistreatment annually (Daro 1988:13; US
Bureau of the Census 1997:218). The American Association for Protecting
Children found that 1.7 million children suffered neglect or abuse in 1984, an
increase of 156% since 1976, the first year this agency began collecting data on
child abuse (Daro 1988:13).5 In 1995, there were just under two million
reported cases of child abuse involving 2.95 million children in the United
States. After investigation by State child protective services, evidence
suggests that 1 million children were abused or neglected (US Bureau of the
Census 1997:219). Because many cases of child abuse go unreported, the actual
number of abused children may well be substantially higher (Daro 1988:14symbol
150 \f "Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12
15).
Although
overall rates remain high, the prevalence of various types of child abuse and
neglect appear to be changing. Physical abuse has decreased while sexual abuse
has expanded as a proportion of the total percentage of reported cases of child
abuse (Costin et al. 1996:138). The latter trend may be changing however as the
percentage of substantiated cases of child sexual abuse actually declined
between 1990 and 1995 (US Bureau of the Census 1997:218). A majority of parents
in the USA continue to use physical punishment, however, and the percentage of
parents favouring corporal punishment declined only slightly during the 1970s
and 1980s (Straus and Gelles 1986; Straus 1994:23symbol 150 \f
"Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12
24).6
While child
abuse is no doubt present within any community in the USA, it can also be found
within a variety of religious groups and denominations symbol 151 \f
"Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12
perhaps especially among those adhering to a Judaic-Christian tradition. Both
the Old and the New Testaments recommend the use of physical punishment on the
part of parents to help tame the will of a child (Ellison and Sherkat 1993;
Greven 1991). Such intervention is mandated because all persons are believed to
be born sinful (that is, displaying ego-centrism and selfishness). Parents thus
face the responsibility of ‘shaping the will’ of their children to ensure they
become right with God. Biblical passages giving legitimisation to physical
punishment of children are many. Among the most commonly cited are: ‘He that
spareth the rod hateth his son; but he that loveth him chaseneth him betimes.’
‘Withhold no correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he
shall not die. Thou shall beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul
from hell’ (Proverbs 13:24 and 23:13symbol 150 \f "Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12
14, respectively, quoted in Bottoms
et al. 1995:87). Accordingly, parents who subscribe to a doctrine of biblical
literalism
symbol 151 \f "Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12
such as conservative
Protestants
symbol 151 \f "Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12
are especially prone to using
physical punishment as a form of discipline (Ellison and Sherkat 1993).
Corporal punishment is viewed both as a necessary and legitimate means to combat
the sinfulness of a child, while simultaneously reinforcing parental (that is,
patriarchal) authority.
Apart from
encouraging and justifying corporal punishment, religious ideas have also been
used by parents and religious institutions alike to ‘cause emotional pain’ by
tormenting children through the excessive use of shame and fear (Capps
1992:7symbol 150 \f "Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12
9). The latter researcher
concludes that ‘religious ideas might be as abusive as physical punishment for
children’ (1992:8).7
When the
average person reflects on child abuse and religion today he or she is likely to
identify sexual misconduct by religious officials, particularly on the part of
Catholic priests (Berry 1992; Jenkins 1996, 1998). This is largely because
sexual misconduct by Catholic priests has received widespread media coverage in
the USA and world-wide (for a review, see Jenkins 1996:53symbol 150 \f
"Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12
76, 1998). Yet, child sexual abuse by clergy is hardly limited to Catholicism
(Isely and Isely 1990). The most often quoted survey dealing with sexual
problems among Protestant clergy found that 10 percent were involved in sexual
misconduct of one sort or another, and that ‘about two to three percent’ were
paedophiles (Rediger 1990:55, quoted in Jenkins 1996). This rate is equal to or
perhaps even slightly higher than for Catholic priests (Jenkins 1996:50).8
While the
sexual abuse of children is troubling, it becomes doubly so when religious
figures are involved. After all, clergy are viewed in most religious traditions
as God's ordained representatives, this comprising the very basis of their
religious authority. In cases of clergy sexual abuse, religious authority is
directly or indirectly used to exploit children, and to cover it up. Clergy who
sexually abuse children are often able to escape disclosure, because their
status as religious figures shields them from accusations of abuse (Barry 1992;
Bottoms et al. 1995). Allegations made by a child concerning clergy sexual
misconduct are likely to be ignored, or dismissed as fabrication by parents and
other adults (see for example, Barry 1992). Clergy sexual abuse of children, in
significant respects, parallels familial incest because it is ‘often
characterised by the same guilt, betrayal of trust, and shame . . .’ (Bottoms et
al. 1995:90; also see Blanchard 1991:239symbol 150 \f "Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12
240). It is thus hardly surprising
to find allegations of clergy sexual misconduct being made by adults victimised
as children.
As one might
expect, sexual abuse by religious authorities is especially damaging to
victims. One study concluded that abuse by religious authorities ‘is as
psychologically damaging, and perhaps more damaging, than even the violently
physical abuses of parents whose religious beliefs led them to view their
children as evil incarnate’ (Bottoms et al. 1995:100). Children molested by
religious authorities often suffer from depression, suicidal ideation and
affective disorders (Bottoms et al. 1995:99). Moreover, it is not uncommon for
those sexually abused by clergy to change religions, or more likely still, to
repudiate religion altogether (Bottoms et al. 1995:99). Such an outcome appears
even more likely when clergy sexual misconduct is hidden or otherwise covered-up
by the church hierarchy.9
Child Abuse Within ISKCON
Schools
Unlike most
instances of child abuse that occur in the home, ISKCON's children were abused
and neglected within the confines of the movement's schools, by unrelated adults
and older children acting on a teacher's behalf. During these formative years
of ISKCON's development, the movement's children were educated in boarding
schools, living more or less separate lives from their parents. It was here that
some of ISKCON's children were physically, psychologically, and sexually
abused.10
As Prabhupada
saw the public school system in America as indoctrinating ‘children in sense
gratification and mental speculation,’ he referred to the schools as
“slaughterhouses”’(J. Goswami 1984:1). By contrast, the gurukula as he
envisioned it, was specifically meant to train students in spiritual life, so
that they could return back to Godhead. Given that the fundamental goal of the
gurukula was to train students in sense control, children were removed
from their family as early as age four or five years. Prabhupada believed little
hope existed for a child to learn self-control within the nuclear family because
of the ‘ropes of affection’ between parent and child. Children thus attended
the gurukula on a year-round basis, with occasional vacations to visit
with parents. They resided in ashrams with children of similar age and sex.
Ashrams varied in size and the number of children they took in. In 1979 there
were 6symbol 150 \f "Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12
8 students living in each of the
boys ashrams in Los Angeles. Reports indicate that in other gurukulas
the number of students residing in an ashram ranged as high as 20 or more. An
adult teacher lived in the ashram and took responsibility for supervising the
children, and tending to their day-to-day needs (Rochford 1997).
ISKCON's first
formal gurukula was established in Dallas, Texas, in 1971. The Dallas
gurukula remained the only school of its type within the movement, until
1976, when it was forced to close by state authorities. At the time of its
closing the school had approximately 100 students, the majority of whom were
between the ages of four and eight. With the impending demise of the Dallas
school, gurukulas were established in Los Angeles and at New Vrindaban in
1975. In 1976, the Bhaktivedanta Swami International Gurukula began
accepting adolescent boys as students in Vrindavan, India.11 Between 1975 and
1978 a total of 11 ISKCON schools opened in North America. Gurukulas
also started in France, Australia, South Africa, England and Sweden, in the late
1970s and early 1980s. Regional schools appeared in Lake Huntington, New York,
and central California (Bhaktivedanta Village), in 1980 and 1981 respectively
(Das, M. 1998).
As the last
two regionally based ashram-gurukulas closed in North America by 1986,
ISKCON schools became almost exclusively day-schools. The only exception in
North America today is the Vaisnava Academy for Girls located in Alachua
Florida, for high school aged women. The school has both day-students and
students living full-time in the ashram.12 World-wide only the Vrindavan and
Mayapur, India, schools remain ashram only gurukulas. A sizeable
majority of ISKCON's children in North America presently attend state-supported
schools (Rochford 1997, forthcoming), a trend found in a number of other
countries as well.
Reports by
second generation youth, parents and educators alike suggest that a proportion
of the children who attended the gurukula suffered psychological,
physical and sexual abuse. Yet it remains unclear just how many children were
abused directly, or otherwise witnessed their friends and classmates being
abused. The latter represents a form of psychological abuse in its own right.
Lacking
reliable quantitative findings, it becomes extremely difficult to determine with
any degree of precision what the actual incidence of child abuse was within
ISKCON's gurukulas. Unfortunately, we are left to estimates of uncertain
quality. Over the years any number of estimates have been offered ranging from
20% of all students who attended an ashram-gurukula suffering some form
of abuse, to as many as 75% of the boys enrolled at the Vrindavan, India,
gurukula having been sexually molested during the late 1970s and early
1980s. Whatever the actual incidence of child abuse, it remains clear that
abuse directly and indirectly influenced the lives of a sizeable number of
children. Yet, child abuse did not occur uniformly, either across gurukulas,
or, very often, even within the same school. As one long-time teacher concluded,
child abuse . . . wasn't all-pervasive. It wasn't in all gurukulas. It
didn't affect all children. But it was in enough schools and affected enough
children and it went on for enough time . . . (Interview 1990)13
Abuse and
neglect within the gurukula took a variety of forms. The following
statements from young adults and former gurukula students indicate the
kinds of abuse that occurred.
. . . I remember dark closets
filled with flying dates (large three inch, flying cockroaches) and such, while
beatings and ‘no prasadam’ for dinner became everyday affairs. (Devi Dasi, K.
1990:1)
Seattle was hell because I was only
six years old, my mom lived in Hawaii and I had always been a very shy mommy's
girl. The movement was in its earlier stages and the devotees were
fanatical
symbol 151 \f "Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12
beyond fanatical. I mean, they
would give us a bowl of hot milk at night, so I would, of course, pee in my
bed. Then as punishment they would spank me very hard and make me wear the
contaminated panties on my head. In general, at that time, because I was so
young, I was so spaced out and confused. I would cry. . .for my mom, but that
wasn't allowed, so I would say I was crying in devotional ecstasy. I really
regret Seattle because I had a dire need for my mother's warmth and reassurance
at that time in my life. (Second Generation Survey 1992)
The teacher used to say, ‘Oh, you
don't know when you are going to die. You could die in your sleep.’ And one
day I was really bad and one of my teachers said, ‘Who knows you might die
tonight. Krishna might be punishing you. He might be taking away your life . .
.’ And from that night on I used to pray every night, ‘Krishna please don't kill
me. I promise I will be a good girl tomorrow. Please let me get fixed up enough
so I can go back to Godhead. Don't take me in my sleep.’ And for years I had
insomnia. I was too afraid to go back to sleep. (Interview 1991)14
Two young men
recount their days as students in the Vrindavan, India, gurukula during
the early 1980s.
X: I wasn't
afraid of being sexually molested. I don't think I was afraid of being mentally
abused either. I was definitely afraid of being physically abused . . . Sexual
molestation, all of us, man, we'd just take it, you know. . . That's what we all
felt. We didn't even consider it abuse back then. XX: Yeah, that was just
normal. . .The ironic thing about that, though, is probably the mental thing
[abuse] was probably the longest lasting. X: There was no way to escape that.
(Group Interview 1993)
As word of
child abuse within the gurukula came to the attention of ISKCON
authorities, some efforts were made to intervene. Yet this very intervention
sometimes resulted in new strategies of coercive abuse. Most significant was
enlisting older boys in the Vrindavan gurukula to physically abuse
younger students who were deemed troublesome and unruly by teachers.
X: The other thing was that older
boys acting in the capacity of monitors were used to abuse the younger
students. Some started to realise that ‘Hey, teachers can't be beating kids.'
They did it in a new way. EBR: With the monitors. X: Yeah. Which was the
older boys beating the younger boys, and I was one of the older ones . . .and
they [teachers] would call me in on occasion and I would just have to knock the
living s---[out of a younger student] . . . I'd be sitting there going ‘Man, I
love you. I don't want to be doing this. . .’ [I]t's like,’ what are you gonna
do? If I don't do it to you, they're gonna do it to me.’ XX: That's another
kind of mental abuse. (Group Interview, 1993)
While a
proportion of ISKCON's children were themselves abused, others experienced the
abuse as they watched their friends and classmates being mistreated by teachers
and others responsible for their care.
If the teachers treated one of our
friends bad then we all felt bad. I remember there was one teacher that used to
grab one of us by the ears and bang us against the wall. And we all stood there
and watched and felt really bad. . . She [the teacher] was doing it to all of
us. (Interview 1992)
Maybe what [name of ashram teacher]
was doing to [name of student] was hurting others [students] more than him. For
[name of student] it was an everyday thing. I was standing right next to [him]
and I was crying. I was freaked out. I was afraid I was gonna be next because
I knew he was gettin' it for no reason. If he could get it for no reason so
could I. (Group interview 1993)
In the school
in Vrindavan, India, abusive treatment became so commonplace that students
sought to routinise their mistreatment as a protective
strategy.
It was like boot camp, but it
wasn't temporary. You became part of a unit. Boot camp was a full-time thing
for us. They're just constantly knocking you down, knocking you down. . .
lower, lower, lower. What are they gonna do? Beat me again? Go ahead.
(Laughter). Big deal! (Group interview 1993)
But beyond the
question of young people being abused by adults working in the gurukula15
was the general environment of neglect that existed. Without parents present,
many felt abandoned, or as one second generation youth remarked, ‘We were just
unwanted.’ Many of the young people interviewed described the atmosphere in the
gurukula as one lacking in love and compassion. They felt invisible,
abandoned and unworthy of love and affection from both their parents and adult
caregivers.16
Accounting for Child Abuse
In this
section, I explore a number of factors that combined to create a context
conducive to child abuse within the gurukula during the 1970s and 1980s.
The first of these is somewhat different from the others because it defines the
broader milieu in which parents and children lived within ISKCON's communities.
Put simply, marriage and family life came to symbolise spiritual failure, and
children a sexual product of that failure. Following this discussion, I then
consider three specific factors which fostered child abuse and neglect: (1)
Sankirtan and competing demands on parents; (2) Lack of institutional support
for the gurukula; and, (3) Exclusion of parents from the gurukula
and, thereby, from the everyday lives of their children.17 I end this section
by considering how some children were able to escape abuse.
Attitudes Toward Marriage,
Family Life, and Children
ISKCON scholar
and leader Ravindra Svarupa Das argues that marriage and family life were viewed
favourably during ISKCON's early days. As he states, ‘When I joined ISKCON
[1971] it was assumed that everyone would become married, and indeed devotees
were urged to do so’ (1994:9). But this view changed after Prabhupada became
increasingly discouraged by the marital problems encountered by his disciples.
In a 1972 letter he wrote ‘I am so much disgusted with this troublesome
business of marriage, because nearly every day I receive some complaint from
husband or wife. . .so henceforth I am not sanctioning any more marriages . . .’
(Prabhupada 1992:866).18 As Prabhupada withdrew from ‘the troublesome business
of marriage,’ local Temple Presidents and other ISKCON authorities (that is,
regional secretaries, GBC representatives) assumed the responsibility for
arranging marriages and otherwise dealing with the problems and needs of
householders. The result was married life underwent a fundamental
transformation in meaning and value within ISKCON.
Marriage came
to represent a sign of spiritual weakness, a concession for those too weak to
control their sexual desires. Such a view applied differently to men and women
however. The ideal for a man was to maintain a life of renunciation, avoiding
marriage if at all possible. Spiritual and material fulfilment for women by
contrast was defined in terms of marriage and family life (Rochford 1997).
Given the prevalence of these ideas, women became threats to a man's spiritual
advancement.
The changed
atmosphere surrounding marriage and family life turned contentious by the
mid-1970s as renunciate leaders undertook a preaching campaign against
householder life and women. As Ravindra Svarupa Das suggests, this brought
about growing conflict and factionalism within ISKCON.
Some of these sannyasis
embarked on preaching campaigns against householders and even more so against
women, whose life in the movement at this time became extremely trying.
Feelings grew so heated that in 1976, a clash between householder temple
presidents in North America and a powerful association of peripatetic
sannyasis and brahmacaries escalated into a conflict so major that Srila
Prabhupada called it a ‘fratricidal war’ (1994:9).
Despite the
ongoing denigration of marriage and family life and the corresponding loss of
status accorded householders, most devotees ultimately married. By 1980, there
appears to have been about an equal number of married and unmarried devotees
residing within ISKCON's North American communities. About one-quarter had
children (Rochford 1997). Conversely, a survey in 1991symbol 150 \f
"Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12 92
(N=268) revealed that a sizeable majority of ISKCON's North American membership
were married, or previously married. Only 15% had never been married. Family
life also expanded with a substantial majority (70%) of those surveyed in
1991symbol 150 \f "Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12
92 having one or more children.19
By the onset of the 1990s, ISKCON had become a householder's movement in North
America (Rochford 1997), and increasingly world-wide (Rochford 1995b).
Even with the
rapid expansion of marriage and family life, anti-householder attitudes changed
little organisationally.20 Householder life remained a ‘dark-well’
spiritually. Many parents who accepted the leadership's ideas about marriage
and family sought to counteract their lowly status by placing their commitment
to ISKCON and Krishna Consciousness above their family obligations. This
presented a burden of considerable proportions for both parents and their
children. One second generation woman suggests just how difficult this proved
to be for her own mother.
But sometimes I would look at her
and I could see her being torn apart inside. I could see how she yearned to be
a mother once again; sewing by the fire, cooking our dinners, and helping us
with our hard days at school, and at the same time trying her hardest to please
the Guru and the community by showing her detachment to her family. (My
emphasis; Devi Dasi, K. 1990:14)
As householder
life became disparaged, children too were defined and redefined in ways that
undermined their status, and ultimately the care they received within the
gurukula. Up until the early 1980s, children born within ISKCON were
commonly portrayed as being spiritually pure. After all, it was believed that
their souls had progressed spiritually to the point where they had gained the
good fortune of taking birth in a devotee family. Yet this view changed by the
mid-1980s as some leaders complained that ISKCON's children were turning out to
be little more than ‘karmies’ (that is, non-religious outsiders), and,
therefore, gurukula had failed in its mission to produce spiritually
advanced children. Both of these frameworks, I want to argue, became
justifications used by the leadership to dismiss the gurukula, the
children, and their responsibility toward both.21
As two
long-time ISKCON teachers recount.
They [leadership] put a lot of
energy into making new devotees from outside the community. But you didn't have
to put any energy into making children into devotees, or so they thought . . .
And I think there was a lot of misconception about how Prabhupada thought the
children [were] conceived. They thought that if the children were conceived
properly then it was a cinch. And that makes no sense at all. I compare it to
going through a store and buying good seeds and then you don't plant them, you
don't water them, you just throw them around . . . So many things that we
assumed, that we never sat down and analysed. We just took it for granted; That
the children were born into the movement, and particularly if they were
conceived properly of chanting five hours of Hare Krishna. Does that make
sense? It never made sense to me. I always assumed that we would train the
children, that we could never take their Krishna Consciousness, or their
character, or anything for granted. (Interview 1990)
And everyone just thought that you
send them away to the gurukula and when they came back they were going to
be like Pralad Maharaja [a spiritually-realised devotee of Krishna]. They were
going to be chanting japa. They were going to be shaved-up. They were going to
be distributing books. They were going to be nice little chaste wives, rolling
chapatis. (Interview 1997)
Yet, by the
mid-1980s, as the children were growing into teenagers, understandings of the
second generation and the gurukula began to change. To the surprise of
many leaders and parents alike, the children raised in the gurukula were
less than pure spiritually. Few were committed to a life of renunciation and
full-time involvement in ISKCON (Rochford forthcoming). As a result, some
leaders openly challenged the need for the gurukula altogether. Economic
decline, as I discuss below, made this view all the more attractive to some
leaders.
But they [the leaders] did not go
back and become introspective and say ‘Well, we should have been taking care of
these things. Let's get it together now. We made a mistake, whether an honest
mistake or not. Let's now provide an excellent education for the children.
Let's rebuild the community's faith in ISKCON.’ They didn't do that. They took
(laugh) the opposite track. Instead of saying ‘the kids are going to turn out
good no matter what,’ now they were saying ‘things are going to turn out bad no
matter what you do.’ The leaders' position was, ‘No, we did everything right.
We did what Prabhupada said. We had ashrams. We had these nice schools. These
wonderful schools. And everything went bad anyway. So why should we put a lot
of energy into it [the gurukula]. We're just kidding ourselves. Right.’
(Interview, ISKCON teacher 1990)
But these two
very different frameworks for constructing ISKCON's children functionally
served the same purpose. In the first instance leaders saw no reason to invest
resources in the gurukula because it couldn't fail, given the elevated
spiritual status of the children. The second framework, precisely because it
emphasised failure, rather than success, likewise rejected the need to maintain
a viable system of education. As I argue in the next section, however, the
gurukula did serve a crucial function for ISKCON, one that ultimately had
little to do with educating and socialising ISKCON's next generation.
Sankirtan and the Gurukula
Although
ISKCON's sannyasi leadership believed that a loss in standing would
discourage marriage, as we have seen, the solid majority of ISKCON's membership
married, and most had children. The growth of marriage and family represented a
significant threat to sankirtan, and thereby to ISKCON itself.22 Sankirtan
served ISKCON's mission in two respects. First, it represented the principle
means by which the movement proselytised its Krishna conscious beliefs. In
fact, Prabhupada continually emphasised that book distribution represented the
means to spread Krishna Consciousness in America and world-wide. Secondly, and
of equal importance, sankirtan supported ISKCON's communities financially.
Without a work force of dedicated sankirtan devotees, ISKCON's missionary goals
and financial stability were placed in jeopardy. The solution rested with the
gurukula because it relieved parents of the burdens of childcare, thus
affording them the opportunity to work full-time sankirtan. Put differently,
the gurukula allowed ISKCON's leaders to reclaim householders for
sankirtan, a move that only grew in importance as ISKCON's North American
communities faced deepening economic decline by the late 1970s (Rochford 1985,
1995c). As one parent described.
We got the children, the bothersome
children from the leader's perspective we got them out of the way by putting
them in the gurukula. Now the adults could do some work. Go out on
sankirtan. This was a very present issue, freeing up the parents. (Interview
1990)
To a
leadership concerned primarily with distributing Prabhupada's books and raising
funds, the gurukula communalised child care thus freeing parents to work
on behalf of ISKCON and its mission. Not surprisingly, many of the young people
who attended the gurukula during this period saw ISKCON's schools in
precisely these terms.
I did feel
that my mom used the gurukula as a convenience for not keeping me
around. My mother later told me her authorities strongly encouraged her to put
us there so we would not hinder her sankirtan service. (Second Generation Survey
1992)
Findings from
my 1992symbol 150 \f "Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12
93 Second Generation Survey in
North America makes this point more forcefully. Nearly two-thirds (63%) of
those surveyed (N=87) agreed with the statement, ‘The ashram gurukula
primarily served the interests of parents and ISKCON, rather than the spiritual
and academic needs of children.’ One quarter of those surveyed (26%) agreed
strongly with the statement.
Freeing
parents for sankirtan was facilitated by enrolling children in the gurukula
as early as age three or four, although the majority enrolled at age five. Some
ISKCON communities communalised children even earlier, establishing day-care
centres for infants and toddlers. One such community was ISKCON's New Vrindaban
community, in West Virginia.
Kirtanananda [New Vrindaban's
former guru and leader] was very successful because he had a nursery from day
one. For those kids born at New Vrindaban, he took the kids and communalised
them. They got so much work out of the people in that community. (Interview
1990)
A second
generation woman who grew up at New Vrindaban recalls:
[S]oon after Kapila was born . . .
the Guru of the farm asked her [mother] to go travel and preach in airports, she
sadly said ‘yes.’ Kapila was only three months old when she left him to be
brought up by some other lady who lived on the farm. For months she cried at
night wondering if he was okay and yet her body could hardly stand any more
emotional work after standing nearly twelve hours that day, . . . collecting
donations from strangers. (Devi Dasi, K. 1990:14)
An indication
of the leadership's motivation in providing child care at New Vrindaban is
suggested by a saying used in the community to refer to expectant mothers; ‘Dump
the load and hit the road.’ And to ‘hit the road’ meant returning to full-time
sankirtan. While leaders in other ISKCON communities were clearly more subtle
and humanistic in their approach, they were no less anxious to return mothers to
full-time sankirtan, or other work on behalf of the community. For the fact was,
women were among the very best sankirtan workers in the movement.
Sankirtan
represented the foundation of ISKCON's sectarian world, and the movement's
sannyasi elite took measures to assure that it was protected against the
presumed deleterious effects associated with the expansion of marriage and
family life. While initially established to spiritually educate ISKCON's
children, the gurukula ultimately served the interests of ISKCON's
missionary activity, and the need to raise money in support of the movement's
communal way of life. One long-time teacher from this era underscores the
primary interest of ISKCON's sannyasi leadership.
And you had to have a vision for
the future to even understand why you were doing this [the gurukula].
For the teachers this might have been there but for the administration of
ISKCON, what it means is that you are paying for a day-care centre. These kids
cause trouble wherever they are . . . You are talking about sannyasis
who are thinking like, ‘Get these kids out of here. And look how much money I
am having to pay to get these kids out of here. And look at how many devotees
have to be there [in the gurukula] to get these kids out of the way.’
That was the whole psyche surrounding how the school was put together.
(Interview 1997)
The importance
placed on sankirtan by ISKCON's leadership meant that the significance of the
gurukula rested on its childcare function, rather than as an educational
institution. Moreover, as parents faced increasing pressures to engage in
sankirtan many had little ability to commit time to the needs of their
children. Children and family life threatened ISKCON's purpose as a missionary
movement, but each also threatened the financial base upon which the authority
of the leadership rested.
Lack of Institutional Support
for Gurukula
Given the
leadership's view of gurukula and its purposes, it failed to provide the
support necessary to maintain an educational institution. Throughout its
existence the gurukula operated with insufficient staffing, funding and
oversight. I want to suggest now that in failing to provide the resources and
management necessary to maintain the gurukula, it became an institution
defined by neglect, isolation and marginalisation. Because of these qualities,
the gurukula also became a context in which ISKCON's children became
subject to abuse.
From the
inception of the gurukula system in Dallas it faced a shortage of trained
and qualified staff to serve as academic and ashram teachers. In American
culture we have a saying, ‘Those who can't do otherwise, teach.’ ISKCON, during
the 1970s and 1980s, had its equivalent, ‘Those who can't do sankirtan, work in
the gurukula.’ As a gurukula teacher of some twenty years
commented, ‘The gurukula was the dumping ground as far as getting staff
went. When devotees couldn’t do other things like going on sankirtan they were
sent to work in the gurukula.’ The result was that outside of a limited
number of professional academic teachers, ISKCON's schools were staffed by
devotees untrained and generally ill-prepared to take on the demands of working
with children. Moreover, because there was little or no status attached to
working in the gurukula, many devotees had little or no desire to be
there. Success at sankirtan brought individual recognition within the devotee
community, working with children, invisibility and a loss of status.23 As one
ISKCON parent commented.
I was concerned that the teachers
were often selected based on their inability to do sankirtan, rather than
because they loved children and education. As far as I could see, there were no
mandatory classes in childhood development for teachers or staff either. How
could anyone expect those in charge to know what was normal or abnormal
behaviours and how it should be dealt with? (Anonymous a 1996)
As a former
gurukula teacher and Headmaster makes clear, it was assumed that any devotee
who was steady in his or her spiritual practice was qualified to work in the
gurukula. Yet as he further explains, few were able to stand up to the
everyday demands of working with children.
There were very few qualified or
experienced teachers in the early Gurukula at Dallas . . . At that time
in ISKCON in general there was a hubris about individual qualification. It was
thought that a devotee who was chanting his rounds was empowered to do anything
and that he did not need any special training. The task of dealing with a
hundred children or so from morning to night on tough schedule through mangal
arati to bedtime was too much for most of them. (Brzezinski 1997)
As the above
remarks make clear, working in the gurukula was stressful, especially for
an untrained staff lacking sufficient interest in children. This was all the
more so in instances where a single ashram teacher was responsible for the care
of 20 or more children. These conditions contributed directly to acts of child
abuse by teachers. As one teacher from this era observes, ‘There may have been
some [teachers involved in abusing children] who were actually diabolical. But
in most cases it was a lack of expertise, lack of training, lack of assistance,
lack of knowing who to go to.’ And, as the former Headmaster of one school,
described.
Therefore, we have someone like
[name of ashram teacher] who is put into a situation in which he does not
belong. It is so stressful. So therefore a kid gets out of line
symbol 151 \f
"Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12
not to speak of his other transgressions
symbol 151 \f "Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12
and he pushes him hard and the kid
falls on the floor and breaks his arm. And that's what happened. (Interview
1997)
But while
finding people capable of working in the gurukula was an ongoing problem,
retaining them represented another. Many second generation youth tell of having
as many as 15, 20, or more, ashram-teachers during their time in the gurukula.
Eight in ten (82%) of the second generation youth surveyed in 1991symbol 150 \f
"Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12 92
agree that, ‘The major reason for the demise of the ashram-based gurukulas
was the lack of qualified teachers.’ The former Headmaster quoted above
suggests one reason why.
At one point they sent all the kids
from [region of the country] to our school in Lake Huntington. So now we have
this big regional school. Then at one point [guru from that region] decides
that he needs the ashram teacher [for the oldest boys] to do some other service
. . . So I call him [guru] and say, ‘Listen there is no one but me. I am the
Headmaster. I'm already doing this and that. Now I am going to have to do the
ashram. There is nobody here that can do it.’ He just said, ‘Well you are just
going to have to get somebody. Good-bye.’ Pull the man out so now we have 16
older boys who don't have a teacher. What to do? (Interview 1997)
The effect of
an ever-changing complement of gurukula teachers and staff meant that the
children were unable to build and sustain meaningful and perhaps loving
relationships with their adult caregivers. This very fact only increased the
likelihood that children might be neglected and/or abused.24
The question
of ‘What to do?’ only intensified as ISKCON in North America faced growing
economic decline. By 1982, the level of ISKCON's book distribution in North
America was less than half its 1978 peak (Rochford 1985, 1995c). The
corresponding drop in sankirtan revenues had a devastating effect on ISKCON's
communities. It also had a dramatic impact on the gurukula, which, even
in the best of economic times, faced hardship. As the Headmaster of one school
made clear, ‘Even at the peak of our movement's resources . . . the gurukula
was getting barely anything. Anything. And so as soon as there was less to go
around it barely got anything at all’ (interview, 1997). Below he describes the
financial difficulties encountered by the Lake Huntington gurukula just
prior to its closing in 1986.
More difficult was our financial
situation. And what happened. When New York was broken up, Lake Huntington,
Long Island, New Jersey, and Manhattan each of these areas was assigned a
certain number of collectors, . . . sankirtan devotees. Four months after the
break-up I was shifted from Long Island to Lake Huntington and I took over the
project. Within a few months I became the Headmaster. We had eight sankirtan
devotees. We were struggling but were making it. But the zone was collapsing
[financially]. So the new GBC man . . . came in and took all the sankirtan
devotees and centralised it. The plan was to just give money to the different
temples in the zone. We lost our eight sankirtan devotees and we were promised
$8 000 a month, which we got for one month. They reduced and reduced the amount
until we got $2 100 to pay the mortgage. When we asked what to do they said
take more students [thereby gaining more tuitions]. And that's what we did.
Until finally it dawned on us that we were killing our teachers and cheating our
students. We can't run a school like this. That was the environment we were
actually functioning in.25 (Interview1997)
A final issue
here has to do with the apparent lack of oversight the gurukula received
by ISKCON leaders. While it is true that there was a Minister of Education
whose responsibility was to provide guidance and leadership for ISKCON's
schools, it appears, nonetheless, that the gurukula failed to gain the
attention and supervision required. And, without it, the likelihood of child
neglect and abuse grew. As one teacher described, the leadership simply placed
too little importance on the gurukula.
I have come to the conclusion that
they [the leadership] aren't going to do anything; at all, not anything. They
should have done something twenty years ago, or fifteen years ago. They had
plenty of opportunity. They had money. They had manpower. They had Srila
Prabhupada right there behind them. Why didn't they take it? I can tell you
why they didn't do it. They didn't think it was important. Obviously.
(Interview, 1990)
One indication
of the leaders' disinterest can be seen in the way ISKCON's renunciate leaders
responded when parents complained about the mistreatment of children in the
gurukula. As a second generation youth recounts:
When I was five and a half years
old, I'd been in gurukula (Dallas) since its insemination (about three
years). My dad had gone to Dallas (against the wishes of his temple authority
who only cared about my dad's money-making ability on sankirtan) after
discovering bruises all over my body on a Rathayatra [festival] visit. After
much discussion with the school authority he found that he could not get them to
change the policy of daily beatings. He removed me from the school. Very
disillusioned he nearly left ISKCON. On hearing that Prabhupada would be in LA,
we went there. When Prabhupada saw me he asked why I was not in the gurukula.
My father told him that he'd removed me because of the daily beatings.
Prabhupada told him that I belonged in gurukula and that if my dad had a
problem with the treatment he should work to resolve it . . . [Prabhupada] did
nothing to resolve the situation. Instead of going himself or sending one of his
top people to resolve the problems he sent my dad who had never had any power.
Needless to say when my dad returned to Dallas nobody listened to him. If a
problem arose at some temple or other, Prabhupada was more than willing to go or
send someone effective to handle the situation, but for the kids he sent my dad
who was effective at getting people to give him money. (Anonymous b 1996) (See
footnote 26 for further discussion of Prabhupada's response to allegations of
child abuse.)
After
Prabhupada's death, the response of the newly appointed gurus was apparently
much the same.
Kutila [woman gurukula
teacher] was furious when she saw the cuts and beating marks and she ran to tell
Bhaktipada who coolly said, ‘Don't complain, do something about it, if you think
you can do any better.’ (Devi Dasi, K. 1990:1)
Initially the
leadership's disinterest in the gurukula stemmed from an overriding
concern with maintaining and indeed expanding sankirtan. Yet with Prabhupada's
death in November, 1977, however, ISKCON faced years of succession problems that
preoccupied the movement as a whole. As ISKCON's newly appointed gurus
struggled to establish their own religious and political authority, and attract
disciples, householders and their children lost further relevance
organisationally (Rochford 1995a). This became all the more so in the early
1980s as book distribution virtually collapsed in North America, and parents
were pushed outside of ISKCON's communities to find employment in support of
themselves and their families (see Rochford 1997). (For a treatment of ISKCON's
succession problems, see Rochford 1985: 221symbol 150 \f "Sanskrit-Garamond" \s
12 55, 1998a. On how
acceptance or rejection of ISKCON leaders' authority influences types and levels
of ISKCON involvement, see Rochford 1995a.)
Exclusion of Parents from the
Gurukula
One potential
safeguard against child abuse rested with parental involvement and oversight of
the gurukula. If children were being abused and neglected there is
reason to believe that involved parents might well have become aware and taken
corrective actions. Yet in most instances this did not happen, and when it did,
parental concerns were often ignored or dismissed, as we saw in the previous
section. The fact was parents were actively discouraged from becoming involved
in the gurukula, and, thereby, from the day-to-day lives of their
children.
Prabhupada
himself discouraged parent involvement in the gurukula. He reasoned that
the best interests of ISKCON's children were served by communalising them within
the context of the gurukula. Away from parental influence, a child would
more readily take to a life of spiritual practice and renunciation. As
Prabhupada stated in a 1973 letter, ‘Regarding gurukula, it is not
required that parents live there with their children. We can take care of
children, but not the parents’ (1992:794). While relinquishing their children
to the gurukula proved difficult for many parents, they took solace in
the knowledge that their children were advancing spiritually.
The idea that
parents represented a threat to the spiritual lives of children was widely
promoted throughout ISKCON, and was accepted by many devotee parents. As we have
seen, ISKCON's leadership promoted this idea as a means to reclaim parents for
sankirtan. Accepting the ‘ideological work’ (Berger 1981; Rochford
1985:191symbol 150 \f "Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12
220) of the leadership, many
parents maintained minimal contact with their children. In fact, it appears
that in some cases parents essentially abandoned their children to the
gurukula. Teachers, too, considered parents as threats to the spiritual
well-being of their children. In the words of one teacher:
There is a problem with parents.
The experience that we have had in gurukula is that much of the training
that you are trying to give the child is lost when the child is with the
parents. Because the parent is not maintaining the same standards, or doesn't
have the same abilities, whatever it is . . . And you knew as a teacher that
when you sent a kid home for three and a half weeks [for vacation] you knew you
were going to get a basket case when they came back. (Interview 1997)
As this
teacher further suggests, this way of thinking influenced strongly how those
working in the gurukula treated parents.
And so maybe unfortunately, in
retrospect, the wrong attitude was conveyed about parents. The parents are a
problem; keep the parents away, all of that. (Interview 1997)
The larger
consequence of these ideas was the virtual exclusion of parents from the
gurukula. Parental involvement with their children was largely unwelcome.
Moreover, when children did return to their parents' home community for school
vacations, these visits very often afforded limited opportunities for parent and
child to spend time together. As one mother and teacher explained.
You have to remember that parents
didn't have houses. They didn't have their own place. We never had a house . .
. So when you say a kid went home, that's a euphemism. He went to the temple.
His mother had service that she was doing all along. His father had service
that he was doing all along. And now all of a sudden this kid is there. So now
what does he do? He hangs around the temple. He gets stepped on by people as
they are coming up the stairs [into the temple] . . . And he wants his mother's
attention when she is cooking for the deities. The fact is no one took care of
the kids . . . The kid did whatever he did. And the parents just kept on doing
whatever it was they were doing. (Interview 1997)
A second
generation devotee recounts her vacations from school and the burden these
visits placed on her and other family members.
When I got older, I started to
spend my vacations with my Mata. But vacation time for me was not vacation time
for her. For Kapila [her brother] and I, she would get a motel room every night
but her service to the temple still came first. Only after she had chanted all
of her rounds without interruption and she had collected at least three hundred
dollars did Kapila and I get to do anything. We usually would sit for six hours
in the cold van parked outside a shopping mall and wait for her. Finally she
would finish, and even though her back was aching and her shoulders were heavy
from carrying a ninety pound bag of books all day, she somehow would find the
energy to sneak us into a nearby pool and then take us to ice cream. But most
of the time we didn't see how tired she really was and so, whining and
complaining about how little attention we got, we sometimes drove her to tears.
(Devi Dasi, K. 1990:12)
The
gurukulas in India undertook what can only be described as extreme efforts
to further isolate children from their parents. In the Vrindavan gurukula
it appears that the administration of the school monitored, and sometimes
censured, letters written by students to their parents. When a student
attempted to write his parents about the negligent and abusive conditions found
at the school, he was reprimanded and told to re-write his letter.
X: I used to write letters to my
mom, during the rough times, saying, ‘Get me out of here.’ And he [school
administrator] read them and would tear'em up and make me write new ones. XX: He
did that to me too. (Group Interview, 1993)
In other
cases, students in the Vrindavan gurukula avoided writing to their
parents about the conditions found at the school because they assumed their
letters would be read by the administration, or, as in the case below, they
feared their parents would reject allegations of abuse. As one mother
explained.
My son complains bitterly about
what went on in Vrindavan. Of course I have asked him a million times why he
didn't tell me what was going on. Because I used to go and visit him every
year. And he wouldn't say anything to me. He would just give me his shopping
list. When I asked him in retrospect why didn't you tell me he just said,
‘Because you wouldn't believe me.’ . . . He assumed I wouldn't believe him. And
he assumed his letters would be censured. And so he never wrote anything that
would cause him to be censured. (Interview 1997)27
In still other
instances the administration of the school in Vrindavan apparently sought to
hide the abuse taking place there during the early 1980s.
He [Headmaster] knowingly
covered-up . . . There are two or three incidents that I can think of where I
was beaten or something happened to me. He would take me into his room and he'd
lock me in there for like a day with him and he was like constantly preaching to
me and so finally I just went ‘Okay! I won't say anything to anybody. It didn't
happen!’ And he would let me out of the room. (Interview 1993)28
On final
analysis it seems clear that the gurukula became an institution unto
itself, in Goffman's (1961) terms, a ‘total institution.’ Within the
gurukula children remained largely separate from the day-to-day lives of
their parents, and, very often, from ISKCON community life more generally. From
an institution meant to train and educate, the gurukula instead became
the functional equivalent of an orphanage. As one teacher from this period
remarked.
The whole scenario set up an
orphanage . . . Even though you have kids with parents. Because we didn't allow
the parents to become part of their children's lives. (Interview 1997)
Avoiding Child Abuse: Resources
and Victimisation
Although my
focus thus far has sought to understand a number of factors and processes that
contributed to child abuse within ISKCON's schools, I now want to consider why
some young people did not experience abuse and neglect. As I have already
suggested, a proportion of the students who attended the gurukula during
the 1970s and 1980s escaped being victims of child abuse. This happened despite
the fact that in some cases their classmates were targeted for abuse, while they
were spared.
Perhaps the
most obvious factor in whether a child was abused or not, related to the school
environment itself. It seems that some gurukulas experienced far less
child abuse, while others were defined by neglect and abuse. To a significant
degree, where a student was sent to gurukula had a profound influence on
whether he or she became targets of abuse. Perhaps the most vivid example is
provided by the schools in India, where abuse and neglect were, by all reports,
commonplace. Since only adolescent boys were sent to the schools in India they
faced far more abuse than their female counterparts. In the United States
several of ISKCON's schools also experienced relatively high levels of child
abuse (for example, Dallas, Seattle, New Vrindaban), whereas others experienced
considerably less (for example, Bhaktivedanta Village, California; New Talavan,
Mississippi). It appears also that child abuse was far less prevalent in Europe
and Australia than in either India or North America.
But what
explains these differences? I think several things. First some schools had a
more stable gurukula staff
symbol 151 \f "Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12
both academic and ashram teachers,
as well as the school's administration. While teachers in these schools may
have been more devoted to working in the gurukula, they also were able to
establish enduring and caring relationships with the children they worked with.
Two former gurukula students suggest why a particular school proved
especially positive for them in ways that highlight the role of the teacher.
It was M[other] Kutila who changed
our lives and who let us know that someone could love us; that devotees did love
one another. I swear for the first week I thought I was a princess. We were
never hit any more, we had all new clothes, our own bags, filled with our own
soap, brushes and hot water showers. It was then that I knew I had a mother and
father, they were Kutila and Kuladri (her husband). (Author's emphasis; Devi
Dasi, K. 1990:1).
One of the high points of my life
in gurukula was because the teacher, (name), took us in as his sons
(original Vedic standard) and treated us like adults. We had incredible
camaraderie as well as growth
symbol 151 \f "Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12
including fitness, mental strength,
creativity and Krishna Consciousness. (Second Generation Survey 1992symbol 150
\f "Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12
93)
A second
factor that played an especially important role in limiting the possibility of
abuse had to do with the level of parental involvement in the gurukula.
While the leadership and the gurukula staff each pressured against
parental involvement, some parents found ways to remain involved nonetheless.
In some cases this was made easier as parents resided in the same community as
their child/children's gurukula. In other cases parents wrote letters,
made phone calls, and visited their child or children on a regular basis.
The sad irony
is that parents who accepted the ideological justifications offered by the
leadership and chose to remain ‘detached’ and minimally involved in the lives of
their children, effectively left them vulnerable to neglect and abuse. Simply
put, children without involved parents became ready victims for abusers. As one
second generation devotee concluded:
Usually, if our parents showed an
interest in us, by sending us mail and gifts, visiting us, and maintaining a
tight bond, the abusive teachers would view that child as a liability to them.
(Hickey and Charnell, 1997)
To assure
regular involvement with their children, some parents symbol 151 \f
"Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12
especially mothers
symbol 151 \f "Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12
chose to work in the gurukula
as teachers. As the Headmaster of one school commented, ‘Practically every
teacher had their children in the school. And that was an important factor
[limiting the potential for abuse] that those parents' eyes were there. It was
important.’ As this suggests, the presence of parents working in the
gurukula served to protect all children against abuse, not simply the child
of the teacher. Because mothers were much more likely than fathers to have a
position in the gurukula, girls more so than boys gained parental
protection against abuse. As one woman teacher recounts:
With my daughter it was a little
different because I had some ability and determination to keep my daughters with
me. So I was a teacher and I taught my daughters, or at least I knew where my
daughters were being taught. But with my son it wasn't allowed. He had to be
removed from my presence. (Interview 1997)
A child also
gained protection against abuse if he or she had a male parent who was an ISKCON
leader, or was otherwise recognised as important and influential within the
movement. For an abuser, these children presented substantial risks and thereby
were less likely to be targeted. Even in India, where abuse was more
commonplace, children with influential fathers normally escaped being targets of
abuse. As one mother whose son spent years at a gurukula in India
reported.
My son tells me that he didn't get
abused. And it’s funny isn't it in light of his [activism over the abuse
issue]. But this is because of who his father was [a member of the GBC].29
(Interview 1997)
For children
whose parents remained largely uninvolved in their lives, there was one
available means to create a protective resource against abuse. Again, India was
the context. Apparently adolescent boys in the gurukula were less
subject to abuse if they received initiation from one of ISKCON's gurus. In
effect, initiation created an interested and powerful ally who could expose or
punish an abuser. Initiation thus served as a means to create an interested
party in the absence of involved and/or influential parents.
Conclusion
Marriage and
family life have played a central role in the development of religious
communities and institutions (Berger 1969:133; Dobbelaere 1987; Foster 1991;
Kanter 1972:86symbol 150 \f "Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12
92, 1973). Kanter's investigation
of 19th century American communities demonstrated that successful utopian
communities
symbol 151 \f "Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12
religious and secular
symbol 151 \f
"Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12
controlled or otherwise regulated two-person intimacy and family relationships.
Only by renouncing couple and family relationships could intimacy become a
collective good serving the interests of the community as a whole. As such,
utopian communities face the task of building and maintaining relational
structures ‘which do not compete with the community for emotional fulfilment’
(Kanter 1972:91).
Beginning in
the 1970s ISKCON sought increasingly to control marriage and family life. This
involved several processes: First, marriage itself was redefined such that it
became symbolic of spiritual weakness, an institution suited only for those
unable to control their sexual desires. Secondly, in order to educate children
separate from their parents, Prabhupada established the gurukula. While
founded initially as an educational institution, the gurukula also freed
parents to work full-time on behalf of ISKCON and its communities. For many
parents this involved performing sankirtan.30
In important
respects sankirtan and children represent interrelated and pivotal issues in
ISKCON's North American and world-wide development. To ISKCON's largely
sannyasi leadership, sankirtan represented the means by which the movement
could fulfil its missionary objectives. It served too, to bring substantial
resources into ISKCON's communities during the 1970s (Rochford 1985:171symbol
150 \f "Sanskrit-Garamond" \s 12
89). Children, on the other hand,
represented a potential threat to each of these objectives. With a decline in
recruitment beginning as early as 1974 in North America (Rochford 1985:278),
ISKCON leaned ever harder on householders to perform sankirtan. The result was
the purpose of the gurukula organisationally came to rest on its ability
to provide childcare. Unfortunately, as I have described, the gurukula
became an institution defined by neglect and the abuse of children.
Prior to
widespread allegations of child abuse, ISKCON represented what Shupe (1995)
refers to as a ‘trusted hierarchy.’ Religious groups and organisations are
distinct from their secular counterparts precisely because ‘those occupying
lower statuses in religious organisations trust or believe in the good
intentions, nonselfish motives, benevolence, and spiritual insights/wisdom of
those in the upper echelons (and often are encouraged or admonished to do so)’
(italics in the original, Shupe 1995:29). Indeed parents often socialise their
children to respect the religious authority of church leaders, thus perpetuating
the very basis of trust within religious organisations. It was such
unquestioned trust in the leadership, and in ISKCON as a whole, that led parents
to readily assume that their children were being properly educated and cared for
in the gurukula. As we have seen, this very assumption helped create
opportunity structures facilitating abuse and exploitation (see Krebs 1998;
Shupe 1995 for other examples).
As one might
expect, child abuse affects far more people than those directly victimised. As
Pullen suggests ‘religious congregations can collectively share psychological,
emotional, and spiritual trauma when faced with the reality that their most
vulnerable members have been sexually violated by individuals the community
invested with authority’ (1998:68). Among members of a support group formed in
response to clerical sexual abuse of children in California, Pullen found
members making reference to their own ‘spiritual abuse.’ Although not directly
abused themselves, group members nonetheless expressed ‘that their trust and
faith in the credibility and integrity of their religious leaders had been
shattered’ (1998:68symbol 150 \f "Sanskrit-Garamond" \s | 
