13^TH NOVEMBER 2000

1. Biggest Prasadam Distribution Program Ever Unveiled
2. New Secret GBC Plan Uncovered

ISKCON Bangalore has launched the largest private initiative to support rural schoolchildren in the whole of India. The program was inaugurated at a special ceremony by the Government Cabinet Minister Dr. Murali Manohar Joshi, on November 11th, 2000 at 4.00pm, who flew down to Bangalore especially from Delhi for the launch.

The scheme involves ISKCON Bangalore providing mid-day meals for children in government schools in the rural areas of Bangalore city. 30,000 schoolchildren everyday will be provided nutritious meals consisting of rice, sambar with vegetables and curds  - all blessed by Lord Krishna!

A special kitchen facility has been constructed in the ISKCON temple premises to cook food for 30,000 students at a time. A specially built truck will transport food cooked in the temple to about 40 schools in the outskirts of Bangalore city. This program will involve cooking, transporting and distributing 16, 650 kgs of food everyday. The program will cost ISKCON Bangalore $100,000 a month to maintain, funds which have already been pledged by donors. Though ISKCON has fed large groups of people in the past, the scale of this program is unprecedented in ISKCON's history, in that this is the first time that such a large prasadam distribution program has been inaugurated to operate continually on a daily basis for many years to come - this will not just be a one-off feed on a festival day. Rather a minimum of 30,000 of the most underprivileged children will now become hunger-free for life. Indeed the theme of this program is:

A mission to make children hunger-free

Thus this is only the beginning. The aim is to eventually feed all
250,000 schoolchildren in Government schools in Bangalore City. In this way a whole generation of children will now grow up having been fed largely only on Krishna Prasadam. And for every child that is fed, their whole household automatically becomes appreciative of the service being rendered, and therefore more open to Krishna Consciousness. In this way gradually the whole City will become "Krishna-ised"!

So this innovative program is actually enabling a mini-revolution to take place in terms of expanding the preaching.

Madhu Pandit Das, the Secretary of the IRM (ISKCON Revival Movement)
and the brains behind the project explains that this is not purely just a humanitarian effort, but is actually part of Srila Prabhupada's plan to conquer the whole world. He said that the idea for this program was inspired directly from the following letter from Srila Prabhupada:

"Now I am especially concerned to distribute grains, rice, wheat in the form of dahl and rice prasadam to hungry people all over India. The people here are very disturbed because, partly due to the punishment of Nature, and partly due to the mismanagement of the demon class of men, food is not available. If the people do not even have sufficient food they will not even be able to receive spiritual instructions. So I am hopeful that if we can widely distribute free foodstuffs to the people of India, by giving it out at our centers as well as by travelling parties to villages, *** we will win over the whole country and the whole world by this activity on Krishna's behalf . *** (Letter To Satyahit, 16th March, 1974)

And Srila Prabhupada's plan is working! Madhu Pandit Prabhu explains that the goodwill generated towards ISKCON by this program has been phenomenal.

Just at the launch, over 60 representatives from the international,
national and local media came to cover the event including CNN and Doordarshan, which is India's National TV Channel. Government sources have indicated that if this program is successful they are ready to assist ISKCON unlimitedly to feed the school-children all over India.

International relief agencies are also watching the success of this scheme closely to see how they can involve ISKCON in extending this program world-wide. Indeed 2 days before the launch of this program, the President of the World Bank, James D. Wolfensohn, stated at a meeting in Bangalore that if the city was keen to help the poorest of the poor, then the World Bank was ready to offer all assistance.

This program therefore is another step in the IRM's mission to REVIVE ISKCON strictly according to Srila Prabhupada's instructions, the progress of which we have been reporting regularly in this newsletter. And in this way, by ONLY adhering strictly to Srila Prabhupada's instructions, and by having complete faith in them, as predicted by Srila Prabhupada, we CAN  "win over the whole country and the whole world by this activity on Krishna's behalf"!

To convey the impact of this program, we see no more fitting way to end, than by leaving you with the following personal message of support which was sent to Madhu Pandit by the Prime Minister of India, His Grace, Sriman Atul Behari Vajpayee:

Srila Prabhupada's prasadam distribution program ki jai!

We reported last week on the secret GBC plan to 'fix' the problems in ISKCON by allowing the Gurus to abandon the management of ISKCON, while they remain free to enjoy their disciples. This they planned to do by having all the sannyasis and Gurus resign from the GBC.

Part 2 of the plan to try and 'fix' the mess the movement is in and appease the 'reformers', and which goes even further, was unveiled for the first time in a secret meeting held at Vancouver Temple in Canada last week on November 4th.

The plan is titled 'North American Restructuring', and was presented by Sudharma Dasi, who is a member of the North American Executive Committee of ISKCON.

The plan is simple. There will be three new levels of management in the USA:

1. Each temple will have a local committee of elected devotees. The criteria for who can vote and who can get elected are very broad.
2. Next this local temple committee will elect regional delegates who will be the members of a regional body.
3. This regional body will in turn elect a national membership who make up a national committee. The national committee elects its executive members.
4. There is a also an advisory body of senior devotees who advise the national body. The national body also coordinates the work of many ministries that either exist today or will be created in the future.

Such a structure will definitely need funding to maintain. Also, for the time being, the GBC members can be part of the structure. They are not to be elected as yet.

Vancouver was the first 'test' meeting. They will hold the same kind of meeting in every zone of North America. It will be presented as the restructuring plan for ISKCON North America. If the model is accepted and it works, an attempt will be made to try to extend it to other countries and eventually the world.

It appears therefore that the 'social engineers' of ISKCON have concocted a new model for ISKCON management that will completely eclipse the local temple president, and the GBC. No doubt some of the brains behind the plan were prompted to come up with this scheme through the best of motives, most likely as a reaction to past abusive mismanagement. Better to have a 'democratic' structure where everyone has a say rather than the abusive management of a few individuals of the past, it could be argued. And no doubt this is how it will be sold. However there are a number of points to be considered:

1. The first point is that regardless of the merits of the scheme, the plan is simply a speculation that is not based on how Srila Prabhupada ordered that the movement should be managed. In fact it appears to be borrowed from the way Churches and Synagogues are managed nationally in the USA.
2. On the contrary this plan introduces two elements - Centralisation and democracy - which need to be tested against Srila Prabhupada's instructions on these issues.
3. Centralisation: It is very clear that this scheme contains an element of centralisation with a formal national body which oversees many activities via national ministries. Attempts to centralise activities have been made before in ISKCON, and Srila Prabhupada was so against the idea that he wrote a letter to all Temple Presidents, suspending the GBC in April 1972.

Later on in that year when the request was made again, Srila Prabhupada responded as follows:

"Regarding your points about taxation, corporate status, etc., I have heard from Jayatirtha you want to make big plan for centralization of management, taxes, monies, corporate status, bookkeeping, credit, like that. I do not at all approve of such plan. Do not centralize anything. Each temple must remain independent and self-sufficient. That was my plan from the very beginning, why you are thinking otherwise? Once before you wanted to do something centralizing with your GBC meeting, and if I did not interfere the whole thing would have been killed. Do not think in this way of big corporation, big credits, centralization--these are all nonsense proposals.

Only thing I wanted was that books printing and distribution should be centralized, therefore I appointed you and Bali Mardan to do it.

Otherwise, management, everything, should be done locally by local men. Accounts must be kept, things must be in order and lawfully done, but that should be each temple's concern, not yours. Krishna Consciousness Movement is for training men to be independently thoughtful and competent in all types of departments of knowledge and action, not for making bureaucracy. Once there is bureaucracy the whole thing will be spoiled. [...] But where are so many expert managers? All of us should become expert managers and preachers.

We should not be very much after comforts and become complacent or self-contented. There must be always some tapasya, strictly observing the regulative principles--Krishna Consciousness movement must be always a challenge, a great achievement to be gained by voluntary desire to do it, and that will keep it healthy. So you big managers now try to train up more and more some competent preachers and managers like yourselves. Forget this centralizing and bureaucracy."
(Letter To Karandhara, 22/12/72)

Here Srila Prabhupada makes it clear that apart from publication EVERYTHING else is to be managed locally. The new GBC scheme however sets up both regional and national management bodies in addition to local management.

Srila Prabhupada's management programme, which he refers to above was very simple: autonomous temples managed by a President, Treasurer and Secretary, advised by a GBC body. Bas. Simple and straight-forward:

"I am getting old, 75 years old, therefore at any time I may be out of the scene, therefore I think it is necessary to give instruction to my disciples how they shall manage the whole institution. They are already managing individual centers represented by one president, one secretary and one treasurer, and in my opinion they are doing nice. But we want still more improvement in the standard of Temple management, propaganda for Krishna Consciousness, distribution of books and literatures, opening of new centers and educating devotees to the right standard.

 Therefore, I have decided to adopt the following principles and I hope my beloved disciples will kindly accept them .

 [...] I have already awarded Sannyas or the renounced order of life to some of my students and they have also got very important duties to perform in this connection. The Sannyasis will travel to our different centers for preaching purpose as well as enlightening the members of the center for spiritual advancement. The Sannyasis will suggest for opening new centers in suitable places and the GBC will take action on it . [...]

The GBC oversees all operations and management of ISKCON, as it receives direction from Srila Prabhupada and His Divine Grace has the final approval in all matters."
(Direction Of Management, 1970, 28th July, 1970)

"I want that the GBC men should leave the management of the individual centers to the local presidents and concentrate themselves upon preaching work."
(Letter to Madhudvisa, 12/6/72)

Here Srila Prabhupada states that the temples are to be managed by the temples, with the Sannyasis and GBC's assisting in the opening of new temples and maintaining the standards of the existing temples. He never spoke about any other management formula, and indeed as we have seen was very much against any attempts to change the management formula he gave.

4. Democracy: The new GBC proposal attempts to extend democracy into all spheres of the organisation. Srila Prabhupada also allowed democracy in that he spoke of GBC's being elected by Temple Presidents and other GBC's, and Temple Presidents being elected by the Temple devotees. However the key thing to note is that in all cases we had QUALIFIED democracy - in that all voting members were full-time devotees who were supposed to be chanting 16 rounds a day and following all the principles. This new proposal does not make it clear who exactly will be allowed to vote to elect the local temple committees, which will act as the unit that ultimately will elect everything else. However it should be noted that the intention appears to keep the participation as broad as possible. Indeed in Alachua, which is where part of the thinking which went into devising this new scheme originated, they have already been practising the core element of this scheme, which is to elect a local temple board. There the voting was open to anyone who was deemed to have been 'involved' in supporting the temple - this resulted in around 100 members of the total community being given voting forms.

Having given a donation was one way to guarantee voting rights. However there was no requirement for anyone to actually be practising the tenets of Krishna Consciousness. Clearly such a liberal standard for voting members was never sanctioned by Srila Prabhupada, since by this standard Srila Prabhupada could also have allowed Life Members etc. to vote when electing Temple Presidents. Rather voting under Srila Prabhupada's model was always limited to full-time practising devotees.

In one sense the fact that such a radical proposal has been put forward can be seen as a good sign in that it recognises that the current structure is not working. Having already decided that Gurus and Sannyasis should be removed from the GBC, it appears that an attempt has been made to go even one step further in that the GBC itself seems to marginalized under this scheme, that is if it ends up with any say at all. Though it should be pointed out that its is not at all clear who the shadowy advisory committee of 'senior devotees' will comprise. It has been suggested that the whole scheme is just a ruse to allow the GBC to continue to control things but at the same time be insulated from any insult or blame by a three level bureaucratic cushion that they hope to control.

They will use the three layers as a buffer to increase their power and ease their burdens. It is felt that it will still be the 'same old faces' who will make it onto the national executive committee and onto the 'advisory' board.

From the IRM's view-point it is very clear that this new proposal if implemented could only benefit us, in that we could mobilise our supporters across the USA to get involved in voting for IRM sympathisers onto the local temple boards, since now all temple officials would have to be voted in and voted out. I am sure we can all immediately think of many Temple Presidents in the USA we could do without. However we are more concerned that Srila Prabhupada's instructions are adhered to rather than any short-term gain which may accrue to us.

On the surface these new schemes do not appear to be completely in line with Srila Prabhupada's instructions, and we would urge those who are 'sold' this scheme in the coming months to compare it with Srila Prabhupada's instructions on ISKCON management. We have given some hints above as to the questions which should be asked.

Similarly the proposal to remove Sannyasis from the GBC can also only benefit the IRM, but again it does not appear to be in line with Srila Prabhupada's instructions:

"Recently, I have given Sannyasa order of life to Rupanuga, Satsvarupa, and Bali Mardan, and I have made Brahmananda the GBC man for Africa, and I wanted that you should be GBC man for South Pacific zone. So being Sannyasi is no hindrance for being also GBC. In fact, the duties of the GBC men are now to be just like the duties of the Sannyasis."
(Letter to Madhudvisa, 12/6/72)

[Of course all 'Gurus' should be removed not only from the GBC from the society altogether] Ultimately all these speculative schemes are a classic example of throwing out the 'baby with the bath water'. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Srila Prabhupada's dual management formula of Temples and GBC. The problem has just been that in general those who act as GBC's and Temple Presidents have not adhered strictly to following Srila Prabhupada's instructions to keep only him at the centre, and consequently the movement is heading into melt-down, with the blind leading the blind. Thus we are desperately trying to invent new management structures to try and 'fix' the problems by bypassing the existing management structures that we see as the source of the problem. But the solution is quite simple. We simply need BONA FIDE GBC's and Temple Presidents - who represent Srila Prabhupada by following his instructions - we do not need to replace Srila Prabhupada's management structure altogether.

So since we appear to be willing to try anything and everything, and everything else has failed miserably for the last 23 years, why not consider the following radical proposal:

Manage things exactly in the way Srila Prabhupada ordered. Fixed up Temple Presidents and GBC's, with NOT a substitute bogus Guru in sight, all working together for one goal only - to bring all newcomers to Srila Prabhupada's lotus feet only - and not to have them and their donations siphoned off by whoever the local 'assistant to the gopis' happens to be. You know it just may work. And guess what - it worked for 11 years from 1966 to 1977 with spectacular results. So its a tried and trusted formula. And more to the point - its exactly what Srila Prabhupada ordered. The IRM are trying it.
And as we have been reporting in our newsletters - its working!

So our advice to the 'reformers' who have floated these plans - we commend you for wanting to rectify the problems in ISKCON, and in realising that currently things are not working. However, we should put our MBA textbooks away, and instead just turn to the instructions of the master of all management - Srila Prabhupada.

Thank you for taking the time to read this newsletter, and please keep your letters, and e-mail addresses of other devotees who should be added to our list, flowing in. A hard copy of our main position paper 'The Final Order' is available on request. All other IRM papers can be accessed through the EDITORIAL SECTION of the IRM website at

A hard copy of our main position paper 'The Final Order' is available on request. 
If you would like to receive any of the back issues of the Newsletter please let me know.

No 1. Invitation to Srila Prabhupada's Vyasa Puja
No 2. GBC Lose First Round of Court Case 
No 3. The Story VNN Refused to Publish 
No 4. Poison Theorists Accuse Adri of Complicity 
No 5. Iskcon Continues to Promote Child Abusers 
No 6. Invitation to Malaysia 
No 7. United World Body Formed 
No 8. Does Srila Prabhupada Support Poisoning Theory?
No 9. PADA Attacks IRM Position 
No 10. PADA Continues to Present False Evidence 
No 11. GBC Funded Video says Ritvik Spiritual 
No 12. Child Rapist Selected by Gurus to Defend their Legitimacy 
No 13. GBC Facing Perjury Charge in Calcutta High Court 
No 14. Sahajiyaism Makes a Comeback in Iskcon.
No 15. Govt. Minister Inaugurates Bangalore Rathayatra 
No 16. Iskcon Calcutta Triumphs Following Arson Attack 
No 17. Fighting Lies with Truth Not More Lies
No 18. GBC Resolutions Continue to Provide Laughter
No 19. Indian Leaders Endorse IRM Position That GBC Confused 
No 20. Convicted Child Abuser Officially 'Returns' To Parampara
No 21. GBC Chairman Admits ISKCON 'Disintegrating' 
No 22. Krishna Confirms ISKCON Re-Birth
No 23. Hare Krishna Explosion Begins In New York as IRM Temple Opens 
No 24. IRM Launches Media Campaign to Defend Srila Prabhupada
No 25. GBC Teaches That 'Living Gurus' NOT Required 
No 26. BBT Admits Books Changed To Fit GBC Philosophy 
No 27. Big Breakthrough For Krishna In Singapore 
No 28. Bangalore Tops World Book Distribution
No 29. City of New York to Honour Srila Prabhupada
No 30. Gurukula Lawsuit Special - The Facts
No 31. BBC Glorifies Srila Prabhupada to the World 
No 32. Harinama Revived in World Famous Times Square
No 33. ISKCON Guru on Run From Police - Suicide Case Special
No 34. GBC Declare All Out War
No 35. GBC Fail Again in Second Expulsion Attempt
No 36. Indian Press Glorifies New York IRM
No 37. ISKCON Temple In Bangladesh Joins IRM
No 38. All Ports Alert For Jayapataka To Be Issued
No 39. The GBC's Best Trick Yet