The ongoing litigation between ISKCON Mumbai and ISKCON Bangalore is now before the Supreme Court which has said that it will hear the matter on February 16th 2012. ISKCON Mumbai has all the while maintained that ISKCON Bangalore is involved in various frauds and that it wants to purge out Madhu Pandit Dasa and his team of devotees from ISKCON. They have even passed a resolution authorizing Doyaram Dasa to initiate criminal action against Madhu Pandit Dasa and others (Please click on the links for the copy of the same 1, 2). I wish to present some facts which reveal that this indeed exposes the very duplicitous behavior of ISKCON Mumbai and their leaders.
On one hand they are putting on a charade of being crusaders for upholding very high transparency in management but on the other they are turning a blind eye to many rampant corruptions within their system. They hide the flaws of the unauthorized guru system and vehemently protect and canvass it. They hide under the carpet many disgraceful fall downs of the unauthorized gurus of ISKCON and till date maintain and promote the deviant multiple acharya successor system. The facts about guru fall downs and hiding those facts are being exposed by so many website I wish to present some more information that has come to light, in the matter of ISKCON Mumbai hiding the various malpractices of its second generation leaders.
I am going to present some documents which show that ISKCON Mumbai registered in 1971(IM) is hand in glove in various dubious activities of one of its bureau members Doyaram Dasa who happens to be current President of ISKCON Kolkata. Just because Doyaram is their right hand man in attacking ISKCON Bangalore, all his dubious activities are being swept under the carpet. ISKCON Mumbai is attacking Madhu Pandit Dasa and his team just to build a smoke screen to hide their own fallacies of scandalous guru fall downs, widespread misappropriation of funds and irregular dealings. I shall in the following series of articles present documentary evidence to show that IM has a lot to answer for and that it they who are the ones who should first come out clean before accusing genuine followers of Prabhupada.
This is our first of the series of articles in which we shall expose many of the unscrupulous activities of Dayaram Dasa, one of IM’s bureau members. Dayaram joined ISKCON in 1985 served as a brahmacari in various capacities in various ISKCON temples. He became a grihasta in the year 1998. Claiming that he does not want to take any allowance from the temple for his maintenance, he sought to start a business/ businesses. I would ask the reader to scan the documents pertaining to one such business- Janardhan Nirman Private Limited. (Click on the links to see the same 1, 2 ). The said company deals in laying deep pile foundations for projects and housing complexes. Deep pile foundation lying is a very thriving business in many parts of West Bengal the nature of soil is not strong enough to hold buildings and housing complexes.
The soil needs to be treated to make it viable for building complexes and housing projects.
The Board of Directors of this company consists of Dinesh Vinayak Kocharekar (aka Dayaram Dasa), Punam Dinesh Kocharekar (wife of Dayaram Dasa) and Subrata Saha Sardar. Dayaram owns 99% of the share in this company and his wife 1%. The third person namely Sardar is just a sleeping partner. A perfect example of a family business! This company was started with an initial investment of about a crore of rupees. Where did Doyaram get a crore of rupees? What we should note here is the fact that prior to that he served as brahmacari, with no known source of income.
Did ISKCON Mumbai give a crore of rupees to him or did his guru Jayapataka Swami give him these funds so that he could lead a luxurious grihasta life? If his guru or IM gave him this money where did they get it from? Did they giving this money from their guru dakshina account or did they siphon off some ISKCON’s money? If the source of funds is any one of these then he and the bureau member(s) who authorized this should take note that this indeed is a serious offense. They should take responsibility and resign in the higher interest of the organization. Not only should they resign but the whole legal process for punishing such an offense should be unleashed on the culprits. All action should be taken with great earnest to see to it that they are brought to books.
Of course there is the possibility that he has inherited these funds from his family, but Doyaram himself and ISKCON Mumbai should come clean about it and declare openly that he indeed received the initial funds required for starting this business from his family. It is not illegal for a person to invest his own money in a business. Even if it is so, how far is it right for someone who is running a business meant for his personal profit, to be a Temple President and a Bureau member of an ISKCON society.
One may argue that even during Prabhupada’s presence grihastas like Jayananda Prabhu used to work and earn laxmi for temple and they were even temple presidents. But this cannot be applied in the case of Doyaram. His firm Janardhan Nirman Pvt Ltd has been making huge profits (Please click on the links to see some of the financial statements 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8). We all know Jayananda Prabhu, and grihastas of the like used to practically maintain the entire temple thro’ their earnings. They never kept even a penny of those earnings for themselves. Has Doyaram donated the profits from Janardhan Nirman entirely to ISKCON? If yes, let him reveal the figures. How much has been donated and how much has been earned every year since inception of Janardhan Nirman? Let him voluntarily declare his assets, and explain how he got those.
In ISKCON Mumbai general rule is that if any of the brahmacari wants to become a grihasta, the
unwritten policy is that he has to go out and work for himself. Why this special treatment for Doyaram Dasa? He is allowed to run his own business and still be a Temple President and a Bureau member whereas many others are left high and dry. Is it because he is filled with envy towards Madhu Pandit Dasa and that he is a very handy dog who can be let loose to attack all those who wish to reinstate within ISKCON Srila Prabhupada to his rightful position as the sole diksha guru or acharya? In either case this whole episode of Doyaram’s start up funds for his construction venture shows IM in bad light. Either they have allowed someone to siphon off funds or they have authorized someone to be a leader of a temple and simultaneously continue with business activity for himself just because he is a useful tool meant for attacking Prabhupadanugas.
God and the devious selfish Doyaram only know how many more businesses he has started and used ISKCON’s support, be they covert or direct for the purpose of self aggrandizement.
It is also a funny thing that this very man Doyaram who has his own construction venture for his self maintenance accuses Madhu Pandit Prabhu and other devotees of ISKCON Bangalore of running a family enterprise at ISKCON Bangalore. He and his stooges call ISKCON Bangalore, which is one of the best run ISKCON temples in the world and one of the few in which Srila Prabhupada is worshiped as the only acharya and diksha guru, a family run enterprise. In actuality ISKCON Bangalore is governed by a ten member council whose members are from various parts of India, who are elected from a temple president’s body every three year once as Srila Prabhupada wished (Click here to know more). ISKCON Bangalore and its group of temples has in its fold hundreds of full time missionaries serving the mission of Srila Prabhupada with great earnest. How much more mundane can a persons’ vision get? To Doyaram a temple dedicated to serving Prabhupada is a family enterprise and on par with a commercial venture meant for the pleasure of a family. Whereas his family business meant for earning his luxurious lifestyle is entirely transcendental and not commercial! There cannot be a better case of a criminal accusing the police of crime! It is also pertinent to note that all the governing council members of ISKCON Bangalore file a voluntary disclosure of their assets for the sake transparency. Let the bureau members of IM and Doyaram in particular, the kali chelas in the garb of devotees also file voluntary disclosure affidavits if they have nothing to hide. The fact that they do not want to disclose this, shows they are guilty of some misconduct.
ISKCON Bangalore has also ventured into businesses for the purpose of supporting various endeavors for propagating Krishna consciousness. The businesses range from housing projects to devotional artifacts and prasadam sales. All these are done thro’ separate trusts. In the constitutional documents of these trusts, one of the clauses clearly ensures that none of the trustees are in any way benefited from the profits that the trust makes in any of its ventures.
The clause in the India Heritage Foundation, which is involved in funding the Krishna Lila theme park coming up in Bangalore, reads as follows: “…The trustee or the trustees as the case may be shall not derive benefit at any time from the trust funds at any event neither during the existence of the trust nor any at other time will any property of the trust be distributed among or made over to the trustee(s).” (IHF trust deed Clause 4) Click here to see the scanned copy of the relevant portion of the trust deed.
This clause has been appropriately added in all trusts to ensure transparency and
accountability.
We have on the one hand, systems and checks and balances for maintaining transparency being maintained in ISKCON Bangalore, and on the other we have the ISKCON Mumbai GBC which is flouting all norms and with a history of scandalous guru fall downs. Many ISKCON gurus have stolen ISKCON assets, and the leadership is authorizing chelas like Doyaram to run their own business. Only God knows where the source of these funds and the destination to which profits vanish. The funny thing is that this very same unelected and deviant GBC of ISKCON Mumbai which has hijacked the movement of Srila Prabhupada, points fingers at ISKCON Bangalore and says you are full of malpractice. Often said adage, beware when you point fingers at someone there are three which point to you.