Back To Prabhupada, Issue 71, Vol 4, 2021, Quotes, Notes & News
In the previous issue, we detailed that there exists a letter signed by HH Lokanath Swami ("LOK") in which he admits to sexual abuse of a minor. We also detailed that to get around this damning evidence, ISKCON India leader Basu Ghosh Dasa ("BGD") claimed (on 28/8/21) that LOK only signed this letter under pressure from the GBC, who had "compelled" him to sign ("GBC Politics Case Study"). However, Sanak Sanatana Dasa ("SSD"), who is on the same ISKCON India leadership body as BGD (the "ICC", the "India Continental Committee"), gives a different version. He claims that rather than LOK bowing to GBC pressure and agreeing to sign this letter, LOK completely rejected the letter outright:
"It was put in front of Maharaja and Maharaja clearly objected and said that is not what has happened [...] he strongly objected to that, and that letter was never sent out. [...] I can make a letter about you and I publish it in the internet and [...] I even can somehow or another get hold of your signature [...] say look he typed it and he signed it."
(SSD Interview, 16/10/21, all emphases added)
Thus, in order to defend LOK, the ICC first needs to get its story straight. Did LOK sign the letter under compulsion or just reject it?
In addition, in a social media post on 15/10/21, BGD adds to his defence of LOK's signing the letter by stating that it was:
"actually written by a group that was asked to do so by the GBC authorities during 2010."
However, in the same post, he also states in regards to LOK's alleged sexual abuse, that unless one was "present when the alleged sexual abuse took place", then one has "no first hand knowledge of what transpired", and thus "just making an allegation does not make it a fact or the truth."
However, by BGD's own argument, in order to substantiate his allegations about LOK's letter, it would require that BGD was personally "present" when:
1) This unnamed "group" was asked by the GBC authorities to write this letter.
2) The group wrote this letter.
3) The GBC "compelled" LOK to sign this letter.
But BGD has never offered proof that he was "present" for these 3 events, nor has he even claimed he was present.
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