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26TH AUGUST 2000

As we have seen from the above story, whenever the IRM presents something in the media, it is with the positive aim of informing the whole world that Srila Prabhupada LIVES and that he is still to be glorified and worshipped today. Please contrast this with the GBC Gurus use of the media. As we will see from the following shocking press release that was published throughout India on the FRONT PAGE of a national newspaper, Jayapataka Swami boasts how he has managed to get the Asian Age - a national Indian newspaper - to print an article he wrote, in which it is stated that Srila Prabhupada is "dead".

From: Jayapataka.Swami@pamho.net [mailto:Jayapataka.Swami@pamho.net]
Sent: Monday, July 24, 2000 10:12 PM
To: ICI (ISKCON Communications India); Anuttama (das) ACBSP (IC N.America); Amrta Gaurangi (dd) JPS (Mayapur - IN); Parijata (dd) RNS (IC Mumbai - IN)
Subject: News article responding to Adri's Asian Age interview 

Home Base: Sri Mayapur Candrodaya Mandir, Navadwip Dham, Nadia, WB, INDIA 

The following article was published on the Front Page of Today's Asian Age Newspaper. I copied this off of internet where it is also still there today.
It is in response to Adri's interview against ISKCON leadership and pro-IRM.
Shankarshan das and Nitai Prasad das delivered the press release and cultivated the press. I drafted the press release and it was edited by our lawyers. The newspaper edited it themselves as they always do. Still the main gist is there.
 

Front Page ---- Asian Age news.
24th July, 2000.
Iskcon: What are we to do with Ritvikism?
By Dhiman Chattopadhyay and Kounteya Sinha Calcutta,

July 23 On the defensive for months after the sex abuse scandal rocked their world, authorities at the Iskcon Mayapur Ashram have now struck back with a vengeance at their Calcutta counterparts, the Iskcon Revival Movement. 

The Mayapur general manager has ridiculed the revival movement president's doctrine of "Ritvikism" calling it "a strange and concocted idea". In a signed statement issued to all Krishna bhaktas around the world, Mayapur general manager Dham Nitai Prasad Dasa has accused revival movement president Adridharana Dasa of "behaving in a deviant manner" and unleashing an onslaught of false, offensive, and derogatory publicity".
Mr Adridharana Dasa is propagating a delusive doctrine known as Ritvikism, where he believes that all devotees wanting to receive diksha within Iskcon should still receive it from founder-acharya of Iskcon, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Srila Prabhupada, and become his direct disciples, in spite of 
*** him being dead for the last 23 years ***," the letter says.

Please note that though Jayapataka Swami claims that the Asian Age 'edited' the press release he wrote, here they are quoting directly from the press release in question. And Jayapataka Swami does not object to what has been written, rather he boasts to everyone how the 'main gist' is there - with the main gist being that Srila Prabhupada has been 'dead for the last 23 years' - so that we must instead approach impostor Gurus such as himself.

It also seems ludicrous that persons could possibly accuse the IRM of being 'offensive' when it is pieces such as the above which are given the GBC/Guru rubber stamp. It seems that in the above article, Jayapataka Swami's envy for Srila Prabhupada has forced him to object to the idea that devotees may prefer to take Diksa from Srila Prabhupada rather than him by emphasising in such graphic terms Srila Prabhupada's supposed defect compared to him 

- "hey, don't you know that he has been dead for the last 23 years!"
sp Srila Prabhupada
-living still, in sound

Please compare the 2 media 'stories' above. They could not be more different in terms of their glorification and appreciation of Srila Prabhupada's contribution to the world.
One states that he continues to live. The other states that he has been 'dead for the last 23 years'.