nama oà viñëu-pädäya kåñëa-preñöhäya bhü-tale
çrémate bhaktivedänta-svämin iti nämine
namas te särasvate deve gaura-väëé-pracäriëe
nirviçeña-çünyavädi-päçcätya-deça-täriëe
Dear Guru Maharaj Srila Prabhupada,
Please accept my most humble prostrated obeisances at your most glorious lotus feet. This year has undoubtedly been an epochal one and will go down in history as the year in which the Supreme Court of India ruled in favour of ISKCON Bangalore, vindicating the stand of the devotees of ISKCON Bangalore to follow your July 9th 1977 order instituting the rtvik system of initiations in ISKCON. It was undoubtedly the happiest day in my life – nay, happiest day in all my lifetimes put together – to see your Divine Grace’s true position as the sole diksha guru within ISKCON Bangalore group become an eternal reality which cannot be legally erased. My only regret though is that our dear godbrother His Grace Surananda prabhu who passed away on 17th March 2025, is not there to relish this day. On this most auspicious day I pray that your Divine Grace may please keep him engaged in your transcendental service as your eternal disciple.
For nearly half a century, any sincere devotee in ISKCON who wished to follow your July 9 order had only two options – either be expelled or be a closeted believer of your July 9th order in ISKCON. Through intimidation, threats, excommunication, bans and expulsions, in almost 50 years since your disappearance, devotees in ISKCON have been persecuted, hounded, harassed, vilified and gagged for attempting to expose the current guru system in ISKCON as not authorised by you. The GBC chose to turn a blind eye to blatant changes of your books, murders and women and child abuse, as long as the perpetrators supported their unauthorised guru system.
Way back in the year 1985, Hinduism Today in it’s Sep / Oct edition, in an article titled “The Underground Hare Krishnas” ominously reported:
“Out of 4,000 disciples (some sources say as many as 10,000) that Srila Prabhupada personally initiated into the Hare Krishna bhakti sadhanas, only 12%, or 500, are still official ISKCON members…What happened to the 3,500 initiates who dropped away from ISKCON? Most couldn’t sustain the sadhanas, the Hare Krishna niyamas and yamas: no illicit sex…no gambling, no intoxicants, no meat eating: and the daily grind of rising early, doing japa, kirtan chanting, puja, study, Krishna service…But there were many Prabhupada disciples who delighted in the sadhana, loved Prabhupada and his mission, but couldn’t accept the new leadership, the successor spiritual masters. They either left or were expelled, even formally excommunicated.”
Written barely 7 years from the time the unauthorised guru system was imposed on ISKCON, what this article laid startlingly bare was the stark reality that the GBC had carried out the equivalent of an ethnic cleansing in ISKCON from 1978 onwards, starting with driving out His Grace Pradyumna Prabhu. They ensured that no one who opposed the unauthorised guru system could survive within ISKCON. In a matter of seven short years, by 1985, only 500 of the devotees initiated by your Divine Grace remained in ISKCON. Only those who chose to support the unauthorised gurus were allowed to stay in ISKCON and their obsequiousness was rewarded with plum positions, with the yes men occupying all the leadership positions in ISKCON. The GBC thus created a deep state in ISKCON where all leaders would endorse the unauthorised guru system in unison. This deep state conspired with the GBC to keep the rank and file devotees in the dark, never revealing to them anything about your Divine Grace’s July 9th order for ages. Thus, diabolically, the guru business was kept alive and kicking, although thousands of innocent spiritual lives were butchered, especially when the gurus fell from grace in subtle and gross ways.
Every now and then, some sincere devotee would discover the truth and raise his voice, only to find his years of dedicated services side-lined, false accusations levelled against him and being thrown out of the movement, leaving him high and dry to fend for himself on the streets. To their dismay, such devotees discovered that the unauthorised guru dominated GBC was interested only in maintaining their hegemony rather than in pursuing the truth. In 1999, when a delegation of devotees led by His Grace Madhu Pandit Prabhu presented their understanding of the July 9th directive to the GBC, they too were summarily expelled from ISKCON. Shortly thereafter, the Calcutta ISKCON temple was stormed by hooligans hired by the unauthorised guru’s agents, and the devotees were physically attacked and evicted from the temple for being part of the delegation who proposed to the GBC to implement the July 9th directive. Next on target were the devotees of ISKCON Bangalore. Emboldened by the success of their obscene use of brute force to evict the devotees from the Calcutta temple, the agents set their predatory eyes next on the 40 odd devotees of Bangalore temple. But your Divine Grace and Krishnachandra had other plans. Needless to say, the malevolent strategy of the unauthorised guru’s agents, which brought them stunning success in hijacking the Calcutta temple, backfired spectacularly in Bangalore.
In March of 1978, the GBC brazenly lied to all the Vaisnavas and the whole of ISKCON that your Divine Grace had selected eleven devotees to become diksha gurus. Right after that in May of 1978, ISKCON was registered as a separate society in Bangalore by your Divine Grace’s will. Unbeknownst to the unauthorised gurus busy in quenching their gluttonous ambition for power, your Divine Grace had already set in motion the cure for the imposition of the unauthorised guru totalitarianism in ISKCON. While the unauthorised gurus built their illegitimate empire, at the same time silently in Bangalore, your Divine Grace was carefully rebuilding your home where the whole world could live. Blissfully unaware of the conspiracy against your Divine Grace, devotees in the Bangalore Temple were empowered by your Divine Grace to envision and build the iconic temple on Hare Krishna hill, which would go on to become the battleground to re-establish your true position as the sole diksha guru in ISKCON. Then in 1998, a year after the Bangalore Temple was built and inaugurated, your Divine Grace revealed the truth of the July 9th order to the devotees of Bangalore temple. Subsequently, once the devotees of Bangalore temple led by His Grace Madhu Pandit Prabhu, raised their voice against the unauthorised guru system in ISKCON, the megalomaniacal unauthorised gurus could no longer conceal the truth. Thus they embarked on a misadventure, trying their established modus operandi of publicly assassinating the unimpeachable character of His Grace Madhu Pandit Prabhu and expelling him and other devotees from ISKCON, declaring them unfit to be devotees. Alas, they thought that like it had happened umpteen number of times in the past, that either His Grace Madhu Pandit Prabhu would buckle under the pressure or he and all the devotees would quit the movement, disappearing into obscurity. Little did the unauthorised gurus know that this time, their high handed act of expulsion, would only serve to fan the long simmering embers of the reactions to their offenses, into a blazing inferno that would set alight the very truth they sought to conceal. Thus was born the court litigation in 2001, which culminated in the Supreme Court verdict on 16th May, 2025. Like the proverbial David, a bunch of simple devotees of ISKCON Bangalore made the Goliath of the unauthorised gurus bite the dust.
All through these years, your Divine Grace not only protected the devotees of ISKCON Bangalore from the machinations of the GBC wanting to banish them into oblivion, but also empowered an unprecedented expansion from one temple with about 40 devotees to more than 50 centers filled with more than 1000 full time missionaries and several thousand more serious practitioners of Krishna consciousness. The movement spread from one small city, Bangalore in India, to different parts of the world. Thousands of devotees in ISKCON today fearlessly follow your Divine Grace’s July 9th directive – and the GBC is reduced to a mute spectator, unable to persecute them, as they had so often done in the past with impunity. The rabid antagonism of the unauthorised gurus against your July 9th order did not subside, but they were rendered toothless against your Divine Grace’s protective armour around ISKCON Bangalore. Your Divine Grace has now been accorded the rightful position you so rightly wished, with all your infinite compassion, to be the diksha guru of ISKCON. And now the ambitious devotees who hijacked your movement, cannot deny your Divine Grace your true position as the saviour, the deliverer, the receiver of absolute surrender of all the devotees and the only one worthy of surrender in ISKCON. The loyalty and surrender of all the devotees today in the ISKCON Bangalore group, belongs only to your Divine Grace and is not contaminated by sharing them with any other unauthorised guru. This has been made possible only by your Divine Grace’s infinite compassion.
Now a colossal burden of responsibility lies on the shoulders of the devotees of ISKCON Bangalore. We have to be extremely cautious that history not repeat itself. When your Divine Grace disappeared from our material vision on Nov 14, 1977, the GBC at that time was in a very similar position - a massive responsibility with stupendous glory beckoning. But unfortunately, they blew it. This time though, there is an invaluable advantage – that of hindsight. We can look back at the mistakes and deviations of the GBC and diligently avoid them. But then it’s not easy rebuilding a movement from scratch. However, as long as your Divine Grace’s benevolent hand protects us, we will be able to march forward, holding aloft boldly, the legacy of your July 9th 1977 directive to conduct initiations in ISKCON through rtviks, your representatives, on your behalf, unmindful of and undaunted by the challenges flung at us by the unauthorised gurus. Your Divine Grace is our glorious Guru Maharaj, life after life, and we unreservedly submit our absolute surrender unto your Divine lotus feet as our whole and sole diksha guru. Please use us as malleable instruments in your hands to achieve your objectives in your ISKCON. That will be our infinite fortune. That will be our perfection. That is the only goal of our life. That is the only aspiration in our life. That is the only ambition burning in our hearts.
Your insignificant and most undeserving disciple,
Suvyakta Narasimha Dasa,
GBC Member & President, Hare Krishna Movement – Chennai.