Child Abuse in the Hare Krishna Movement:1971-1986

E. Burke Rochford, Jr. with Jennifer Heinlein

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To a leadership concerned primarily with distributing Prabhupada's books and raising funds, the gurukula communalised child care thus freeing parents to work on behalf of ISKCON and its mission. Not surprisingly, many of the young people who attended the gurukula during this period saw ISKCON's schools in precisely these terms.

I did feel that my mom used the gurukula as a convenience for not keeping me around. My mother later told me her authorities strongly encouraged her to put us there so we would not hinder her sankirtan service. (Second Generation Survey 1992)

Findings from my 1992 93 Second Generation Survey in North America makes this point more forcefully. Nearly two-thirds (63%) of those surveyed (N=87) agreed with the statement, ‘The ashram gurukula primarily served the interests of parents and ISKCON, rather than the spiritual and academic needs of children.’ One quarter of those surveyed (26%) agreed strongly with the statement.

Freeing parents for sankirtan was facilitated by enrolling children in the gurukula as early as age three or four, although the majority enrolled at age five. Some ISKCON communities communalised children even earlier, establishing day-care centres for infants and toddlers. One such community was ISKCON's New Vrindaban community, in West Virginia.

Kirtanananda [New Vrindaban's former guru and leader] was very successful because he had a nursery from day one. For those kids born at New Vrindaban, he took the kids and communalised them. They got so much work out of the people in that community. (Interview 1990)

A second generation woman who grew up at New Vrindaban recalls:

[S]oon after Kapila was born . . . the Guru of the farm asked her [mother] to go travel and preach in airports, she sadly said ‘yes.’ Kapila was only three months old when she left him to be brought up by some other lady who lived on the farm. For months she cried at night wondering if he was okay and yet her body could hardly stand any more emotional work after standing nearly twelve hours that day, . . . collecting donations from strangers. (Devi Dasi, K. 1990:14)

An indication of the leadership's motivation in providing child care at New Vrindaban is suggested by a saying used in the community to refer to expectant mothers; ‘Dump the load and hit the road.’ And to ‘hit the road’ meant returning to full-time sankirtan. While leaders in other ISKCON communities were clearly more subtle and humanistic in their approach, they were no less anxious to return mothers to full-time sankirtan, or other work on behalf of the community. For the fact was, women were among the very best sankirtan workers in the movement.

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