Analysing ISKCON for Twenty-five Years: A Personal Reflection 

E. Burke Rochford, Jr. Ph.D.
author Hare Krishna in America 


For the past quarter of a century Burke Rochford has studied ISKCON. His 
research has been appreciated for its thoroughness and honesty by those inside 
and outside of ISKCON. In this, his latest report, based on a presentation 
made at the North American GBC Meetings earlier this year, he steps outside 
his normal role of a social scientist and gives a more personal and very 
direct analysis of ISKCON, its past, present and future. He expresses strong 
concerns about the ability of the GBC to act effectively on behalf of ISKCON's 
membership and in the general interests of Prabhupada's movement. 

I want to make four statements that I hope will provide a basis for serious 
discussion. Before I do, I would like to make several preliminary comments. I 
feel the need to do so because the statements I make may seem overly harsh to 
some. I have been researching ISKCON for half my life. I recently turned 
fifty, and in the fall I will have been studying ISKCON almost continuously 
for twenty-five years. In a real sense, I have grown up with ISKCON. I have 
made lifelong friends. I consider some of these devotees to be my brothers and 
sisters because our relationships are that close and that caring. 

While ISKCON has provided research opportunities and friendships, it has also 
been a basis for my own admittedly limited spirituality. I see and feel Krsna 
working in the world. I turn to Him when things go bad and even when things go 
unusually well in my life. I pray that He will intervene in the lives of all 
people in the world who are forced to endure suffering. I feel His presence 
when I am in the temple and in the midst of kirtana wherever it happens to 
take place. Sometime back, a colleague who studied and wrote a book on 
Rajneesh mentioned something to me that I have never forgotten because it 
rings so true with respect to my relationship to ISKCON. He said very simply, 
You know, Burke, I really wanted them to succeed. I was really pulling for 
them.' But, as we know, Rajneesh did not succeed in Oregon, and apart from the 
centre in Poona, India, the movement is now largely composed of scattered 
networks of members in North America and elsewhere. The fact is, I want 
ISKCON to succeed. I want my many devotee friends not only to find salvation 
for themselves but also to build communities that represent an alternative to 
mainstream culture, an alternative that other people can become part of. 

One of your members mentioned to me recently that he thought the GBC would, 
within a few years, become responsive to the needs of ISKCON's membership. He 
said that things took time, that membership in the GBC body was beginning to 
change and there was hope in the not too distant future. I told him, and I say 
to you now, that this is not good enough. It is not good enough because, as 
each year passes, many of my friends and many devotees whom I know only 
slightly or not at all are being hurt by an organisation that remains unable 
to respond to the real needs of real people. 

While I have always been willing to express my opinion, I have in many ways 
held back in my discussions with the GBC as a formal body. I have expressed my 
honest thoughts to individual GBC members but have always felt it a foolish 
move to challenge the GBC or the leadership as a whole, and certainly not in a 
public way  thereby potentially being seen as politically motivated. I do not 
see myself acting politically here, although I fully realise that what I say 
has political significance. At fifty I find it easier to speak about my 
version of the truth because the personal fallout from doing so means far less 
to me today than it did ten, fifteen or even twenty-five years ago, when I 
challenged my old friend Danavira, who was then head of the Bhakta Programme 
(a training programme for newcomers) in Los Angeles. (At the time I was a 
bhakta in his programme for research purposes, although Danavir never saw my 
presence there in those terms. He knew why I was really' there.) 

I am not a malcontent. But I am also not going to sidestep the questions 
facing ISKCON because they are difficult and because some members of the GBC 
may not like what I have to say. I am simply too old to worry about these 
things any longer. 

So I present here my four statements, with some elaboration. My hope is for us 
to talk as friends, as brothers and sisters, who may respectfully disagree. My 
effort is not meant to make any of us defensive. In fact, I am really 
interested in developing a solid strategy that will benefit devotees and 
ISKCON itself. 

(1) I have come to the conclusion that even if (a) ISKCON's problems are 
identified precisely and (b) real, practical and viable solutions are 
proposed, the GBC body lacks the foresight, resources and authority to act on 
behalf of ISKCON's membership and in the best interests of Prabhupada's 
movement. Let me be more specific. 

(a) Social organization. 
The question of foresight is perhaps overstated, although a good portion of 
those I speak with emphasise this. I assume that GBC members see ISKCON's 
problems as they are, that they are not living in the dark ages of assuming 
that the solution to all the movement's troubles lie only in book distribution 
and individual sadhana. Please understand, I am not trying to diminish the 
importance of either of these. Rather, I believe that many of ISKCON's 
problems are social and organisational in nature, and that the leadership has 
been slow to respond to the needs of families, especially women and children. 

Even in recent years (although I think the volume of this mantra must be more 
muted these days), I have heard sannyasi GBC leaders (of which there are many) 
stating that they are not responsible for the affairs of householders and 
family life, that it is inappropriate for sannyasis to be involved in these 
issues. Perhaps this is true. Yet ISKCON in North America and throughout much 
of the world is overwhelmingly a householder's movement. Such a principled 
stance of hands off' by sannyasis effectively means they are providing little 
or no leadership to the rank and file.

It is time that the GBC engages the needs of its membership; if sannyasis want 
to hold firm to the idea that this is not their business, they should remove 
themselves from the GBC or act only in an advisory role. Simply put, ISKCON 
needs leaders  active leaders who are responsive to the rank and file. 
Regretting the presence of so many fallen householders is no qualification for 
leadership. 

(b) Resources. 
Organisationally, ISKCON is an aberration. Try to think of an organisation 
where the leadership has little or no control over the resources that allow 
them to act on policies implemented by the Board of Directors. The GBC can 
make policy, but it often lacks the resources to bring it into fruition. The 
result is that rank-and-file members often see policy statements as strategy 
statements. The GBC votes for good things, but only occasionally puts up the 
funds to bring them about. This is a formula for cynicism. Again, there are 
exceptions, such as Child Protection, but even here many devotees believe 
funds are being provided largely to help fend off lawsuits and related 
challenges. 

A few years ago, in my role as a member of ISKCON's North American Board of 
Education, I was involved in discussions about enhancing the movement's system 
of education. This was just after the departure of Harikesa and the demise of 
funding for education projects. One person who was party to these 
conversations and was himself a GBC member suggested that our efforts would be 
better served if we avoided the GBC altogether. His idea was that we should 
develop our own plan and our own sources of funding. In his view, engaging the 
GBC represented a wasted effort. As a whole, the GBC lacked both the interest 
and the resources to do anything to enhance the education of ISKCON's 
children. At first I argued that this was a GBC responsibility. We must get 
them involved  that's their job. In the end I had to admit that he was 
correct. But admitting this also meant acknowledging that ISKCON's leaders and 
governance structure remained weak and incapable of providing real leadership. 

Simply put, the GBC must find ways to gain command of resources. Without them, 
it gives only the appearance of leadership (i.e. policy-making) that in the 
end accomplishes little. The result is that the GBC is viewed by many as 
politically self-interested and increasingly irrelevant. 

(c) Authority. 
As I have said before, ISKCON and its leadership face a crisis of trust. 
Without trust, why should any devotee offer respect to the authority' of the 
GBC? And without authority, the GBC lacks the very basis for leadership 
itself. Over and over, I hear devotees saying that the GBC is simply 
irrelevant. It makes little difference what the GBC has to say. For leaders, 
the biggest threat is not disagreement and conflict. Rather, it is members 
coming to feel that the leaders and their policies have lost relevance. 

In my view, it is time for the leadership of this movement to offer not only 
apologies but also good works'. Authority and trust in today's ISKCON must be 
earned. I urge the GBC to move forward on a limited number of specific 
projects that will benefit devotees and thereby begin the process of restoring 
trust in the leadership. 

(2) ISKCON's authorities, and thereby ISKCON itself, are, in many respects, 
frozen in time. 

Again, I realise that this may be overstated. Yet in a curious way ISKCON's 
leaders remain tied to ways of thinking that ultimately limit their ability to 
deal with present and future issues confronting the organisation. I am likely 
to get into trouble here. While ISKCON's leaders hold dearly to the 
theological knowledge and insight found in Prabhupada's books and spoken 
words, they have overlooked, or been hesitant to act on, what I believe was 
Prabhupada's greatest insight sociologically: time, place and circumstance'. 
As sociologists Berger and Luckmann might say, ISKCON lacks dialectical 
thinking.' Perhaps because of the weakened authority of the leadership, many 
of ISKCON's leaders hold tightly to Prabhupada's words but not to his wisdom. 
Failing to act on the basis of time, place and circumstance has meant that 
ISKCON has lost its dynamic quality. 

Leaders must be more than theologians attempting to hold close to the words of 
the scripture. Prabhupada understood this principle when he came to America. 
He may have been criticised by his Godbrothers for changing things, but he 
also built a dynamic movement that influenced the world. Who among you is 
willing to stand up and apply Prabhupada's wisdom rather than simply recite 
his words? In the same way that Prabhupada's Godbrothers initially questioned 
his judgement for changing things', I suspect Prabhupada would think that the 
GBC is now acting negligently for not bringing about change. 

Prabhupada did not hold to the letter of the law if he saw that making changes 
would expand the mission of his guru and Lord Caitanya. Yet you have often 
become passive, applying Prabhupada's words but missing the wisdom that 
allowed him to build an organisation that was vital, dynamic and often 
responsive to the needs of its members. Perhaps ironically, the failures of 
the gurus, the rise of the rtvik movement and ISKCON's continuing efforts to 
elevate Prabhupada's status make it more difficult to be innovative, to take 
the risks often associated with leadership. Yet there is a threat in remaining 
static and resistant to change. 

(3) ISKCON's leaders must be careful about how they interpret organisational 
problems. This is not the time to blame individuals for what amounts to 
organisational troubles. 

I have recently noticed a tendency for some of those who previously were 
reformers in ISKCON but are now firmly entrenched in the leadership to focus 
their attention on the faults of the rank-and-file. Of course, this is nothing 
new; revolutionaries who succeed often protect their newly gained but fragile 
positions by deflecting attention from the faults of their own administration 
and governance. Despite what some might think, I do not believe all of 
ISKCON's organisational problems would melt away if only the members did a 
better job in practising their sadhana. Leaders must not be blamers. They must 
not fall prey to individualising what are fundamentally social problems. This 
may be good political strategy but it does little to further the well-being of 
the organisation they seek to oversee and advance. Leaders must be hard on 
themselves but compassionate towards those they are supposed to serve. In my 
estimation, reversing this is politics, and destructive politics at that. 

(4) It is time for leaders and other devotees to stop acting on the basis of 
pretence, position or, more accurately, hiding behind these things. It is time 
to set the dandas aside  one's real and imagined authority  and talk 
straight. 

This is a time for honesty and openness about ISKCON and its needs. Bluffing 
will not do. To do otherwise, I believe, leaves ISKCON at risk. While 
Prabhupada's teachings and Krsna consciousness itself promise to go forward in 
time, there is no guarantee ISKCON will. Despite what some might think, ISKCON 
does not exist by divine right. It was born of hard work and commitment, 
commonsense, organisational strategy and resources, as well as having a 
powerful theological message and a charismatic leader. To avoid becoming just 
another weak or failed organisation, ISKCON must earn its survival, its 
prosperity. This requires that position' not get in the way of good sense. 
Leaders and members alike must pull up their collective sleeves and work 
together. To do this requires mutual respect, trust, co-operation and setting 
aside elitist ways of thinking. Look around this room. Note the age of the 
people here. Who will replace each of you? Even more importantly, who will 
replace ISKCON's first generation as its dies off over the next twenty-five 
years or so? ISKCON in North America has done poorly at holding onto its 
second generation. Over the past twenty years it has not had great success in 
recruiting new members to its communities, either. Given this, it seems 
reasonable to ask: Who will be worshipping in ISKCON's temples twenty, thirty, 
forty years from now? Will ISKCON become largely an ethnic church catering to 
the spiritual needs of ethnic Indians? Will it lose its ability to mobilise 
people from all backgrounds seeking religious life and salvation? I don't know 
what the outcome will be, but I do know the decisions made (or not made) today 
by ISKCON's leaders will certainly influence the fate of Prabhupada's 
movement. I pray that wisdom, a collective spirit of revival and an openness 
to reform and change will keep ISKCON a dynamic and relevant vehicle for 
promoting Krsna consciousness in North America and worldwide. 

http://www.iskcon.net/hktv/hktvroch1.html
