"Even the poorest village will donate 10-20 lakhs to the making of a temple."
June 16 2011 — Excerpt from BIF.
Finally, as promised earlier, we present a three-minute-excerpt from a lecture given on Indian TV to millions (?) of listeners by a very well known and respected doctor, scholar, and philanthropist – Dr. Ved Arya. Hindi translations by BIF:
Translation:
“So this is the concern, that Europeans and Americans have a very good understanding of Indian sentiments and weakness’. Just imagine Americans coming here and opening up temples because they understand that the offerings are abundant. My greatest fear lies in this sector because temples filter through all services.
They have opened churches but some people go and some people don’t go, so there is not much profit because this country is not Christian based.
But just think if they made a temple to Hanumanji and lets say an American company has made it. Then Indian people will say, “Just see what bhaktas these people are, they have made a temple to Hanumanji….. come on lets go!” And their hard-earned money they will give to the temple and that will go into American accounts.
In India everyone knows that if someone constructs a temple to Hanuman or Santoshi mata or Durga mata, as much of the offering they want to take away, they can take away. The poorest people will make donations. Even the poorest village will donate 10-20 lakhs to the making of a temple. Now with them exploiting this sector just think if there is any dispute, and our people end up going there, then we will have to say to them “Please go to our local mandirs” (laughter.) Now these foreigners are lining up overseas based temples in India. My claims are not bogus but based on fact.
Have you heard of this American organization operating in India? True or not? I’m not talking into thin air. There is this organization called Iskcon operating in India who have built temples to Lord Krishna and these temples are their biggest sources of revenue. These temples don’t pay any income tax and all of the profits are transferred into American accounts. Do you know that? Of these Iskcon temples Iskcon Bangalore makes such a big profit that they can send abroad more profits than the American company Colgate does in a year. The American Colgate company after all their sales and nett profit that they send to America, three times that amount Iskcon Bangalore temple can send to America yearly. (BIF: Maybe that’s why Madhu Pandita Dasa is fighting to keep the money in India.)
And bigger than Bangalore temple is the Iskcon Delhi temple and even bigger than that temple is Bombay and even bigger temple than that is the one built in Mathura…..right on Bhagavan Sri Krishna’s chest (laughter.) Over there the offerings are coming in from left and right and the one’s making the offerings are us. It is our brothers and sisters who are members in that temple and they’re being taught bhakti there. They (foreigners) don’t even know how to say Hare Krishna or Hare Rama correctly, but they are teaching citizens of India all about bhakti. And the Indians are saying ”
Just see so many bhaktas are there. They have come from Europe. They are white skinned and used to living in A/C comfort but they are living here and taking Lord Ram’s name and Lord Krishna’s name”. This is the problem with Indian people, we always accept others as our own. All they have to do is play the game.
So now we have financed these temples and we are making donations from our pockets for them to enjoy. So currently all these Iskcon temples have certain restrictions, but in the new year the markets are going to open up and just imagine how many more foreigners will flood into India with intentions to loot. What to do!
They’ll take lakhs of crores of rupees away, you can’t do anything about it, and it is all totally income tax free for them. They don’t have to pay any taxes. So this service sector is so big and vast that anybody American or European can enter and can do whatever they want to make money and take it away from India…..”
BIF contacted Bangalore’s Sri Sri Radha Krishna-chandra Mandir, who have been fighting legal battles for the last twelve years against ISKCON’s American GBC, controlled in the background by Jayapataka Swami (aka. John Gordon Erdman) and Radhanath Swami (aka. Richard Slavin). We asked if they wish to respond to the statements of concern expressed by Dr. Ved Arya. We received a reply from one of the Mandir’s GBC members: Sriman Satyagour Dasa Prabhu. We have posted his response for our readership.
“I would like to respond as follows to the note I received today from BIF:
Madhu Pandit Dasa the President of ISKCON Bangalore, an alumni of IIT Mumbai, is waging a war against these foreign self made gurus in ISKCON for the last decade. The foreign gurus of ISKCON Mumbai are unable to lay their hands on the monies of ISKCON Bangalore and legal battles are fought from High Court to Supreme Court on the claim of ISKCON Mumbai that the funds of ISKCON Bangalore society, which is a legally separate society should be controlled by them as their branch.
Madhu Pandit Dasa says these foreign gurus are exploiting the devotional sentiments of the Hindus in this country and are stacking away crores of money from Indian disciples. He has banned these self made gurus from coming to Bangalore temple to do their “guru business”. Srila Prabhupada never allowed them to adorn themselves as gurus and accept disciples and even then forty of them have fallen from grace over the years into illicit sex, drugs, child molestation and other immoral acts.
He has demanded the ISKCON self made gurus surrender all their assets to the ISKCON temples and to voluntarily declare their assets rather than keep in their personal accounts, that too those claiming to be sanyasis. One sanyasi, Radhanath Swami of ISKCON Mumbai, who got a donation of 150 crores from a disciple did not even put the money into ISKCON account. How much of it is still left in India, Krishna alone knows.”
Ys
Satya Gaura Chandra Dasa
Member, Governing body of Iskcon Bangalore
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