Re-enslave black people? Call them ugly and uncivilized?
Reinforce caste stereotypes treating sudras and Dalits (“untouchables”) like stupid beasts of burden?
ISKCON’s founder openly professed these beliefs and his devoted followers have
never denounced them. In fact, the aura surrounding guru A.C. Bhaktivedanta
Swami “Srila Prabhupada” (1896-1977) has never been brighter, as attested by the
50th anniversary celebrations of his founding the International
Society for Krishna Consciousness in New
York City back in 1966.[i]
 |
| ISKCON FOUNDER A.C. BHAKTIVEDANTA SWAMI |
Such blind adoration of the man and his teachings is also evident in the
academic sphere, where followers of the self-promoting swami treat his legacy as
an unparalleled visionary gift to the West. Just last month, for example, Yale
University’s Dept. of Religious Studies held its “Hinduism and Ecology”
conference at the ISKCON Goverdhan Ecovillage in Polgar, Maharastra (India)
from December 11-14th, with many attendees from major universities worldwide,
most of whom would cringe and run for cover if they knew their hosts’ repulsive
racial ideology.[ii]
In a supremely ironic twist, on 7 December, Prime Minister
Narendra Modi—himself born in a sudra family—celebrated the grand opening of
the Babasaheb Dr. B.R. Ambedkar International Center, dedicated to the memory
and work inspired by the principal architect of the constitution of India and a
founding father of the Republic itself.[iii]
Despite obtaining doctorates from Columbia
University and the London
School of Economics, B.R. Ambedkar (1891-1956) had first-hand experience of the
indignities those born into Dalit (“untouchable”) families suffer throughout
their lives. In his commitment to wiping
out the caste system and its multifarious injustices, Ambedkar’s life and
legacy show what a true mahatma is and why we need to cast a cold eye on
so-called saints who promote regressive practices in the name of religious
orthodoxy.
 |
| Dr. B. R. Ambedkar |
ISKCON
FOUNDER’S RACIST COMMENTS ABOUT BLACKS
Let me start with a famous quotation from Bhaktivedanta
Swami’s commentary (“purports”) from the 1964 edition of his translation of the
Srimad Bhagavatam[iv], which, for
obvious reasons, has been omitted from subsequent editions. I will refer to the
swami as “Prabhupada” for the rest of this essay. (My comments are in blue.)
The cupid, therefore, throws his arrow upon the living being
to become mad after his opposite sex never mind whether the party is actually
beautiful or not. Such action of the cupid is going on even on the negroes and
beastly societies who are all ugly looking in the estimation of the civilized
nations. Thus cupid’s influence is exerted even in the ugliest forms (of living
being) and-what to speak about the most perfectional stage of personal
beauties.
SB 1.11.36, purport (1964 ed.)
What is truly ugly here is Bhaktivedanta’s degraded view of
human sexuality and his monomaniacal belief that “the civilized nations” all
share his fierce and ill-informed bigotry. His venomous hatred of and personal
disgust with the appearance and behavior of what he calls “the negroes and
beastly societies” reveals a coarseness of character his disciples should have
recognized as far from his self-described status as a “pure devotee” fit for
serving as the absolute moral and spiritual guide for each and every one of his
disciples (and I might add, their disciples). Even his own editors—slavish and
gullible as they were and still are--recognizing the damage it would do if the
swami’s bigotry were made public, omitted it from subsequent editions. This
decision, an obvious public relations ploy designed to hoodwink readers, shows
how the Hare Krishna movement was from its very beginnings indisputably a cult.
Treating his absurd racist views as private, esoteric morsels
of divine wisdom fit only for circulation among his disciples was a cheap
maneuver intended to both insult their intelligence and that of the public:
Certainly we are not going to say these things about the negro people
publicly… So, you can understand that these talks are not for the public,
as they have not got the ability to understand.
Letter to Satsvarupa, 9 April 1968,
San Francisco
Evidently our revered guru truly resented the progress made
by “a third-class negro” in Western countries, and regarded them with the
contempt usually associated with white supremacists and other disgruntled malcontents:
This is Vedic civilization: plain living, high thinking. And poor
thinking, poor in thought, poor in behavior, and living with motorcar and this,
that, nonsense. It is all nonsense civilization. A first-class Rolls Royce car,
and who is sitting there? A third-class negro. This is going on. You’ll find
these things in Europe and America.
This is going on. A first-class car and a third-class negro.
Room conversation, 5 October 1975,
Mauritius
 |
| First-Class Success! |
Judging from his disciples’ expertise in cheating and
harassing the public that characterized Bhaktivedanta Swami’s book-selling
scams—who can forget those saffron-clad nuisances who annoyed passengers at
airports for so many years!--he was clearly an expert at hurling unfounded
accusations against black people:
And especially in your country it will be dangerous because these
blacks, if they don’t get employment, they will create havoc, these blacks. And
they are not civilized. They want money, and if they don’t get money, then they
will create havoc.
Room conversation, 21
January 1977, Bhuvanesvara,
India
The following conversation, which I have quoted in full,
between Prabhupada (Bhaktivedanta Swami) and a number of his disciples, shows
just how he advocated racial segregation. Here he equates blacks with crows and
states that they “naturally” prefer to live with their own kind:
Rāmeśvara:
In regards to brainwashing, they claim that our life-style tends to take the
devotee and isolate him from the world.
Prabhupāda:
Yes. We hate to mix with you. No gentleman tries to mix with loafers. In England still,
the rich quarter is different from the poor quarter. Is it not?
Hari-śauri:
Not so much. It was though, formerly, very strongly.
Prabhupāda:
Yes. Aristocratic will never live… Even in America, they don’t like to live
with the blacks.
Rāmeśvara:
No.
Prabhupāda: … So that separation… Crows will not like to live with the
ducks and white swans. And white swans will not like to live with the crows.
That is natural division. “Birds of the same feather flock together.”
Jagadīśa:
And honest men don’t like to associate with thieves and criminals.
Prabhupāda:
Yes, that is natural. We are not interested even with these daily newspapers.
We are interested Bhagavad-gītā. We don’t keep any news. We know the dogs are
barking. That’s all. But that does not mean we have to mix with the dogs.
11
January, 1977, India
DUAL EVILS: CASTE HATRED AND RACIAL
STEREOTYPES
Now I will introduce a set of Prabhupada’s comments showing
his belief in the hereditary, race-based hierarchical caste system and how it
should be introduced to and practiced by his followers world-wide.[v]
The following—in which he openly states his belief that
blacks should be returned to slavery--is possibly the most notorious of the
swami’s racist statements:
Sudra is to be controlled only. They are never given to be
freedom. Just like in America.
The blacks were slaves. They were under control. And since you have given them
equal rights they are disturbing, most disturbing, always creating a fearful
situation, uncultured and drunkards. What training they have got? They have got
equal right? That is best, to keep them under control as slaves but give them
sufficient food, sufficient cloth, not more than that. Then they will be
satisfied.
Room conversation
14 February, 1977, Mayapura,
India.
 |
| Never Again! You Can Keep Your "Sufficient Food and Cloth." |
It is hard to believe that
Prabhupada wished to import the evils of the caste system to wherever had
followers established temples, but these statements make it indisputably true:
The
varnashrama college has to be established immediately. Everywhere, wherever we
have got our center, a varnashrama college should be established to train four
divisions.
Morning Walk, Vrindavan,
India, 12
March, 1974.
Once
the populace is situated in the varnasrama-dharma, there is every possibility
of real life and prosperity both in this world and in the next. [Sure, as long as you’re not a sudra!!!]
Srimad Bhagavatam 4.14.19, Purport
The following two quotations reveal how Prabhupada equated
skin color with caste. Predictably enough, because he claimed sudras have a
“black” complexion[vi] because
they are allegedly “non-Aryan” Dravidians (so-called indigenous people from Southern India), they are imposters even when they have
obtained a higher social status. In this way, caste bigots treat the “black”
blood of a sudra as a pollutant:
So here, this man was
cheating. . . . He was dressed like a king. Just like king is very gorgeously
dressed. But his bodily feature, he was a black man. The black man means śūdra.
Lecture on Srimad Bhagavatam 1.16.4 1 January, 1974, Los Angeles, CA.
Dravidian
culture. Dravida. They are non-Aryans. Just like these Africans, they are not
Aryans. Now they are mixing up with Europeans and Americans. In India,
it was, one from the higher section, brahmana, ksatriya, vaisya, they will be
fair complexion. Sudras, black. So if a brahmana becomes black, then he’s not
accepted as brahmana. . . .And if a sudra becomes fair, then he’s to be know
that he’s not pure sudra.
2 August, 1976, ISKCON farm in France
In
the following, Prabhupada extends his disgust with sudras to Native Americans,
by simply hurling more insults accompanied by his typical unsupported
oversimplifications:
Sudras have no brain. In America
also, the whole America
once belonged to the Red Indians. Why they could not improve? The land was
there. Why these foreigners, the Europeans, came and improved? So sudras cannot do this. They
cannot make any correction.
Room conversation with reporter, 3
June 1976, Los Angeles
OPPORTUNISM:
THE WORM AT THE CORE OF THE CASTE SYSTEM
By now, some of you might be thinking, “why didn’t somebody tell me
about this nonsense before?” Well, in what began as a flirtation in the 1960’s
and in a few decades, blossomed into a full-blown romance, many Western
countries have embraced Eastern mysticism with incense-clouded glasses. Savvy
marketers of yoga, meditation, and various sorts of guru-worshipping cults
insist that each of them has a proven method to achieve “transcendental”
results fast and easy. Voila! You have achieved enlightenment. Now everything
you are and have is subject to a spate of rules and regulations designed to
keep you orbiting around their star. Our guru Prabhupada used to call it
“spiritual communism” and he wasn’t kidding.
Scandals
abound in these neo-Hindu organizations, but threats and hush money virtually
guarantee that only a very few instances are made public. Those who are deeply
involved in these enlightenment-is-easy scams are deluded fools who see what
they want and choose to ignore the rest. For all the talk about spirituality,
it has never ceased to amaze me how most of these people seem to have lost their
souls as they retreat into an alternate reality where empathy and common
decency have little to no value.
 |
| Dalit Woman Cleaning Feces Off Train Tracks |
Back to our subject. If you want
to get an idea of how the caste system poisons India to this day, just go to
Twitter or Google and search for the term “Dalit.” You will find a multitude of
hair-raising accounts of everyday abuse—domestic terror, really--suffered by these
“untouchables” at the hands of higher caste Indians. Such outrages are modern day
vestiges of those Ambedkar fought against so courageously and detailed so
unforgettably in his 1936 unpublished speech, Annihilation of Caste.[vii]
To better appreciate his contributions to eradicating the injustices
perpetuated by the caste system, readers need to get their facts straight
regarding its origins and methods of operations. First, Ambedkar’s correction
regarding the issue of race and caste:
As a matter
of fact the caste system came into being long after the different races of India had
commingled in blood and culture. To hold that distinctions of castes are really
distinctions of race, and to treat different castes as though they were so many
different races, is a gross perversion of facts.
Annihilation of Caste
5.2 pp.237-238.
So much for
the caste origin myths and their relation to the skin color gradations in some
sort of primordial caste structure![viii]
The fact is that all natives of the Indian subcontinent share DNA markers,
regardless of the percentage of ancestral sources and their geographical
locations.[ix]
What the institution of the caste system did (around 1,500 C.E.) was to
artificially restrict interbreeding by restricting intermarriage between
castes, resulting in gradations of skin color that have been mistakenly
associated with each caste. However, as Ambedkar states, India was already a mixed
population racially before the caste system took hold.
We already
know about the racism and caste bigotry ISKCON founder Prabhupada taught his
disciples, virtually all foreigners whom Hindus strictly following the dictates
of the Manusmriti would have torn
limb from limb had they the audacity to presume that they could preach to them
about the Vedic scriptures, enter a temple, what to speak of wearing the sacred
thread and actually declaring themselves to be Brahmins! Yet this is precisely
how our guru taught us to regard ourselves, using the reputed caste egalitarianism
of the Bengali Brahmin Chaitanya (1486-1533) as warrant for his actions. Keep
in mind that Prabhupada’s many references to the Manu Samhita (Manusmriti)
as the lawbook of mankind, are meant to be taken literally:
Manu-Samhita is the law, Hindu law, still
accepted, they have made many amendments. But it is not to be amended.
Lecture on Bhagavad-Gita 7.3, 18 February 1974.
As
the saying goes: you can’t have it both ways! Yet this is precisely what
Prabhupada tried to do; in fact, his racist statements about sudras are only
the tip of the iceberg when compared to the prohibitions from the Manu-Samhita aimed at sudras who dare to
aspire to improve their lot in life:
A once-born
man (a Sudra), who insults a twice-born man with gross invective, shall have
his tongue cut out; for he is of low origin.
If he
mentions the names and castes (gati) of the (twice-born) with contumely, an
iron nail, ten fingers long, shall be thrust red-hot into his mouth. 8.271.
If he
arrogantly teaches Brahmanas their duty, the king shall cause hot oil to be
poured into his mouth and ears. 8.272.
From these
quotations from the Manu-Samhita
(there are many more just as terrifying), there is no doubt that keeping the
sudra caste from protesting their condition and obtaining education requires
subjecting potential and actual violators to threats and horrible punishment.
Worse, it uses its scriptural authority to approve the severe punishment of those
who violate its rules. Prabhupada tried to skirt dictates of the Manu Samhita against sudras and the
social stigmas Dalits suffer to this day by linking caste to the guna-karma theory, in effect claiming
that one’s guna, or nature, determined caste, not birth.[x]
This was
merely a ploy to justify his preaching activities in the West to people who he
himself stated would be classified as the lowest scum of society in Vedic
culture, mlecchas (impure persons)
and yavanas (foreigners). Perhaps these views might partially explain why he insisted
that his disciples live in extreme penury, eating on the floor with one’s
hands, sleeping on the floor in crowded, vermin-infested ashrams, slaving all
day selling his books on the street, and other indignities that haunt
ex-devotees to this day. Prabhupada told us to believe that initiating us as
his disciples and then investing us—many of whom were once a bunch of former drug
addicts and hippies--with the sacred thread made us genuine Brahmins, a joke
that was made at our great personal expense.
CONCLUSION
Today the
caste system remains hereditary in nature and, as Arundhati Roy points out in
her introduction to Annihilation of Caste,
its upper caste members include many fabulously wealthy business owners and
others occupy a vast majority of government positions.[xi]
A relatively few Dalits—Mayawati comes to mind--have risen to positions of
influence in politics, but the vast majority remain deeply and stubbornly
impoverished. To make matters worse, most of the caste-related outrages today
are committed against Dalits, whose protected status as beneficiaries of the
“reservation” system sparks continual outrage from the higher castes due to its
quotas and other forms of government sanctioned affirmative action.[xii]
Furthermore,
the hereditary nature of the caste system is another reason why Hinduism—unlike
other major world religions—does not seek converts. Ambedkar’s straightforward
analysis of this issue is worth remembering and repeating:
The law of
caste confines its membership to persons born in the caste. Castes are
autonomous, and there is no authority anywhere to compel a caste to admit a
newcomer to its social life. Hindu society being a collection of castes, and
each caste being a closed corporation, there is no place for a convert.[xiii]
This is a
major reason why Indian gurus who are actually preaching in the West prefer
terms referring to meditation, yoga, and the like. Gullible people with deep
pockets are favorite targets. However, A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
introduced his Krishna Conscious (ISKCON) sect to the West by actively
proselytizing to and accepting as disciples multitudes of grossly uninformed
and under qualified Americans and Europeans for the express purpose of opening
temples and selling his books. His dictates about our personal lives cost us
our relationships with our families and in most cases, damaged our health and
emotional well-being. The crimes and controversies that arose shortly
thereafter and continue to this day are direct byproducts of these irregular
practices. If Prabhupada wished to teach his followers about the Gita and his Gaudiya (Bengali)
Vaishnavism, fine, but using them as means to his ends was morally repugnant.
Finally, the words of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar on the irrational and
immoral nature of the caste system:
Reason and morality are the two most powerful weapons in the
armoury of a reformer. To deprive him of the use of these weapons is to disable
him for action. How are you going to break-up caste, if people are not free to
consider whether it accords with reason? How are you going to break-up caste,
if people are not free to consider whether it accords with morality?[xiv]
Amen.
[iv]
Generally known as the Bhagavata Purana. For more information about this epic
poem, see the note at the end of my blog essay: https://harekrishnacultexposed.blogspot.com/2017/12/new-sex-starved-idiots-slaves-how.html
[v] “Varnashrama” refers to the four-fold caste system in
a pyramidal social structure consisting of the priestly Brahmins at the top,
followed by the warrior Kshastriyas, then the merchant class Vaishyas, and
finally, toiling at the bottom and supporting all three “twice-born castes, are
the lowly sudras. The caste system is the varna part of the system. It is also refered
to as “chaturvarnya” or the four-fold caste system (a term popularized by
Dayananda Saraswati; see note below) to condense what had grown by the modern
age into an intricate set of castes and sub-castes. Women born into these
families assume its hereditary caste. The ashrama part refers to the religious
orders for the three upper classes; sudras have no part in it and neither do
women (who are expected to follow the dictates of their families regarding
choice of husband and at what age). Under the tutelage of a guru, a boy in the
brahmachari ashram is a celibate student; after marriage in his early twenties,
he becomes a grihasta (householder or married man), after his sons are grown,
he leaves home with his wife and retires into the forest for penance as a celibate
vanaprastha, and afterwards, if he wishes, returns his wife to the care of
their sons, vows lifelong celibacy, and becomes an itinerant preacher, or a sannyasin.
[vi]
Referring to lower caste natives of India as “black” in this context is
just a pejorative term with no basis in reality.
[vii]
Ambedkar, B.R. Annihilation of Caste. Intro. By Arundhati Roy, The Doctor and the Saint. Ed. and
Annotations by S. Anand. Verso: NY, 2014. Hereafter referred to as “AoC.”
[viii] See indiafacts.org/aryan-invasion-myth-21st-century-science-debunks-19th-century-indology/
for a summary of controversies regarding this matter.
[x] The
source of the guna-karma theory is the Bhagavad-Gita
4.13, where Krishna states that the four
castes are his creation and their classifications and duties arise from the
guna [innate quality] dominant in each. It is interesting to note that this
information has been used as pretext by Swami Dayananda Saraswati, founder of
the Arya-Samaj and others (including Prabhupada) to claim that birth does not
determine caste, whereas a straightforward reading of it is an unmistakable
affirmation that the guna-karma theory only amplifies the claim that caste is
hereditary because the qualities that typify each caste are innate in the
denotative sense that they are innate.
[xi] “The
Doctor and the Saint,” pp. 23-33.
