Badrinarayan Swami

The 1998 exchange. On 11 August 1998 Dhira Govinda wrote to Ravindra Svarupa and Badrinarayan that devotees were approaching the Child Protection Office about Lokanath Swami, that “every other case that has come to the attention of this Office has been put on a list of cases to resolve”, and asked “why is this case not open to the Child Protection Office?”. Badrinarayan forwarded it to Ravindra Svarupa (“What a mess. What do you suggest about this?”). His own answer to Dhira Govinda, dated 18 August 1998, said the GBC Executive Committee was then dealing with the disciples of Harikesa Swami and that he could not “imagine just casually listing Lokanath Maharaj as a sexual abuser … especially when there is no clear or present danger”; that Lokanath Swami “would be finished as a preacher”; and that “What he did, was caress a little girl, on top of her clothes, one time, one stroke. I am not an apologist for this but put in perspective, along with his whole psychological test results…the response seems way, way over the degree of the crime.” He added that “there should be a file and a record of the events of the case. That you can get from Ravindra.” On 4 December 1998 he wrote “Best to ask Ravindra. I could not find an offical file”, and sent the script to be read to prospective disciples. These emails are known from transcriptions on lokanath.net, a site campaigning against Lokanath Swami; the panel’s Appendix J (p. 57) reproduces, “From two different emails of Badrinarayan Swami”, the sentences “His disicples have all been informed … We even wrote out an exact script” and the script itself, which match the transcriptions. The CPO did not take the case; see Ravindra Svarupa dasa’s record for the reasons given to it in 1999.

What he knew. The panel report lists “LOK 1993” as “Badrinarayan Swami’s documentation of Lokanath Swami’s testimony to the original 1993 Committee” (Appendix C, p. 14). In that text Lokanath Swami says his hand “very gently moved across her thigh a few times … Then, it moved towards the upper thigh, including the private area”. At the GBC’s October 2011 meeting (Appendix G, p. 38) Badrinarayan said that Lokanath Swami had told him “at the time” that he had touched the girl’s genitals and “admitted he was overcome by lusty desires”, and that “we have danced around the issue”.

The other side of his record. He chaired the GBC task force whose January 1998 proposal set up the Child Protection Office (Appendix O, p. 106). Appendix C sets beside “Ravindra’s version” of the incident a version marked “Bnd” that names “her private area” and asks “(Don’t mention ‘over her clothing’?)”. In October 2011 he told the GBC that the account had been softened “to protect your reputation” under Lokanath Swami’s “constant pressure”, and the former CPO director Tamohara dasa said at the same meeting that “Badri also was saying that from the beginning to get a stronger statement” (Appendix G, pp. 39–40). In April 2000 he wrote to a GBC member, in an email published on this site, that there were “many confirmed reports” of Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami beating children, that “The sexual abuse in Mayapur was even worse than Vrindaban”, and that the gurukula leaders had “fought” abuse prevention “every single step of the way”. After his death in 2026, Anuttama dasa called him “one of the earliest and staunchest supporters of our Child Protection Office”.

No public statement by him about the 1998 email has been found.