Indradyumna Swami

His December 2022 statement. After ISKCON’s Child Protection Office found in 2022 that Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami (since then called by ISKCON Anirdesya Vapu Dasa) had sexually abused a minor, Indradyumna Swami issued a statement headed “My Statement Regarding Anirdesya Vapu Dasa (formerly Bhaktividya Purna Swami)”. The original has not been located; the text below is from the full copy posted on 3 December 2022 by krishna1008, a blog run by a long-time critic of ISKCON’s leaders, with the blog’s own comments in brackets between the paragraphs. A page by his supporters confirms that he “provided a statement apologizing for having supported and endorsed AVD in the past”.

On what he knew, he wrote: “As far as his abuse of children in the Mayapur Gurukula in the 1980s and 90s is concerned, I was unaware of the specifics. I simply accepted the conclusion of the GBC that he was guilty of misbehavior, that he had been restricted in dealings with the schools, and that he was not allowed to initiate. In retrospect, I feel the GBC could have gone further to make public his digressions and could have taken more decisive action.” On his own part, he closed: “Before closing, I want to apologize for the ways in which I unknowingly and unwittingly contributed to endorsing someone who harmed children. I vow to do better, including by getting more educated about these matters.” The statement does not say how, or over which years, he endorsed him. He also wrote that he had gone to Mayapur two weeks earlier “to give time to some of the former students who remain traumatized by their experiences in the schools in which Anirdesya Vapu was unfortunately involved”, and had promised to support them “spiritually and financially”.

What his supporters say. An undated page by his supporters (c. 2023) says: “Over the years, until recently, IDS had been friendly with and had expressed appreciation for AVD.” It says that he “had previously accepted AVD’s testimony that AVD had been unaware of the sexual abuse that had gone on in his school prior to it having been investigated in 1991”, had “just accepted that whatever restrictions the CPO had placed on AVD in 2000 were sufficient”, and now “acknowledges that the CPO restrictions initially placed on AVD had been too light”. It says he “had no idea until just some months ago (in 2022), that AVD had ever committed sexual abuse”, and that “once IDS found out about AVD’s nefarious activities, he immediately stopped endorsing and associating with AVD”. About a girls’ school in Mayapur that the CPO investigated in 2007 and again in 2015, after which the school closed, and whose situation the page calls “connected to (and complicated by)” Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami’s abuse, the page says that some of his disciples and followers had complained to him over the years and that “IDS continued supporting the school and its authorities, and he encouraged others to do the same. … IDS now realizes that a serious mistake was made, and he has expressed remorse about having failed the students by misjudging the situation.”

What critics said earlier. In February 2012 the critic Sanaka Rsi Dasa wrote that “he openly endorses BVPS”, and that in January 2012 he had joined Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami and the girls of his gurukula on a tour of the Vraja area around Vrindavan; the critic wrote that he “came to know” of the visit while he was in Vrindavan.

No source reviewed shows that Indradyumna Swami knew of Bhakti Vidya Purna Swami’s sexual abuse; he denies it.