Nitai Chand Swami

1975–1979. Jagadananda Das (Jan Brzezinski, then Hiranyagarbha Das), headmaster of the Mayapur gurukula from 1975 to 1979, wrote to the former students’ website VOICE in January 1997: “At Mayapur, the situation became in many ways worse. As some people may already have pointed out on these pages, Bhavananda Maharaja, Nitai Chand, Tapomaya and other members of the Mayapura leadership were actively involved in sexual abuse of some of the children.” He wrote that he found it “easier to forgive someone like Venkat than those who like Nitai Chand or Bhavananda were more directly exploiters and pedophiles by nature and predilection”, and that “Bhavananda, Tapomay and Nitai Chand saw the Gurukula children as useful free labour”. The letter names two boys as “particular targets”; their names are not given here. It does not describe any specific act by him.

1986. Paramananda dasa wrote in an open letter to the GBC that in 1986 a 15-year-old former Mayapur gurukula student told him “how Bhavananda, Nitai Chand and Satadanya were having sex with the boys in the Gurukula”. This is a second-hand account; only a retyped copy of the letter has been seen.

Before 1998: an investigation with no known result. Writing to a colleague on 24 June 1999 about another case, the director of ISKCON’s Central Office of Child Protection, Dhira Govinda dasa, said that “Other cases, such as those of Dhanurdhara Maharaja and Nitai Chand Maharaja, were investigated at various times, but at the time of the formation of the Child Protection Office there was no defined or accepted process for dealing with these cases” (Appendix R of the GBC case panel’s appendices on Lokanath Swami, published 2022, pp. 149–150). On 1 May 1999 he had asked a colleague to file the Mayapur Child Protection Team’s 1998 interview notes in the case file “of each of the alleged abusers”, naming Nitai Chand Maharaja among them. Those notes record a boy saying that, when the principal did nothing about another boy touching him, he told Nitai Chand Maharaj; they do not accuse Nitai Chand of abuse.

2001: the CPO’s testimony file. In a confidential email of 31 August 2001, the director asked staff to make sure that statements by Manu dasa of the ISKCON Youth Ministry were “in the files of Bhakti Vidya Purna Maharaja and Nitai Chand Maharaja”. In one, addressed to Badrinarayan dasa and the director (“Please put this on record in the testimony file against Nitai Chand”), Manu dasa wrote that in March 1998 a friend who had been an ashram teacher at the Mayapur gurukula told him that “one of his boys was continually missing at night and not in his bed. When he questioned the boy, the boy would tell him it was no big deal and he was with Nitai Chand Maharaj, not to worry.” “This happened repeatedly and the teacher brought it to the attention of his gurukula authority. He was expelled from the school the next day and labeled a ‘troublemaker’.” The account is undated. The teacher asked not to be named, saying “I cannot risk harming my wife and children if Nitai Chand finds out it was me who testified.” Manu dasa asked: “when Vipramukhya Swami and Kavicandra Swami scoured the globe to find willing testimonies against Nitai Chand, do you think people trusted them to be confidential?” A further note asks that a woman’s account of questioning Nitai Chand about whether he had ever abused children be put on record; what she said is not stated.

The email begins with a comment quoted from an unnamed correspondent: “I would not list him on the abuser list, but opening a case and investigating is no problem. But you have to be prepared that you may not find anything of substance.” The copy does not say whom the comment refers to.

2006. Rocana dasa, editor of the Sampradaya Sun, wrote that “we have heard that an investigation of Nitai Chand was conducted, although we have heard nothing of the results”.

No CPO decision, GBC resolution or other outcome concerning him has been found, and no response by him has been found.