Ravindra Svarupa Dasa

His 1999 note (Appendix Q of the panel’s appendices, pp. 146–147, headed by the panel “Rationale for Not Providing Case to Child Protection Office”; the CPO director’s reply identifies him as its author). “There are two reasons, in my understanding, why the case of Lokanatha Maharaja is being handled in this way. 1. It is grand-fathered in. This matter first came to GBC attention in 1994, long before the current mechanism was put into place, and a small committee decided how to deal with it: get a professional assessment, and then make a decision. This we did. Now things have dragged on in the matter of execution, but I can’t see, having committed ourselves to dealing with the matter in a certain way, going back on that decision and starting the case all over again with a complete new system, even if that system is now the established system and has superior features.” The second reason was that the incident happened in a private home and that the family wanted it kept confidential from a family member they feared. On 17 June 1999 the CPO director, Dhira Govinda dasa, replied that “Both of the reasons … are very reasonable” and that “there’s no good reason to reverse or reconsider the decision of the committee” (Appendix R, pp. 149–150).

The panel’s view (report pp. 19–21, 51 and 54). Under the GBC’s 1998 task-force system, it says, the task force “should have evaluated whether or not to refer this case for re-adjudication in 1998. It did not. Instead, Dhira Govinda was informed by Ravindra Svarupa that it should not be re-opened”. The director “did not have the unilateral authority to make this decision”, and the reasons “seem unconvincing … and one imagines the case could have been re-opened in a way that kept it confidential”. The majority also wrote that “a very strong argument could be made” that this 1999 exchange ended the matter, noting that the committee “did have those facts”. The dissent concluded that the case “was deliberately handled differently than every other case of abuse in ISKCON”.

The 1999 Information Release (Appendix I, pp. 50–55; the panel report, p. 8, says it was “written by Ravindra Svarupa Dasa”). It describes the incident on the couch as the hand moving “across the girl’s upper thigh over her clothing”, and also says that the girl “had undergone a disturbing and even traumatizing experience” and that Lokanath Swami “confessed to the emergence in himself … of shameful feelings”. Appendix C (p. 14) sets this text, headed “Ravindra’s version”, beside Lokanath Swami’s own 1993 account (“including the private area”) and a version marked “Bnd” that names “her private area”. In 2010 the complainant posted that the release contained inaccuracies and minimisations, and wrote that he “acts like nothing happened” (Appendix B). At the GBC’s October 2011 meeting the former CPO director Tamohara dasa said that one of the 1993 or 1997 versions was “a whitewash” (Appendix G, p. 40).

2001. Anuttama dasa wrote to him on 1 January 2001 that no final decision on the case had ever been issued, that the CPO director had been told “a LONG time ago that a written decision was coming and that (I think) you were doing it”, and that “someone needs to complete this case, or it looks like nothing was done and the GBC is protecting one of its own” (Appendix S, p. 152).

No public response from him to the panel’s report has been found.