Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 7, No. 2, 2008, Page 43
became public, primarily through a federal lawsuit filed in June 2000 in Dallas, Texas on
behalf of 44 young men and women who claimed to be abuse victims, ISKCON leaders were
forced to deal with these accusations publicly. By 2002, the number of plaintiffs in the case
had grown to ninety-two (p. 92).
Busy with their own work and separated physically from their children, parents had had little
knowledge of the treatment and the inadequate education provided to them. Many who
cared for children and taught in the Gurukalas were not qualified and did not like these jobs,
which were on the lowest rung of the work ladder. Often occurring out of frustration and
hidden from supervision, physical, psychological, and sexual abuse became rampant. High
leaders themselves sometimes instigated the abuse, and they certainly ignored it.
The abused youngsters‘ revelations prompted many ISKCON women also to complain about
and attempt to rectify discrimination against them. Active and increasingly assertive and
organized ISKCON women protested the negative view of women (women are the source of
sexual temptation, they are not qualified for leadership roles in the movement, their
spiritual role is to raise children and submit to the men). This protest prompted a counter-
movement among some men in the group, which was ultimately defeated. As a matter of
practicality, women‘s leadership roles in the group also increased because with most of the
men working at outside jobs, ISKCON needed the women to fulfill leadership roles in the
remaining temples, and in the complicated and time-consuming organizational structure.
As the result of drastically declining membership among westerners—the original recruits
and target of founder Prabhupada‘s outreach—and of declining income, ISKCON has turned
to cultivating Hindu immigrants from India since the beginning of the 1980s to increase
membership and financial contributions. ISKCON initially appealed to the Indian immigrants
because in those years there were few other Hindu temples to attend in the United States.
Today most new ISKCON members are Hindus from India who come to the group‘s temples
only on Sundays, primarily to meet other Indians and to affirm their Hindu heritage and
identity. According to Rochford, this trend has resulted in a dilution of Prabhupada‘s original
teachings and a general ―Hinduization‖ of the ISKCON movement. (Rochford reports little
social interaction between the Western ISKCON members and the Indians, who do not share
the group‘s spiritual teachings, especially Prabhupada‘s emphasis on preaching.) Rochford
also points out that ISKCON leaders early on deliberately linked ISKCON to traditional
Hinduism to counteract accusations that the group was a cult. The leaders were able to
deflect much criticism of the movement by connecting ISKCON to other historical Hindu
movements, and by using Indian Hindus to accuse cult critics and the government of
religious discrimination when cult accusations were made.
The author summarizes the important changes ISKCON has undergone:
…world accommodation has gone hand in hand with the production of new
cultural repertoires supportive of families and community development. When
they were pushed out of the movement‘s oppositional world to establish lives
in the conventional society, householders reworked ISKCON‘S traditional
culture to make it responsive to new institutional demands… From radical
beginnings that placed preaching and conversion above the needs of families,
the Hare Krishna has evolved into an American religious community centered
on family life. (p. 214)
As to Rochford‘s methodology: I am not a sociologist. However, my father was a sociologist,
and when I was as young as 5, he warned me about the pitfalls of statistics. While it
appears that Dr. Rochford‘s research is for the most part accurate and extensive, my
common sense and my father‘s long-ago warnings prompt me to wonder about the pool of
interviewees and survey subjects Rochford (and other sociologists of religion) draw from,
especially when they are querying ex-members about their attitudes after they have left the
became public, primarily through a federal lawsuit filed in June 2000 in Dallas, Texas on
behalf of 44 young men and women who claimed to be abuse victims, ISKCON leaders were
forced to deal with these accusations publicly. By 2002, the number of plaintiffs in the case
had grown to ninety-two (p. 92).
Busy with their own work and separated physically from their children, parents had had little
knowledge of the treatment and the inadequate education provided to them. Many who
cared for children and taught in the Gurukalas were not qualified and did not like these jobs,
which were on the lowest rung of the work ladder. Often occurring out of frustration and
hidden from supervision, physical, psychological, and sexual abuse became rampant. High
leaders themselves sometimes instigated the abuse, and they certainly ignored it.
The abused youngsters‘ revelations prompted many ISKCON women also to complain about
and attempt to rectify discrimination against them. Active and increasingly assertive and
organized ISKCON women protested the negative view of women (women are the source of
sexual temptation, they are not qualified for leadership roles in the movement, their
spiritual role is to raise children and submit to the men). This protest prompted a counter-
movement among some men in the group, which was ultimately defeated. As a matter of
practicality, women‘s leadership roles in the group also increased because with most of the
men working at outside jobs, ISKCON needed the women to fulfill leadership roles in the
remaining temples, and in the complicated and time-consuming organizational structure.
As the result of drastically declining membership among westerners—the original recruits
and target of founder Prabhupada‘s outreach—and of declining income, ISKCON has turned
to cultivating Hindu immigrants from India since the beginning of the 1980s to increase
membership and financial contributions. ISKCON initially appealed to the Indian immigrants
because in those years there were few other Hindu temples to attend in the United States.
Today most new ISKCON members are Hindus from India who come to the group‘s temples
only on Sundays, primarily to meet other Indians and to affirm their Hindu heritage and
identity. According to Rochford, this trend has resulted in a dilution of Prabhupada‘s original
teachings and a general ―Hinduization‖ of the ISKCON movement. (Rochford reports little
social interaction between the Western ISKCON members and the Indians, who do not share
the group‘s spiritual teachings, especially Prabhupada‘s emphasis on preaching.) Rochford
also points out that ISKCON leaders early on deliberately linked ISKCON to traditional
Hinduism to counteract accusations that the group was a cult. The leaders were able to
deflect much criticism of the movement by connecting ISKCON to other historical Hindu
movements, and by using Indian Hindus to accuse cult critics and the government of
religious discrimination when cult accusations were made.
The author summarizes the important changes ISKCON has undergone:
…world accommodation has gone hand in hand with the production of new
cultural repertoires supportive of families and community development. When
they were pushed out of the movement‘s oppositional world to establish lives
in the conventional society, householders reworked ISKCON‘S traditional
culture to make it responsive to new institutional demands… From radical
beginnings that placed preaching and conversion above the needs of families,
the Hare Krishna has evolved into an American religious community centered
on family life. (p. 214)
As to Rochford‘s methodology: I am not a sociologist. However, my father was a sociologist,
and when I was as young as 5, he warned me about the pitfalls of statistics. While it
appears that Dr. Rochford‘s research is for the most part accurate and extensive, my
common sense and my father‘s long-ago warnings prompt me to wonder about the pool of
interviewees and survey subjects Rochford (and other sociologists of religion) draw from,
especially when they are querying ex-members about their attitudes after they have left the
