ISKCON Studies Journal Reviews

IRM-GBC Debate

Back To Prabhupada, Issue 25, Autumn 2009

The ISKCON Studies Journal is currently ISKCON’s only vehicle by which they dialogue with academia and the wider secular world (having replaced the ISKCON Communications Journal). That the inaugural issue of this journal opens with not one, but two reviews of the IRM-GBC debate book published by Martin Luther University, Germany (available to read at the IRM homepage: www.iskconirm.com) is significant in that it shows that the IRM is now firmly established as the main scholarly and ideological adversary to the current GBC. We analyse one of these reviews here, with excerpts from it contained in the paneled boxes.

IRM success due to consistency

“Krishnakant Desai has from the beginning been the ideological leader of IRM, so it is only natural that he present their case. \[…\] A second edition of _The Final Order_ was released in 2002; the differences between the two editions are small, reflecting the strength of his original thesis. \[…\] No doubt consistency is one of the reasons for Desai’s success.”

This recognises that our success is due to our position being strong and unchanging.

GBC position always changing

“On the other hand, as Desai never fails to show, the GBC position has changed many times over the years, both on details and on larger principles.”

This alone condemns the GBC position to failure, since if someone’s position is continually changing, then there is no guarantee that the current position will also not again change, meaning effectively that there is no position.

Unprecedented objection

“One of the ‘GBC objections’ that Desai deals with in his paper is that the _rtvik_ system is unprecedented. \[…\] Desai counters this by arguing that Prabhupada did many other unprecedented things in his preaching mission, \[…\] he also points out that if a guru never sets any precedents, nothing will ever be unprecedented, since no precedents would exist in the first place to act as a comparative standard! That aside, Desai does have a point here. For all practical purposes, Prabhupada founded a movement of his own, and he could certainly have done with it whatever he wanted.”

This accepts that the GBC’s main objection is defeated – because one cannot use precedent as a standard by which to determine the activities of an institution which itself is unprecedented.

Physicality doctrine defeated

“Another common anti-_rtvik_ argument also noticeably absent is that of _pariksa_, the mandatory time of mutual examination between guru and disciple. If the guru is not physically present, how would this be possible? Desai soundly defeats this argument by pointing out that Prabhupda’s constant travel very seldom gave him the chance for personally examining his students. Rather, this task fell to senior students, who would recommend those they felt to be serious candidates to Prabhupada for initiation. If _pariksa_ could be done in that way back then, why not now also?”

The above is very apt in keeping with the theme of this issue of BTP and the utter defeat of the physicality doctrine (please see pages 5, 6 and 14-15), which is another common GBC objection to the IRM’s “ritvik” position.

Contradictory conclusion

“So who wins the debate? In my opinion, Shannon (GBC spokesman) does. Desai does score some good points, but to me, there is not enough evidence to support his position. Since the _rtvik_ system would be an unusual way of continuing the succession – to say the least – the burden of proof falls on him, and apart from Prabhupada’s will and the 9 July letter, he really doesn’t have much evidence to support his case. Most importantly – and this isn’t covered in either of the papers – his thesis presupposes a huge conspiracy.”

Of course, it is not possible for an in-house ISKCON journal to publish that the IRM is “right”, but the reasons given for the GBC “victory” are contradictory:

a) Having said that the IRM’s evidence is only the July 9th directive and Srila Prabhupada’s Will, the reviewer states regarding the GBC’s position:

“If Prabhupada wanted the _rtviks_ to become full gurus, why did he not clearly say so?”

So having claimed the IRM does not have enough evidence, our reviewer effectively admits the GBC position has NO evidence due to there being no order for the ritviks to become gurus. Yet “some” evidence supposedly loses to “no” evidence!

b) The “burden of proof” by definition falls on whomever is seeking to prove something.

The IRM seeks to prove that: Srila Prabhupada appointed ritviks to continue initiations in ISKCON.

The GBC seeks to prove that: Srila Prabhupada appointed ritviks to continue initiations in ISKCON, and that these ritviks later transmogrified into diksa gurus. (“The Great Guru Hoax, Part 1”).

The IRM’s burden of proof is therefore already automatically contained within and satisfied via the GBC’s position. But the GBC have the additional burden of proving their transmogrification claim, which the reviewer has admitted above is not satisfied.

c) The “most importantly” reason presupposes a conspiracy theory. But The Final Order actually states the opposite:

“We have no interest in conspiracy theories.”
(The Final Order, Introduction)

Because our position is only that the GBC made a huge mistake, and this is possible even without a conspiracy.

De facto victory

“In Weber’s terms, the guru in ISKCON is today more of a priest than a charismatic prophet; \[…\] None of the deceased disciples of Prabhupada have had clear successors. If this continues to be the case, one may very well question whether the _rtviks_ actually did not win out after all.”

This echoes the same points made by BTP, first in BTP Special Issue No. 2 about how the ISKCON guru has now been re-defined in principle as a ritvik (priest); and in BTP issue 12 about how it is actually the GBC that has stopped the parampara (disciplic succession) with none of their deceased gurus having successors – thus leading to the IRM “winning” after all!

Conclusion

For an official ISKCON publication to publicise that we may not be severe offenders but have points of reasonable merit represents a marked sea-change. This is consistent with the climbdowns and U-turns which ISKCON gurus have been pushed into by the IRM as highlighted in the BTP Special Issue No. 2 and recent BTP issues.

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