 | Prabhupada Calls for an ISKCON Constitution
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| “We are in the experimental stage but in the next meeting of the GBC members they should form a constitution how the GBC members manage the whole affair.”
[Letter to Giriraja—August 12, 1971]
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| “...the real thing is that we must make broader constitution of the management by GBC. But the difficulty is that our GBC men are falling victim to maya.”
[Letter to Jayatirtha— December 16, 1974]
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| Thirty-five years after Prabhupada called for an ISKCON constitution, after many inconclusive attempts, the GBC resolved in 2006 to answer the call. Ten years later—forty-five years after Prabhupada’s original request—the GBC has produced a relatively short draft of a proposed constitution, which I will refer to here as CD (Constitution Draft).
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| CD tells its readers: “We need your feedback.” I will provide mine here.
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| What is a Constitution?
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| A constitution is a system of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a nation, state, corporation, or society is governed. Laws without a constitution are like a ship without a rudder.
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| Purpose Six, Devotee Rights, Unfulfilled
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| The preface to CD gives its six primary purposes. The sixth is “To protect the rights of [ISKCON] individuals and entities.” This sounds good, but sadly, that is the last we will hear of “the rights of individuals.” CD itself, ten years in the making, says nothing about the rights of individual ISKCON devotees.
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| Section IV is titled ISKCON Organizations, and Section IV.3, “Rights,” lists three rights of ISKCON Organizations. There is no section on individual devotee rights. Thus CD does not fulfill, nor even address, its ostensible Purpose 6.
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| Although in the past ten years, the GBC has been unable to articulate the rights of individual devotees, the GBC has been able to publish an official paper, and pass laws that forcefully affirm the GBC’s rights and powers.
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| As quoted above, Prabhupada seemed to attribute the lack of a proper constitution to the spiritual weakness of the GBC:
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| “...the real thing is that we must make broader constitution of the management by GBC. But the difficulty is that our GBC men are falling victim to maya.”
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| The goal of the constitution committee was to ratify a constitution by 2016. That will not happen.
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| In any case, let us explore further the GBC’s latest attempt to draft a constitution.
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| Four Conflicting Core Principles
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| A separate PowerPoint introduction to CD lists four “Core Principles.” The first two are promising:
- 1. Establish the foundational principles that govern, guide and inspire ISKCON.
- 2. Address both structure and values.
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| But the last two core principles go to an extreme that defeats the purpose of the first two:
- 3. Be more inspirational, less legalistic.
- 4. Leave details to ISKCON Law.
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| As we shall see, in its attempt to be “less legalistic,” and “leave details to ISKCON Law” (which we saw to be inadequate to ensure justice) this draft provides far too few legal principles and details. Thus it will not fulfill the purpose of a sound constitution—to guide, delimit, and inform a society’s legislative and judicial process, to guarantee justice and good governance to all ISKCON members.
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| I have given a practical example, Purpose 6, to show how CD, in its concern not to be overly legalistic and detailed, fails to provide adequate legal principles and details.
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| Other Articles Give No Rights
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| There are more problems. Article V discusses the GBC, and V.3 gives the “scope and responsibilities” of GBC members. V.3 lists nine GBC duties, such as “delegating authority, managing resources,” etc. But V.3 does not list protecting the rights of ISKCON members, or ensuring them justice as a GBC responsibility.
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| Another example: Article V.3 states that the GBC is responsible to do “all things necessary and proper to facilitate the success of ISKCON’s mission.” This means that if ISKCON is not successful in some parts of the world, the local GBC or the GBC body, are responsible. Those who accept power, also accept responsibility. But there is no hint of what is to be done if the GBC fails to facilitate the success of ISKCON’s mission. CD gives no legal principle and no details.
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| As stated, CD’s Primary Purpose 6 is “To protect the rights of individuals and entities.” However, Article VI discusses “Principles of ISKCON Governance,” without ever using words like justice, rights, fair process etc.
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| Having announced individual rights as a primary purpose of the draft, CD never explicitly mentions it again.
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| Article VI.3 on Purpose of Governance, and VI.4 on Ethos of Service, list the qualities of ideal management, but fall far short of guaranteeing anything like justice to individual members of ISKCON. The very notion of fair process, a cornerstone of a just society, does not appear in a proposed ISKCON constitution. Keep in mind that a constitution is a system of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a nation, state, corporation, or society is governed. Thus if CD were to be approved, ISKCON would be a society not governed by fair process.
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| VI.5 states that ISKCON devotees “who have accepted responsibility within ISKCON are entitled to a process of review when administrative decisions are made that affect their service.” But what are the codes of that review? And what of faithful devotees who do not hold responsible positions? In either case, we find not a word here on fair process.
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| Indeed, the tiniest section of CD is Article VII on ISKCON Dispute Resolution. CD merely states that the GBC “shall establish both formal and informal dispute resolution methods...” Again there is no mention of fair process or justice.
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| The draft authors provide their own commentary or “Explanations” on CD. For Article VII, mislabeled in the explanation section as Article VI, the authors say what the Article already says, “This article simply requires the GBC to have both formal and informal dispute resolution systems,” adding that this Article “leaves the details to ISKCON law.”
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| Remarkably, this explanation says nothing of fair process, of justice, of individual rights. Whatever system the GBC may devise seems alright with CD. As we will see in my discussion of the ISKCON Dispute Resolution Office, having created it, the GBC did almost nothing to inform ISKCON devotees that this facility even exists, nor has the GBC seriously funded IDRO. CD does not address such eventualities.
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| Article VI.4.3 is another example of a promising CD statement whose promise is emasculated by the official explanation of it.
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| VI.4.3 states: The GBC is responsible “to establish an environment where...the respect, value, and safety of individuals is maintained.”
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| Explanation: “This article simply requires the GBC to have both formal and informal dispute resolution systems and leaves the details to ISKCON law.”
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| Rather than provide robust constitution protection for devotees, this section, and its “explanation,” offer only vague, idealistic language, easily circumvented by the GBC, as ISKCON history abundantly attests.
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| CD leaves details to ISKCON law, which itself gives little if any details on justice or devotee rights. Did the CD authors carefully study ISKCON law before they confidently invoked it as an adequate source of details for ISKCON justice?
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| In fact, CD concern with justice seems limited to dispute resolution groups, that historically have often been unable to prevent, rectify, or compensate injustice perpetrated by ISKCON leaders against subordinate devotees.
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| Limited Call for Feedback
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| CD seems to fulfill few of its lofty goals. Its own Core Principles prevent that, since this draft provides neither clear legal protection for our rights, nor details of those rights.
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| The Constitution drafters seek input, but not from devotees in general, who are perhaps the group that most needs constitutional protections. Rather CD’s authors “strive for consensus amongst ISKCON leaders.” Indeed, the “Feedback process focused on the ISKCON Leadership Sanga in 2016.”
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| The 2016 ILS meeting came and went and we hear nothing of a breakthrough in establishing a constitution. In fact, I have not met a single devotee outside present ISKCON leaders who even knows about the constitution draft process, or the call for feedback.
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| Still, we must praise the following section of CD which shows real wisdom.
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| Proposed Social Contract
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| Article II, Section 1: “ISKCON... is... given in stewardship to his followers who are organized as an international society under the governance of the ISKCON Governing Body Commission (GBC).”
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| CD explains this as follows: “ISKCON is not entrusted to any individual but to the collective body of Srila Prabhupada’s followers organized as a society as he instructed, including his instruction that the ISKCON GBC body created by him would in his absence be the “ultimate managerial authority.
Stewardship of ISKCON is therefore not the exclusive domain of the GBC body but is shared in some capacity among all of Srila Prabhupada’s followers organized as a society in accordance with his instructions, including members and affiliates.”
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| This is clearly a different voice than we heard in the GBC claim to have inherited ISKCON.
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| CD also states: “The above definition of ISKCON suggests limits to the authority of the GBC, for example: the GBC cannot change the core mission of ISKCON as defined by Srila Prabhupada.”
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| The body of ISKCON devotees are not a managing authority. But, consistent with Article II.1, they can and should act as a moral and spiritual force. The vigilance of the saintly Vaiṣṇavas will help to save ISKCON from corruption, tyranny, and injustice. Prabhupada perfectly captures this mood of cooperation:
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| “Now all my disciples must work combinedly and with cooperation to spread this Sankirtana Movement. If you cannot work together then my work is stopped up. Our Society is like one big family and our relationships should be based on love and trust.”
[Letter to Upendra—August 6, 1970]
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| Since CD repeatedly reduces devotee rights to the right to appeal to an ISKCON dispute resolution body, we will next consider what the GBC currently offers in that regard.
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