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EUROPE September 5, 2000 VNN6205 Comment on this story Bhaktivedanta Manor Protest: A Young Participant's Perspective SUBMITTED BY SRIDAM SAKHA DASA ENGLAND, Sep 5 (VNN) — The following account of events at Bhaktivedanta Manor on Janmastami day in answer to Pandava Sena's incorrect version was written by Vrinda dasi, the 14 year old daughter of Anandini, the main protest organizer: I just read the article on VNN (Story #6193) written by Pandava Sena about the protest at Bhaktivedanta Manor on Sunday (27th August). I was shocked to find that they are saying that we were the ones causing trouble. I am one of the kids who was on the protest and I know for a fact that, that is not true at all. I was out there because I don't like the way they have treated my guru or any of his followers. I have been banned from the Manor twice on account of my having accepted initiation from my Gurudeva, the first time I was only ten years old, my brother who was also banned was eight. The protest was very peaceful while the police were there but they left after about half an hour. Almost immediately Atmanivedanam Swami, who is part of the Temple Management, began trying to stop us handing out leaflets to all the cars. One of the Temple Volunteers stood ahead of us to tell cars to drive straight past us without stopping for leaflets. The only outcome of this, however, was that the cars didn't know where to turn and drove straight past the Manor gates as well. He gave this up after a while and started walking back towards the gates. As he passed, he snatched some leaflets out of the hand of one of the kids and threw them over his shoulder into the bushes. Atmanivedanam Swami, who was standing at the gates, told me to get off the corner where I was standing, even though the police had given me permission to be there. I was starting to feel uncomfortable so someone swapped places with me. 15-20 minutes later, nearly a dozen young Hindu men, probably all in their early 20s, came out through the Manor gates and started walking towards us. They were about half way across the road when Atmanivedanam Swami called them back and started talking to them. It looked like a meeting about what they should do about our protest. A couple minutes later they stopped talking and crossed the road, coming towards us. One of them tried to take some leaflets from some of the kids, when they wouldn't give them to him he started swearing at them and ripped them out of their hands. They then started tearing up leaflets, twisting placards out of peoples' hands and smashing them. One of my friends used her cellphone to call the police to stop them. I watched in amazement at the chaos going on all around me. Even after being banned from the Manor twice for no reason, except for the fact that they don't respect my gurudeva, I still had faith that the people at the Manor had enough integrity to respect our protest. We certainly never expected a physical attack. Looking around, I saw a box of about 2000 leaflets lying on the ground, luckily no one else had seen it yet. I started running towards it to keep it safe when I heard someone shout from across the road "Get the leaflets!" I quickened my pace and got there just in time. One of the young men tried to reach the box, but I was already standing in the way, he tried to push past me but I wouldn't move. A couple more came from the side. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't carry the box, it was way too heavy and they would grab it off me anyway, so I did the first thing that came into my mind Ð I sat on it. They couldn't pull me off without getting into trouble. Taking banners and leaflets out of peoples' hands was one thing but to get at these leaflets they would have had to pull me off the box. They shouted at me, telling me to get up, but I didn't move. I just sat there, hoping that they would have enough sense not to do anything to me. One of my friends shouted at them, telling them that she could not believe that they were treating us like that. Our protest was made up of only 8 or 9 devotees, more than half of whom were children, plus two of the adults are disabled. What could we do to defend ourselves from nearly a dozen able-bodied young men? They told us sarcastically to "go in the temple and pray." When we said that we couldn't they said "Why not? It's a free country isn't it?" It seems that these men didn't know why we were protesting, and they couldn't be bothered to find out. They were simply there to stop our protest. They are blindly following the ideas that the temple authorities have given them. I doubt whether they have thought any of this through for themselves. They threatened to pull me off the box and "burn the whole thing" but just then someone rode past on a bike, he saw what was going on and stopped to help us. One of the devotees from the protest shouted out to the young men "Don't you touch her, we have a witness!" As soon as they saw him, they all dropped whatever they were doing and started going back through the gates, into the Manor grounds. At first I couldn't work out what had happened, I just looked around in surprise. Then I saw the witness standing there talking to some of the adults, He kindly waited until the police arrived and gave them his name and address. After the police had returned I was surprised to see one of the girls carrying the biggest of our banners. I thought they had all been destroyed. It turned out that she had grabbed it from one of the men as he was taking it from someone else, and then she hid in a bush with it and brought it out when it was safe. The police said that if we wanted to continue the protest then they would stay with us to make sure that nothing else happened, so we carried on giving out leaflets for another 2-3 hours while holding our single rescued banner. About half an hour after this incident, Vipramukya Swami, who is Temple President at the Manor, came out and gave us a letter saying that he was shocked to hear about what had happened and assuring us that none of it had anything to do with the Manor. Even if Temple Management had nothing to do with organising it they certainly did nothing to stop it. Atmanivedanam Swami was standing by watching the whole time and disappeared back into the Manor grounds at the same time as the young men. The Temple Management also wouldn't let us go on the grounds to point out these young men to the police, even with an escort. Why is Vipramukya Swami protecting them even though he said in his letter that he was "shocked" to hear about the attack against us? Why the duplicity? I consider myself loyal to Srila Prabhupada, whatever may be said and I do not believe that the GBC has any right to say who is loyal and who is not. They have never bothered to get to know any of us as people. They allow people who eat meat, drink or smoke to go to Srila Prabhupada's temples but if you take initiation from a guru they don't accept then you're "disloyal" and should be banned. This kind of discrimination and harassment should stop? Comment on this story  Contact VNN about this storySend this story to a friend
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