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WORLD April 17, 1999 VNN3621 Iskcon Rebel Groups Take Fight To Court FROM THE INDIAN EXPRESS MONDAY (VIA PADA) INDIA, Apr 17 (VNN) — THE INDIAN EXPRESS MONDAY APRIL 12 - 1999 ISKCON REBEL GROUPS TAKE FIGHT TO COURT By Ashis Chakrabarti Calcuta, April 11: Taking Gods and Gurus to court isn't exasctly a novelty in a land where godmen are never in short suply.But what some rebels in ISKCON, the meabuck, once-hep global cult, did last week may be without a parallel. The rebels got an interim order from Calcutta High Court on april 1, which in effect means an intending ISKCON disciples can't have the initiation until the court disposes of a case against it. The veredict has led to an escalation of conflict within the group. The case, field in the court on March 25, is the latest in the bitter saga of sectarian struggle rocking the ISKCON the world over.the case in the Calcutta High Court was filed by four important functionaries- Adridharan dasa, president of the ISKCON temple in Calcutta,Sundar Gopal dasa, president of the Singapore temple, Jayadvaj Swami of Florida and Sattvik dasa also of the Calcutta temple. The have made ISKCON global managing comunity, the Governing Body Commission (GBC), 65 Gurus and several others defendants of the case. But the rebels acted in self defence. For the GBC threatened in february to "censure, put on probation, suspend or expel from the ISKCON or its affiliates" seven rebels who included the petitioners. Four of them were put "on probation". The rebels moved court and got a stay order against any action on them. Worse still, the court, while not stalling the ongoing initiation of new disciples, made it subject to the final judgment in the case. This was because the rebels had challenged the gurus' right to initiate fresh disciples. THE SCHISM: In fact, the current schism within the sect had it genesis in 1996 when ISKCON Reform Group challenged the "guruvad", accusing the GBC and the Gurus of distorting the instructiones of the group's Bengali founder Abhay Charan De who took the name of Bhaktivedanta Swami and popularised the so called HARE KRISHNA movement the world over. Whitnin the sect, he is refered to as "Srila Prabhupada" and is consedered an incarnation of Krishna. The rebels wanted the court to restrain the defendants from initiating disciples. Comment on this Story | Contact VNN regarding this Story
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