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EDITORIAL December 11, 1999 VNN5063 Comment on this story Prabhupada Centennial Survey: Final Report BY KUNDALI DASA EDITORIAL, Dec 11 (VNN) — A Window of Opportunity In the Mayapur meetings of 1993, the GBC passed a resolution to conduct a worldwide survey of ISKCON's membership. The purpose of the survey: To gather data so the leadership would have a basis for a stronger and more unified society. It sure sounded like a good idea. That report was submitted to the GBC over a year ago, and seems to have died at birth. Under the able guidance of trained sociologist, Burke Rochford, a long time friend of the society, and with the involvement of devotees around the world, an extensive questionnaire was drawn up with the aim to discover what issues were most on devotees' minds. Then it was circulated throughout the international ISKCON community. ISKCON not only cooperated with the effort in many ways, but provided funding for it as well. Finally, after more than five and a half years formulating the questions, gathering the data, after organizing and analyzing the results, and after giving several thoughtful recommendations as to how the various issues could be responsibly addressed, Burke turned over the final version of the survey to the GBC on 18 November, 1998. The size of the undertaking is self-evident to anyone who reads the report. A lot of valuable work has been done. Still, we are only in mid-stream. The report shows that Burke has done his bit and it is now left to our informed leaders to take up the task of creating a stronger, more unified society; but it seems they are not about to take the oars. November 1998 was well before the 1999 GBC meetings. One would expect that the leaders would have read the report, appreciated its value and made discussion of it one of the top agenda items in the 1999 meetings. Why this did not happen remains a mystery. Rochford is worried that all this work will go to waste. One hopes, for ISKCON's sake, that this will not come to pass, but it's hard to say. Not only were the findings of the survey neglected in Mayapur, but the survey itself was never widely circulated among the devotees. One reason for this, we can surmise, is that the report is not very flattering to the leaders of our society. It is easy to imagine that if it had been flattering, we would have seen the survey results getting mention in every organ of the society. It may have made the New York Times and the Washington Post. In reaching for an explanation for our leaders' seeming indifference to the Centennial Survey, this possiblity occurred to me: In their essay, "The Idea of a Fake Society", authors Digby Anderson and Peter Mullen observed that leadership in this era has become largely one of gesture÷that is to say that things are not done for effect but for affect. Leaders are keen to be "seen" as "taking" an issue seriously and that's all. They are not really concerned with the issue itself. In the words of Mullen and Anderson, "Their interest is in how they will be received or seen and, of course, whether they will be popular in some immediate sense. They fulfill several characteristics of sentimentality in their denial of reality, their concern with appearance and their self-indulgence." Could this penchant for affectation among mundane leaders be a trend with our leaders as well? On the one hand, one certainly hopes not; on the other, seeing how certain leaders blame the state of the society on those who leave rather than those who lead, one is apt to think that affection and dissembling is very much the trend. Whatever the case, we must not despair. ISKCON is as much our responsibility as any of the leaders and so whatever their motive÷affect or effect÷it is in our interest, nay, it is our duty, to take speak out and have a say in the direction of the society in which we are a part. This concern is supported by the words of Srila Prabhupada in Srimad Bhagavatam (4.14.32): If the king or government becomes demonic, it is the duty of a saintly person to upset the government and replace it with deserving persons who follow the orders and instructions of saintly persons. We are not meant to be sheep, to be led here and there willy-nilly by our leadership. As the above quote indicates, we are entitled to have a say in the society or community to which we belong. In His kingdom, Lord Rama was responsive even to a lowly washerman. Since Mayapur 2000 is just around the corner, perhaps a new millenium will also usher in a new spirit in ISKCON's leaders and in our society in general, a spirit which, for want of a better term, I call "the spirit of civic awarenness". In a nutshell, this means that we make sure the leaders lead us where we want to go, rather than give us more of what we reaped over the last 20 years. The Centennial Survey is a window of opportunity for both the leaders and for the rank and file devotees. It enables us to direct our energy in a constructive way. It is up to us to keep the results and the recommendations of Mr. Rochford alive and in focus, and to extract from it whatever may be helpful to creating a better ISKCON. This would please Srila Prabhupada. Many of the points in the survey merit discussion. Over the next eight or ten weeks, therefore, I plan to put out a series of articles on the survey findings and recommendations. If enough readers are interested, perhaps a discussion forum could be opened. For example, we can discuss which of the recommendations could be implemented locally by concerned devotees. We can discuss how to generate interest in the survey. Like those saintly persons who had to take the situation in hand when king Vena ran amok, it is surely time for us to become proactive and public spirited rather than wait for the leaders to tell us where to stand and where to sit, how to feel and what to think, etc. Hare Krishna. Comment on this story  Contact VNN about this storySend this story to a friend
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