ISKCON UK 'clarifies' after virus infects devotees, 5 die due to big temple meet

The Soho St temple and Govinda's restaurant before the pandemic

The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), United Kingdom (UK), has admitted that at least 21 of its devotees were infected because of the spread of the coronavirus amongst the UK devotee community following the March 12 funeral and March 15 memorial of the Bhaktivedanta Manor temple president, in which about 1,000 people participated. Regretting that five of the devotees have passed away, the top Hindu religious in Britain body does not deny more may have been infected.
At the same time, ISKCON UK has sharply criticized “social media” claims that 100 devotees in the UK had contracted coronavirus. A report in ISKCON News by Madhava Smullen quotes top ISKCON office bearer, Praghosa Das, as “clearing up” the impression, perpetuated “in some corners of the Internet, that management was irresponsible”. It blames unidentified devotees for "false" social media posts in this regard.
The report says that “the dates are very important” before putting the blame on ISKCON UK, underlining, the “funeral and memorial were on the March 12 and 15. But Boris Johnson, the UK Prime Minister, only issued the stay-at-home order on March 23.”
It continues, social distancing guidelines, recommending that people stay at least two meters away from each other, had not yet been issued in the UK, nor had stricter-than-usual limits on the amount of people allowed into a building at one time, adding, "Although other countries, such as Italy, Spain and France, did have such restrictions at the time, the UK did not…”
With 21 confirmed cases of those who participated in the 1,000 strong gathering at Bhaktivedanta Manor and Soho St in London, and five deaths, the report, significantly, calls ISKCON UK as "amongst the worst affected communities by COVID-19", adding, "Several are in critical condition, including younger devotees in their thirties and forties."
Even as expressing "thoughts, sympathies and prayers" for those among the devotees who have suffered, a top ISKCON UK office bearer, Praghosa Das, has been quoted as taking strong exception to "some corners" of the Internet were seeking to create the impression that the management was "irresponsible."
“The dates are very important,” Das says, adding, “Srutidharma Prabhu’s funeral and memorial were on the March 12 and 15. But Boris Johnson, the UK Prime Minister, only issued the stay-at-home order on March 23." And, at the the events happened, people in the UK "were still going about their normal business, and there were no directives against holding such events."
While the "devotees and organizers at the events followed all then-current guidelines given by the UK government, including regularly washing hands – hand sanitizing gel was placed at various points around the venue – coughing into one’s elbow, and not shaking hands", Das asserts, "Social distancing guidelines, recommending that people stay at least two meters away from each other, had not yet been issued in the UK."

This was in sharp contrast to "other countries, such as Italy, Spain and France", which "did have such restrictions at the time", Das tells ISKCON News, even though admitting that the spread of "the virus amongst the UK devotee community can be traced back largely to the March 12 funeral and March 15 memorial of Bhaktivedanta Manor temple president Srutidharma Das – the former of which drew about 1,000 people."

The Bhaktivedanta Manor

ISKCON temples in UK have been closed since March 16, and all temple presidents and other leaders hold conference calls, the report says, claiming, ever since the tragedy struck the devotees, the management is "consistently reinforcing that everybody must follow all of the directives and guidelines from the UK government.”
Each temple has created its own coronavirus team, the report continues, adding, this includes the Temple President and other senior leaders; a devotee with medical training; and a communications person. The team meets on a regular basis online to assess their local temple’s situation, and the devotees who become ill are "immediately" self-isolated, but are offered "prasadam and all the essentials they require.”

Asking devotees not to take things, Das has been quoted as saying, “We are in the material world, there is a pandemic that is affecting the whole world, and there is no vaccine for it. It’s not that somehow or other by chanting Hare Krishna it’s going to stop us from getting this virus – we have seen numerous cases of devotees being affected by it and sadly passing away."
In the meantime, Praghosa appeals to the worldwide ISKCON community, “Please do not be harsh on the devotees in the UK yatra. They didn’t deliberately do something they shouldn’t have done. They thought they were following everything they had to follow. So please wish them the best, pray for them, and hope that they all fully recover.”

Comments

Ahmedabad's civic chaos: Drainage woes, waterlogging, and the illusion of Olympic dreams

In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

RP Gupta a scapegoat to help Govt of India manage fallout of Adani case in US court?

RP Gupta, a retired 1987-batch IAS officer from the Gujarat cadre, has found himself at the center of a growing controversy. During my tenure as the Times of India correspondent in Gandhinagar (1997–2012), I often interacted with him. He struck me as a straightforward officer, though I never quite understood why he was never appointed to what are supposed to be top-tier departments like industries, energy and petrochemicals, finance, or revenue.

PharmEasy: The only online medical store which revises prices upwards after confirming the order

For senior citizens — especially those without a family support system — ordering medicines online can be a great relief. Shruti and I have been doing this for the last couple of years, and with considerable success. We upload a prescription, receive a verification call from a doctor, and within two or three days, the medicines are delivered to our doorstep.

Powering pollution, heating homes: Why are Delhi residents opposing incineration-based waste management

While going through the 50-odd-page report Burning Waste, Warming Cities? Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Incineration and Urban Heat in Delhi , authored by Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran of the well-known advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability, I came across a reference to Sukhdev Vihar — a place where I lived for almost a decade before moving to Moscow in 1986 as the foreign correspondent of the daily Patriot and weekly Link .

Environmental report raises alarm: Sabarmati one of four rivers with nonylphenol contamination

A new report by Toxics Link , an Indian environmental research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund , a global non-profit headquartered in New York, has raised the alarm that Sabarmati is one of five rivers across India found to contain unacceptable levels of nonylphenol (NP), a chemical linked to "exposure to carcinogenic outcomes, including prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women."

Dalit rights and political tensions: Why is Mevani at odds with Congress leadership?

While I have known Jignesh Mevani, one of the dozen-odd Congress MLAs from Gujarat, ever since my Gandhinagar days—when he was a young activist aligned with well-known human rights lawyer Mukul Sinha’s organisation, Jan Sangharsh Manch—he became famous following the July 2016 Una Dalit atrocity, in which seven members of a family were brutally assaulted by self-proclaimed cow vigilantes while skinning a dead cow, a traditional occupation among Dalits.

Tracking a lost link: Soviet-era legacy of Gujarati translator Atul Sawani

The other day, I received a message from a well-known activist, Raju Dipti, who runs an NGO called Jeevan Teerth in Koba village, near Gujarat’s capital, Gandhinagar. He was seeking the contact information of Atul Sawani, a translator of Russian books—mainly political and economic—into Gujarati for Progress Publishers during the Soviet era. He wanted to collect and hand over scanned soft copies, or if possible, hard copies, of Soviet books translated into Gujarati to Arvind Gupta, who currently lives in Pune and is undertaking the herculean task of collecting and making public soft copies of Soviet books that are no longer available in the market, both in English and Indian languages.

Boeing 787 under scrutiny again after Ahmedabad crash: Whistleblower warnings resurface

A heart-wrenching tragedy has taken place in Ahmedabad. As widely reported, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane crashed shortly after taking off from the city’s airport, currently operated by India’s top tycoon, Gautam Adani. The aircraft was carrying 230 passengers and 12 crew members. As expected, the crash has led to an outpouring of grief across the country. At the same time, there have been demands for the resignation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Venkaiah Naidu. The most striking comment came from BJP MP Subramanian Swamy, who stated : "When a train derailed in the 1950s, Lal Bahadur Shastri resigned. On the same morality, I demand PM Modi, HM Amit Shah, and Civil Aviation Minister Naidu resign so that a free and fair inquiry can be held. All that Modi and his associates have been doing so far is gallivanting, which must stop." Amidst widespread mourning, some fringe elements sought to communalize the tragedy. One post ...

Revisiting Gijubhai: Pioneer of child-centric education and the caste debate

It was Krishna Kumar, the well-known educationist, who I believe first introduced me to the name — Gijubhai Badheka (1885–1939). Hailing from Bhavnagar, known as the cultural capital of the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, Gijubhai, Kumar told me during my student days, made significant contributions to the field of pedagogy — something that hasn't received much attention from India's education mandarins. At that time, Kumar was my tutorial teacher at Kirorimal College, Delhi University.

Search This Blog