Dear devotees

Please accept my humble obeisances

All glories to Srila Prabhupada

I’m writing this letter with the hope that it can be beneficial to the
Bhaktivedanta Academy, hence the Mayapur project and ISKCON in
general. Projects that I gave my life to.

This letter is an attempt to assess the situation of the Gurukul from the
period Sitaram Prabhu and Nitai Madhava prabhu got involved in the
school management (2022) until the period I was serving there,
November 2023.

During the 2021/2022 crisis that Gurukul passed, I was informed that
there was a change in the school management, Baladev Mahasai
wanted to step down from the role as a principal and Sitaram and Nitai
Madhava prabhus were now getting involved managerially, I never
actually understood how this arrangement was done, but it wasn’t my
concern, so I never asked.

Nitai Madhav Prabhu came to Gurukul in 2021 to learn how to teach

and how to run a school, since, according to Sitaram prabhu, they
wanted to open a school in Mumbai. I was the one who agreed to this
proposal, since I was in charge of training new teachers. He was under
my guidance since he came. He had no previous experience teaching
children, and he had no degree in the field of education, he had post
graduation in philosophy, so his tendency was always to teach
philosophy classes, I tried getting him teaching academic subjects, but
he never showed real interest in it, so I always gave him the freedom
to chose what he wanted to teach. He was always very responsible and
inquisitive, we had many nice discussions regarding education,
philosophy and the progress of ISKCON in general.
When both of them got involved in the management I tactfully and
politely expressed my concerns to them and to others in regards to the
lack of experience they had dealing with children and most
importantly dealing with the daily life of a school, which is different
than a company and a temple. But I knew they had experience with
management and fundraising. I was invited to be part of the new
board, something I was reluctant at first, but they insisted that my
presence would be beneficial, so I joined the newly established board.
My hope was that the board would act as a team, each one bringing
their expertise and working together for the benefit of the students.
After the second meeting I understood that it wasn’t like that. Sitaram
prabhu was trying to control and take power of all discussions and
Nitai Madhav prabhu was showing no autonomy to run the school, he
was completely dependent on Sitaram prabhu’s commands, and the
board was dysfunctional in terms of education, instead of taking
decisions based on what was educationally better, the decisions were
mainly political. So I asked to be removed from the board and just
focus on teaching and managing the academics of the school.

With time, and the expansion of their managerial system, all the
autonomy I had, as an educator, to do my services as a teacher,
curriculum manager and teacher in charge, was slowly being removed,
Nitai Madhav prabhu was micromanaging all services in details,
imposing his ideas, that were actually Sitaram Prabhu’s ideas. So I
didn’t feel like serving in an educational institution, but in a
corporative company. A little more organized, but incapable
educationally. Relationships were being broken between management
and teachers, management and alumni and management and students.
And the worst of all, they never accepted any kind of feedback or
ideas, even knowing that they were completely inexperienced in the
field of education.

Slowly I started noticing that they had personal plans in regards to the
properties and assets of the Bhaktivedanta Academy. Plans that they
wouldn’t share with others, and plans that were against many of the
Bhaktivedanta Academy plans we had for years. The worst is that they
were using politics and power to attain their goals. Accusing others
and using their financial resources to control the situation.

At that point I informed Baladev Mahasai and Priti Maharaja of what I

noticed, but Baladev Mahasai didn’t agree with me and told me that
my impressions were wrong (something that within time he also
realized) . Priti Maharja had the same impressions that I had, and he
was also getting more and more demotivated and distant from the
project. Believe me, it wasn’t an environment fit for educators. As the
situation was progressing, added to some other personal aspects of my
life I decided to leave the Gurukul and Mayapur and serve ISKCON
elsewhere.

To conclude, as I studied education law and management, in

practically every country, including India, to open and run a school
you need two managerial groups. A school can only be opened by a
trust, that trust is the maintainer of the school, this is one managerial
group, the other one is the school management, usually formed by a
principal and vice-principal, etc.

Bureaucrats and managers are usually involved in the trust, and

educators are involved with the school management, in fact schools
are one of the only institutions that can’t be run by professional
managers, only educators (with proper degrees) can run schools.
Managers usually take part in the trusts that help maintaining the
schools and these trusts never get involved with the daily life and
educational decisions of the schools they support. These divisions
were never there in the Bhaktivedanta Academy and this allowed this
kind of situations to take place.

It is very sad to see what’s happening with Mayapur Gurukul, and I

hope Mayapur management will do something about it.

Your servant,

Prana Natha das