I am making public the two letters I sent on 6 March 2008 but which have not yet, as of 22 July 2008, been acknowledged at all by Pope Janki Kripalani or the BKWSU in India.
Very specifically, I would like others to realise what I am doing here and I want to make a couple of points very clear.
After 5 months of institutional ignorance, whilst the pair of them have flown around the world together meeting VIPs and big business people, after a response insipid to the point of dishonesty and now the appointment of another lawyer, I am choosing to make the matter entirely public, so they and their appointed solicitor can read it to if they so wish.
We are not who we say we are. We are what we do and what we did. This is as true of ourselves as individuals as it is of ourselves as institutions. It is as true of me as it is the so-called and numinous BKWSU. What I am doing here is offering the BKWSU a chance to prove its ethics in public. What I have done and I am doing here is offer them sufficient evidence of a clearly unethical situation and showing how they personally and institutionally respond to it.
In the following letters I am lobbying the BKWSU about two issues.
1) I think they should make Colonel BK Hansa Raval repay the legal costs for the legal action she started against this website because there is clear evidence of its personalised motivation and use of BKWSU facilities, good name etc in the correspondence from involved BKWSU members.
I would like to make it clear that, a) I, personally, will not benefit from this in any way and b) those individuals that supported the legal defense of this website have never themselves requested repayment. It is not a matter of "the money" but "the ethics".
2) I am also lobbying the BKWSU to resolve the current situation between them and the AIVV/PBKs. It sickens me to think that I once gave two seconds of my life to an organization that while at the same time as leeching its way around the United Nations to gain credibility as God's "angels of light" (
never mind leech off the tax payers of numerous developed nations as a so-called CHARITY) can instruct or allow members of its "security wing" to beat the **** out of people with lathis (riot sticks) and destroy others property in numerous Indian states whilst referring to co-religionists as "viruses". The BKWSU appears to think that whilst it is quite permissible for them to apply their devious approaches to promote their religion at other faith's religious events, it is not permissible for anyone else to ... openly ... do the same to their events, as PBKs have done.
I would like to make it clear that, a) I am not a PBK follower, b) I have not studied PBK teachings c) nor have the AIVV requested that I intercede on their behalf and I do not necessarily condone all and every act carried by any PBK. The two groups have issues, they need to resolve them without the BKWSU, or individuals within the BKWSU, choosing to rely on violence, intimidation and punishment through banishments.
For those keen students of Reformation history, you may say this is my 'Jenny Geddes moment'.
Jenny Geddes wrote:"Deil colic the wame o’ ye, fause thief; daur ye say Mass in my lug?"
which means in English,
"
Devil cause you severe pain and flatulent distention of your abdomen, false thief: dare you say the Mass in my ear?"
I would like individuals to understand that by making this all open and public I am, essentially, staking the odds against myself and giving them more ground to attack me or more grounds to ignore me. But I am doing so to give them an opportunity to do so. To prove themselves. In my opinion, they are only using lawyers again to wash their hands of being seen and recorded of doing something and primarily expressing their own, and their organization's own ...
true self.
Amen.
Janki Kripalani
BKWSU International Headquarters
Pandav Bhawan
Post Box No 2
Mount Abu Rajasthan 307501
6 March 2008
Dear Madam,
Congratulations on your recent appointment to the position of titular head of the World Renewal Trust. We at BrahmaKumaris.Info are heartened to hear that issues relating to your organisation’s reform are finally being taken more seriously. We hope you can extend that commitment to include the establishment of an independent ombudsperson system and resolving issues of considerable and previously undisclosed historical revision that current blights the Trust’s public reputation. I enclose a copy of a letter to Jayanti Kirpalani underlining our suggestions.
I am writing in order to recover the legal costs incurred by BrahmaKumaris.Info following Colonel Hansa Raval’s recent personally motivated and ill-advised legal action against us. As I am sure you know, the decision of the National Arbitration Forum was unanimously in our favour.
I can assure you that I am neither seeking nor will I receive any personal benefit from this recompensation and that the costs will be returned to individuals that have already given more than most to the BKWSU. The evidence we have clearly states that Colonel Raval and others were using the charity to pursue her own personal interests. This would be a serious enough matter in a lokik environment. We have come to expect higher principles within an alokik environment.
We consider that this now is a matter of principle which raises serious implications about the financial and legal structure by which your international organisation operates. We will clearly evidence to you that the action had personal motivations and that, essentially, individuals within your organization are using the property and facilities of legally the registered charities for their own personal and financial benefit and will argue why they should be personally responsible for them.
On the successful resolution of this matter, we also request a formal accountable method by which we can address other equally questionable practises.
BrahmaKumaris.Info is a unique, independent and ecumenical voice within the Brahmin family. Members are promoting a policy of openness, honesty and exacting detail documenting all matters relating to the lifestyle and philosophy promoted by the movement and its effected communities including the friends and families of BKs, ex-BKs, PBKs and others.
We are committed to making full use of modern technology in order empower others without the limitations set upon them by the current management of the World Renewal Trust and its subsidiaries.
We would like to use this occasion to formally request a complete copy of the original and unedited Murlis in text format (Hindi and English), the Divine Decrees, the likes of the 'Vartman Mahabhari Mahabharat Larai aur Unka Parinam' volumes and other requested documents relating to the social and philosophical development of the religion for our members’ and academic study. Where these are apparently no longer available, for example the missing years of Murlis, we would like to request that their lack of existence is accounted for.
In addition, we also request your assurance that we may receive an uninterrupted and unconditional supply of current Murlis in text format, equivalent to any other BK center of learning, which will be shared with the many other BKs documented as requesting the same on our forum.
Essentially what we are offering the BKWSU is an opportunity to re-establish its goodwill and credibility as “God’s representatives on earth”, merely saving us time, effort and our beneficiaries further delays. I am sure that I do not need to remind you that the time of turmoil is close and that Baba not only encourages us to do whatever we need to do quickly but that everyone should be satisfied with us.
To the best of our understanding, given the lack of confidence and visible reform, individual members of BrahmaKumaris.Info are independently in correspondence with and raising issue of public concern responsible to other organizations. Neither I, personally, nor we, collectively, accept responsibility for such actions.
There is also a general and widespread concern amongst our members, and other groups, that the Brahma Kumaris have exploited and exaggerated their relationship with the United Nations. It would appear that this has been of primary benefit to the Brahma Kumaris’ own reputation and has been used in an attempt to establish your own credibility rather than the sincerely adopt the UN charter would is contradictory and mutually exclusive to the many Brahma Kumari practises and belief such as the desirability and inevitability of Destruction.
With your agreement, and so as remove any element of suspicion, I suggest that the BKWSU corresponds directly with our legal representatives, Sprecher Grier Halberstam LLP and that it ensures internally that Colonel Raval repays our costs. We remain critical that an individual Brahma Kumari, with considerable personal savings and income, could financially benefit by encouraging donations and improvements made to her own personally mortgaged and registered property from individuals with very little income.
We also have other serious concerns regarding the professional conduct and financial practises in the BKWSO (USA) that we wish to raise in the future.
Lastly, during the domain dispute, we were approached by Dr Ray Bhatt who informed us that he was acting on your request for information and evidence regarding the Colonel’s marriage, divorce and subsequent conduct within Gyan. This was relevant as the Colonel refuted, despite widespread documentation, the divisive effect of the Brahma Kumaris upon families in her pleadings.
We provided for him not all but sufficient evidence addressed in a letter to you and Jayanti Kirpalani. Remarkably, this was instead immediately supplied to Colonel Patel, re-edited to appear if it was sent directly to her and then returned by her attorneys to ours as an alleged blackmail attempt in writing. I would like confirmation whether Dr Bhatt was indeed acting with your knowledge and on your behalf or if we were deceived.
Yours sincerely,
Evidence.
The following enclosed correspondences, clearly evidence that the matter was personal, and that there have been what most would think considerable abuses of position within the American non-profit 501(c) organization and British charity.
On 1 November 2008 written by BKWSU Internet PR Team member Simon Blandford and sent to BK Luis Riveros of the Tampa Center in which Simon refers to other correspondence between members of the IT team and clearly states;
• 1 November 2008, Simon Blandford wrote:
“If you've been following the events on the BKI site you may be aware that they think the BKWSU is trying to contest ownership of the brahmakumaris.info domain.
Actually, it turns out to be part of a personal defamation case brought about by Sister Hansa in TX since what they said about her medical claims etc was libel.
I don't fully understand the specifics and it would be improper for me to forward the email.”
• On 11th September 2007, Alka Patel wrote:
“Regarding your e-mail dated 11th September 2007 which states: 'On 12.24 pm Sept 10 2007, the BKWSU or BKWSO filed a National Arbitration Forum dispute against the registrant of the domain', we wish to inform you that the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual University has not filed any such dispute.”
On 16th June 2007 an alleged supporter of Colonel Hansa Patel, choosing to call himself ‘Mike Peace’, posted onto our forum, beyond any reasonable interpretation of the law, legal threatens made towards a young journalist on behalf of “her legal counsel, the US Department of Defense and the US Pentagon ... towards the authors of the fictitious article and any website posting the article.
• On 16th June 2007, ‘Mike Peace’, wrote;
“ If you do not adhere to the above notifications the following legal actions to be pursued through
United States legal channels to prevent your use of US resources to propagate misinformation:
1. Calvin Chin to be banned from all United States based domain registration or site hosting.
2. Calvin Chin to be banned from submitting articles to any United States based online site.
3. Class Action Suit against Calvin Chin for damages caused to all cancer patients misdirected by the article.
The following have already been contacted regarding this issue:
1. United States Department of Defense
2. Embassy of the United States, Kuala Lumpur.”
It is clear that intention of these posts were to intimidate and send an aggressive message to ourselves quite contradictory and unrepresentative of the spirit of Brahma Kumari Raja Yoga, entirely in Colonel Hansa personal interest and censorial of the values of freedom of speech and right to free assembly, in our case on the internet, enshrined in the majority of developed democracies.