Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Maneka Gandhi has levelled strong allegations against the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), stating that it is involved in selling cows from its gaushalas (cowsheds) to butchers.
The video, now widely circulating on the internet, captures Gandhi, known for her animal rights advocacy, calling ISKCON the “biggest cheat in the country.”
Maneka Gandhi goes on to assert that “ISKCON establishes gaushalas and earns unlimited benefits for the same from the government, in the form of huge lands.”
Maneka said that she recently visited ISKCON’s Anantpur Gaushala in Andhra Pradesh and “did not find even a single cow in good condition there.”
“There were no calves in the Gaushala, which means all of them were sold off,” Maneka Gandhi alleged.
She accused ISKCON of selling cows exclusively to butchers, asserting that no other organisation engages in this practice as much as they do. “They are the ones who roam on the road chanting ‘Hare Rama Hare Krishna’ and say that their entire life is dependent on milk.”
However, ISKCON swiftly refused these allegations, calling them “unsubstantiated and false.”
Yudhistir Govinda Das, ISKCON’s national spokesperson, released a statement defending the organisation’s commitment to cow protection. He said that many of the cows in ISKCON’s goshalas were rescued from abandonment, injury, or slaughterhouses.
“ISKCON has been at the forefront of cow and bull protection and care, not just in India but globally,” Das posted on social media in response to Maneka’s allegations.
“The cows and bulls are served for their life not sold to butchers as alleged,” he added.
ISKCON, known as the ‘Hare Krishna Movement’, serves to “systematically propagate spiritual knowledge to society at large and to educate all people in the techniques of spiritual life in order to check the imbalance of values in life and to achieve real unity and peace in the world,” according to its official website.