A week after he arrived, Krsna Avitara, then 12, says he was grabbed, hit and kicked by a teacher. Festivals were the highlights. The newly outfitted students were paraded like priests before adoring crowds of Indians. But school offered few respites. Some children dreaded going to sleep, anticipating teachers' sexual advances.
Girls also report emotional and physical abuse.
Rukmini, a student at the Los Angeles gurukula, describes a teacher attacking her with a metal pole. Her best friend, Jahnavi, says she was made to lick up a drink she'd spilled on the ground. More painful was being forced to sleep naked in a bathtub because she wet her bed. Sociologist Rochford says it is impossible to know how many of the approximately 2,000 boarding school students were abused. Even the most loyal Hare Krishnas tend to agree with his assessment that much of the harm occurred because the movement that prized celibacy did not value its children.