Obituary: Swami Bhaktipada / Disgraced leader of Hare Krishnas in W.Va.
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Swami Bhaktipada, the disgraced former leader of the largest Hare Krishna community in the United States before it imploded amid allegations of murder, racketeering and child molestation, died Monday in India.
He was 74 and had been suffering from a myriad of health problems since moving to India three years ago.
A charismatic guru also known as Kirtanananda Swami, Mr. Bhaktipada was the co-founder of the New Vrindaban Community near Moundsville, W.Va., where he was the spiritual leader from 1968 to 1994.
But in the 1980s, he was excommunicated from the International Society for Krishna Consciousness over "moral and theological deviation," and he later served eight years in federal prison for racketeering.
"My personal opinion is that he was like a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," said Henry Doktorski, 55, of North Fayette, a former disciple at the West Virginia community from 1978 to 1993 who has spent the past decade writing a biography of Mr. Bhaktipada. "I don't think he was evil to the core."
Mr. Bhaktipada left for India in 2008 after serving his probation.
"There is no sense in staying where I'm not wanted," he said, referring to the American disciples who had left him. In India and Pakistan, where he had published several books, he retained many loyal followers.
Born Keith Gordon Ham in 1937 in Peekskill, N.Y., Mr. Bhaktipada was the son of a Baptist minister. He earned a history degree at a small college in Tennessee and then studied American history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he met Howard Morton Wheeler, his lifelong partner.
The two left the university in 1961 after being threatened with an investigation regarding their sexual relations, according to Mr. Doktorski's research. They ended up in Manhattan, where they imbibed in the 1960s counterculture before traveling by ship to India in 1965 in search of enlightenment.
After returning to New York in 1966, Mr. Bhaktipada met A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, founder of the Hare Krishna movement. Mr. Bhaktipada became a disciple and in 1967 traveled to India, where he took the name Kirtanananda Swami.
He came back to New York a few weeks later without Mr. Prabhupada's permission and tried to "westernize" the temple to make the Krishna movement more palatable to Americans, according to Mr. Doktorski.
Mr. Bhaktipada was kicked out of the temple and moved in with Mr. Wheeler in Wilkes-Barre. While reading an underground San Francisco newspaper, he became intrigued by a letter from Richard Rose inviting spiritual seekers to move to a non-denominational religious community in West Virginia.
First Published October 25, 2011 12:00 am
