Vande Berg & Kniss 2008

The Sociological Quarterly
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Iskcon and Immigrants: The Rise, Decline, and Rise

Again of a New Religious Movement
Travis Vande Berg & Fred Kniss
To cite this article: Travis Vande Berg & Fred Kniss (2008) Iskcon and Immigrants: The Rise,
Decline, and Rise Again of a New Religious Movement, The Sociological Quarterly, 49:1, 79-104,
DOI: 10.1111/j.1533-8525.2007.00107.x
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The Sociological Quarterly ISSN 0038-0253
ISKCON AND IMMIGRANTS: The Rise,

Decline, and Rise Again of a New
Religious Movement
Travis Vande Berg*
Ithaca College
Fred Kniss
Loyola University Chicago
This article examines the impact of Indian immigration on the International Society for Krishna
Consciousness (ISKCON), popularly known as “Hare Krishnas.” After its emergence and initial
growth as a new religious movement in the 1960s, ISKCON entered a period of decline and
withdrawal in the 1980s because of second-generation problems and a series of financial and
sexual scandals. A case study of the Chicago ISKCON temple shows that, since then, Indian
immigration has provided ISKCON with new resources and a new target population for conver-
sion. This has led to the reemergence of ISKCON as a religious movement, but one that differs in
both its membership and its actions from the “seeker” movement of the 1960s and 1970s. The
resurgence of ISKCON’s movement activities is a product of congregational-level transnational
interactions. The emergence of new religious movements, thus, must be seen in the context of
broader historical dynamics as well as local microcosmic interactions. To the extent that these
interactions are transnational in character, we should expect new religious movements to have an
impact on the global “religious economy” with more rapid diffusion of religious innovations.
Thirty-five years ago, if you were to walk into an International Society for Krishna
Consciousness (ISKCON) temple in Chicago on a Sunday evening, you would no doubt
be greeted with a friendly, “Hare Krishna!” The greeter would likely resemble the ste-
reotypical representation of ISKCON devotees (popularly known as Hare Krishnas) that
turn up in airport scenes in movies and TV programs from the 1970s—the young white
male with a shaven head and saffron robes banging on a drum and chanting or passing
out flowers and the Bhagavad-Gita. If you continued into the temple, you would see
many similar people. Today, if you were to walk into the same ISKCON temple, you
would still be greeted with a friendly “Hare Krishna!” but there is a good chance that the
greeter would not conform to the stereotype. Instead, he/she would more likely be
Indian than white. And if you were to continue into the temple, you might still see some
people who look like the ISKCON devotees of 35 years ago, but they would be greatly
outnumbered by Indians.
As perhaps the archetypal post-1960s American new religious movement, ISKCON
has been a frequent subject of both scholarly work and public discourse. Hare Krishnas
*Direct all correspondence to Travis Vande Berg, Department of Sociology, Ithaca College, 106 Muller
Center, 953 Danby Road, Ithaca, NY 14850; e-mail: tvandeberg@ithaca.edu
The Sociological Quarterly 49 (2008) 79–104 © 2008 Midwest Sociological Society 79

ISKCON and Immigrants Travis Vande Berg and Fred Kniss
gained a vivid place in public consciousness because of their distinctive attire and public
proselytizing. However, while our culture’s image of ISKCON has remained fairly static,
ISKCON itself has not. Although it has faded from public view in recent years, ISKCON
has survived as a religious organization by continually adapting to changes in its larger
social context. After its initial growth and success, ISKCON was faced with a difficult
period of stabilization and reorganization in which it struggled to maintain strong,
legitimate leadership, financial stability, public legitimacy and relevance, and sustained
membership commitment—all the while dealing with changes both in its internal
structure and in the larger social context. During its “midlife crisis,” ISKCON
de-emphasized its social change agenda and developed into a more formal religious
organization. By the 1990s, the Hare Krishna movement had become a more or less
legitimate (if not quite mainstream) American religious institution with less of its
original fervor for promoting individual conversion and broader cultural change.
However, this is not the end of the story. According to the U.S. Census, between 1990
and 2000, the population of Indian Americans doubled to over 1.6 million. A majority
of these Indians are Hindu, and they have changed the social context in which ISKCON
operates, providing new resources and opportunities. In this article, based on fieldwork
and interviews in the Chicago ISKCON temple, we argue that Indian immigrants are
becoming central figures in ISKCON and have had two important and ongoing impacts.
First, ISKCON’s incorporation of these Indians has addressed many of its earlier internal
problems. Second, Indians now serve as a new target population for ISKCON’s rein-
vigorated religious movement activities. Below we discuss each of these effects in more
detail.
Much of the recent research on post-1965 immigration and religion has clearly
demonstrated the impact of the immigrant experience on the religious institutions and
practices of immigrants (see, for example, Warner and Wittner 1998; Ebaugh and
Chafetz 2000; Yang and Ebaugh 2001; Min and Kim 2002). Here, we take another
approach, asking what impact immigration might have on established American reli-
gious institutions or movements. The way Indian immigration is sparking a revival of
ISKCON’s passion as a movement for individual conversion and cultural change sug-
gests that significant influences move in both directions.
TRANSNATIONALISM AND AMERICAN RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS

The “Hare Krishnas” are popularly understood to be an American new religious move-
ment rooted in the cultural experimentation of the 1960s. In fact, the reality is more
complex than that. As we noted above, the recent resurgence of ISKCON as a movement
is based largely on resources and opportunities provided by Indian immigrants to the
United States, but its American origins were also heavily indebted to ideas and resources
that flowed across the India-U.S. borders. The burgeoning literature on transnational-
ism within immigration studies (see Kivisto 2007 for an extensive review of this litera-
ture) is thus helpful for understanding the life course of this “American” religious
movement.
80 The Sociological Quarterly 49 (2008) 79–104 © 2008 Midwest Sociological Society

Travis Vande Berg and Fred Kniss ISKCON and Immigrants
Portes (1997:812) defines transnational communities as “dense networks across

political borders created by immigrants in their quest for economic advancement and
social recognition.” While Portes (1996, 1997, 1999) mostly focuses on the economic
aspects of transnationalism, others have emphasized the social element. Basch, Glick
Schiller, and Szanton Blanc (1994:7) define transnationalism as “the processes by which
immigrants forge and sustain multi-stranded social relations that link together their
societies of origin and settlement.” Similarly, Faist (2000:191) discusses transnational
“social spaces,” which he defines as “combinations of ties, positions in networks and
organizations, and networks of organizations that reach across the borders of multiple
states.” Faist emphasizes that these social spaces are dynamic social processes that
include small groups, networks, and larger communities. Religion on the micro-, meso-,
and macro-levels is an important part of this social aspect of transnationalism. However,
with a few notable exceptions (Levitt 1998, 2001; Ebaugh and Chafetz 2002), studies of
immigration and transnationalism (Basch et al. 1994; Portes 1996, 1997, 1999; Glick
Schiller, Basch, and Szanton Blanc 1999; Guarnizo and Diaz 1999; Itzigsohn et al. 1999;
Portes, Guarnizo, and Landolt 1999; Roberts, Frank, and Lozano-Ascencio 1999; Glick
Schiller and Fouron 1999; Vertovec 1999; Faist 2000) have largely ignored the relation-
ships between immigration, transnationalism, and religion.
Both Levitt (1998, 2001) and Ebaugh and Chafetz (2002) focus on the impact of
two-way transnational flows on religion in the United States and in immigrant countries
of origin. In her study of Catholic Church ties between Boston and the Dominican
Republic, Levitt (1998) finds that religious innovations are transmitted from one setting
to another through Dominican immigrants’ transnational ties. These innovations affect
the practice and organization of Catholicism in both the Dominican Republic and
Boston, continually reconstructing Catholicism. Similarly, in their study of transna-
tional religion, Ebaugh and Chafetz (2002:xv) find that “webs of two-way communica-
tion across borders, combined with regular travel in both directions, spur the spread of
religious innovation” both in the United States and in sending countries.
In these studies of transnationalism and religion, transnationalism is conceptualized
as something of a contextual process within which immigrants and religious groups/
traditions exist and act. The experiences and religious practices of immigrants and of
congregations are studied as the products of transnationalism. However, we believe that
it is important and valuable to look at these experiences and practices themselves as a
form of transnationalism, rather than as its effects. Transnationalism happens within the
interactions between various groups within a particular congregation (for example,
between American and Indian ISKCON members). These interactions are the micro-
level version of the more meso- and macro-level two-way exchanges discussed by Levitt
(1998, 2001) and Ebaugh and Chafetz (2002).
The implication of transnationalism for religion and identity construction is that
now more than ever, the production of individual and collective religious identities that
takes place in the local transnationalism of immigrant congregations has an important
impact on the development of religious identities and institutions in both the sending
countries and the host country. While the more meso- and macro-level studies discussed

above illustrate how new religious innovations, identities, and practices that develop in
the United States as a result of immigration travel throughout the world through
transnational networks, impacting religion everywhere, we examine how these new
innovations, identities, and practices develop within the microcosmic transnationalism
of U.S. congregations themselves.
Methodology and Data Collection

We gathered our data in two phases. We conducted our initial ethnographic fieldwork at
the temple between 2000 and 2001 as part of the “Religion, Immigration and Civil
Society in Chicago” (RICSC) project.1 We attended a variety of weekly services and
classes both at the temple and in people’s homes, ate meals at the temple, had conver-
sations with people we encountered, and both formally and informally interviewed
devotees and congregants. The conversations and informal interviews were especially
important for our research. They were not audiotaped, but were recounted in our
fieldnotes.
During this period, we conducted eight formal interviews with devotees and con-
gregation members using the RICSC interview schedule, which contained open- and
closed-ended questions covering a variety of topics including personal background,
family characteristics, educational background, occupational background, ties to
country of origin and to the United States, and religious/organizational involvement.
While this interview schedule was standard for all of the religious sites involved in the
RICSC project, we added some additional questions regarding Krishna Consciousness
and ISKCON. We also conducted an additional interview with a former ISKCON
member who had been active in the Chicago temple in the late-1970s and early-1980s.
We audiotaped these formal interviews and transcribed them for entry into the RICSC
database. Interview transcripts and fieldnotes were coded and analyzed using NVivo
qualitative analysis software. All of the interview excerpts to follow are from the formal
audiotaped interviews.
Between December 2004 and January 2005, Vande Berg conducted a second wave of
fieldwork at the temple. He conducted an additional five interviews with devotees and
congregation members using a revised RICSC interview schedule, which included a
section on national and religious identity. He also did further ethnographic observa-
tions, including attending Sunday services, attending morning services and classes, and
informally interviewing devotees and congregants.
In addition to our own data collection, we also relied on the work of several Loyola
University Chicago sociology graduate students. Between 2000 and 2001, Lisa Speicher,
a fellow RICSC researcher, conducted ethnographic fieldwork and informal interviews
at the temple. In 2003, Farha Ternikar, another RICSC researcher, conducted a formal
audiotaped interview with a second-generation Indian woman who attended the
temple. Finally, we also made use of several sets of fieldnotes written by Michelle Fugate
and Jennifer Gescheidler as part of their research for a sociology of religion graduate
seminar in 2003.

In total, our formal interview sample consisted of 15 individuals. Ten were Indian
(seven first-generation and three second-generation immigrants), and five were west-
erners (three white and two black). We were unable to formally interview women at the
temple, and as a result, the only woman in our sample is the second-generation Indian
interviewed by another researcher. While several women would speak with us infor-
mally, none consented to be formally interviewed. Most of our access to women at the
temple was through their husbands or fathers, who, while often willing to be interviewed
themselves, told us that we were not to interview their wives or daughters. In addition,
because neither of us is fluent in Hindi or any regional Indian languages, we were unable
to formally interview the population of Indians at the temple who did not speak English
or believed themselves to be insufficiently fluent for the interview process.
THE RISE OF ISKCON AS A RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT (1965–1977)

Krishna Consciousness is the philosophic basis of ISKCON and is a monotheistic
religious worldview based in Vaisnavism and conceptualizing Krishna as the supreme
personality of Godhead. While Krishna worship is common among Vaisnav Hindus
(particularly in North India and West Bengal), modern Krishna Consciousness has
its roots in the teachings of Lord Chaitanya—held to be a physical incarnation of
Krishna—who was born in Bengal in 1486 and undertook the mission of reminding the
world of the supremacy of Krishna over all other deities. Chaitanya established a suc-
cession of guru-disciples for the continued teaching of Krishna Consciousness in the
world. This disciplinic line has survived for centuries, eventually leading to ISKCON.
While Vaisnav Hindus generally believe Vishnu to be supreme, Krishna Consciousness
teaches that Krishna is superior to all other gods, including Vishnu.
Krishna Consciousness depicts the material world as the provider of false truths,
false happiness, and false consciousness. Because of this, Krishna Consciousness is
antimaterialistic. While this antimaterialism may take the form of monastic withdrawal
from and rejection of the material world for those devotees who reside within temples,
it is also conceptualized as always keeping Krishna—not the material world—at the
center of one’s life. The Krishna Conscious individual can have a job and own a car or
a house, but it is essential that he/she remember that Krishna is more important than all
of those things and is, in fact, their source. To forget that Krishna is the source is to place
the material world above him and to lose one’s way. Thus, the material world is not the
source of satisfaction, happiness, or meaning; only Krishna is. Those who are Krishna
Conscious are to reject material attachments and bodily identifications in favor of
spiritual ones.
In keeping with its antimaterialist philosophy, one of the key tenets of Krishna
Consciousness is that humans are “not these bodies” but rather are “spirit-souls,” which
are “part and parcel of Krishna.” Those who are Krishna Conscious see themselves as
spiritual beings in their true essence. This polarity of spiritual and material can be easily
found in the “-bodied” language that ISKCON devotees use to self-identify and to talk
about the world around them. People, for instance, are “-bodied,” meaning that in this

physical, material world, their spirit-souls are residing in physical bodies with physical
characteristics, including race, ethnicity, and gender. Some people are “white-bodied,”
“black-bodied,” or “brown/Indian-bodied.” Some people are “female-bodied,” and some
are “male-bodied.” ISKCON’s use of the “-bodied” language is meant to point out the
arbitrariness of physical distinctions and to reemphasize the importance and common-
ality of the spirit-soul and its connection to Krishna.
The goal of the Krishna Conscious life is twofold. First, the Krishna Conscious
individual attempts to reunite his/her spirit soul with Krishna in order to end a contin-
ued succession of material bodies (reincarnation) and to return to Vrindaban (Heaven).
Second, the Krishna Conscious individual believes that Krishna Consciousness is a
world-transforming force and attempts to change the world by establishing a Krishna
Conscious Vedic culture in the place of a Western society corrupted by materialism.
What exactly Vedic culture is or what it might look like, however, is somewhat vague. In
theory, it is a culture in which all of the elements of the material world are focused on
the worship of Krishna while those elements which distract from such worship would be
eliminated. In other words, the entire society from people to technology would be
Krishna-centered allowing everyone to live Krishna-centered lives. Thus, Vedic culture
is a spiritual culture—a kind of theological ideal in which the whole world would
be a Krishna temple. ISKCON conceptualizes Vedic culture as one based on Indian
culture—or more specifically, an idealized and spiritualized version of Indian culture
prior to its perceived corruption by Western influences.
In 1965, A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupad first brought Krishna Consciousness
to the United States and began sankirtan (public chanting and preaching) in New York
City. In July of 1966, he formally established ISKCON to further his effort to spread
Krishna Consciousness. After some initial success in New York City, Prabhupad relo-
cated to San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury neighborhood and established an ISKCON
temple there. In Haight-Ashbury’s countercultural scene, Prabhupad found a young,
willing “seeker” population largely alienated from what they perceived as the material-
ism of their parents’ generation (Johnson 1976; Ellwood 1989). Krishna Consciousness
represented an alternative to this materialism, and many seekers began to attend the
ISKCON temple. In response, ISKCON targeted the countercultural youths’ involve-
ment by associating its divine rewards with the positive effects of a drug high using
poster advertisements like “Stay High Forever. No More Coming Down” (Johnson 1976;
Burr 1984; Ellwood 1989; Bainbridge 1997).
As its membership increased, ISKCON founded temples in most major cities in the
United States. During this period, the majority of the members were young, white
American converts (Rochford 1985). ISKCON also began to more formally organize in
other ways as well, including the establishment of the Governing Body Council (GBC)
to run many of ISKCON’s daily operations (1970), the creation of the Bhaktivedanta
Book Trust to publish and distribute ISKCON literature (1972), and the formation of
the first ISKCON children’s boarding school (1972). In addition, Prabhupad also
appointed 11 new gurus, granting them spiritual authority within ISKCON and guar-
anteeing the continuation of ISKCON’s teachings after his death. In short, ISKCON’s

success in San Francisco provided it with the resources necessary to grow and to become
more formally organized. When Prabhupad died in November 1977, ISKCON was well
on its way to becoming an influential religious movement even beyond America’s
borders. It had 108 temples in 25 countries around the world (Muster 1997), creating a
significant transnational flow within ISKCON. However, as is often the case with the
demise of the charismatic founder of a religious movement, Prabhupad’s death had a
number of significant consequences for ISKCON.
THE TAMING OF THE MOVEMENT: STABILIZATION AND REORGANIZATION

(1977–2000)
Prabhupad’s death left a young ISKCON shaken. According to one definitive source, “An
unknown but apparently significant number of ISKCON members defected from the
movement” (Rochford 1985:436). ISKCON began a difficult period of reorganization
characterized by attention to institutional survival rather than striving for individual
and societal transformation (Squarcini 2000). At the center of this reorganization were
difficulties in four key areas—leadership, financial stability, legitimacy, and domestic
culture. In order for it to overcome these issues, ISKCON had to focus more of its energy
and resources on maintaining internal stability, increasing organizational strength, and
improving public relations than it previously had. It had to adapt to its new context and
become a religious organization more than a movement—more focused on negotiating
with the outside world than on trying to transform it.
At about the same time, Indian immigrants were beginning to worship at ISKCON
temples for their own reasons. While the initial post-1965 Indian immigrants achieved
a great deal of educational and occupational success in the United States, they frequently
found that because of racial and cultural issues, they were still separate from the domi-
nant white culture. Along with their increasing numbers, they became more concerned
with creating a viable Indian identity and community. This desire was made even more
pressing as the immigrants began getting married and having children. Suddenly, they
were forced to confront the problems associated with educating their children about
Indian culture, practices, and identity in a non-Indian context (Saran 1985; Fenton
1988; Williams 1988; Khandelwal 2002). This was not an easy task, and it required some
kind of organization to compensate for being outside of India.
Because being “Indian” and being “Hindu” are so intertwined, Hindu temples
seemed logical places to provide this education. As Rangaswamy (2000:246) explains:
Most of the Indians who live in Chicago have not been part of organized religion in
India; rather, religion is “in the air” in India, a living, breathing tradition that Indians
do not have to make a conscious effort to imbibe. The lighting of a lamp at an altar
in the home, sometimes as simple a setting as a kitchen counter, infuses an Indian
home with a religious aura. Religion is everywhere—on TV, in the movies, in street
processions, and at family gatherings. Temple visits in India are usually reserved for
very special occasions, unless there happens to be one located down the street from
home, in which case one just makes casual visits to the temple now and then. Here

in the United States, the Indians feel impelled to enforce their religious identity in
structured ways, for example, by visiting the temple every Sunday to pray. Perhaps
this is because, without a peg on which to hang their religious identity, many Indians
fear that it may be lost irretrievably, especially for the second generation.
When Indian Hindus came to the United States, they found a place that was, for all
practical purposes, devoid of Hinduism, and the immigrants did not immediately begin
to build their own temples. However, there were a few Hindu groups on the American
religious landscape, particularly in the urban settings where Indians were concentrated.
One of these groups was ISKCON. Despite the fact that its devotees were almost entirely
westerners, ISKCON was more-or-less Hindu with its Vaisnav-based Krishna Con-
sciousness, its Krishna deities, and its use of the Bhagavad-Gita, and it became a suitable
location in which Indian Hindus could recreate their religion, culture, and ethnicity for
themselves and for their children. As a result, the number of Indian Hindus attending
ISKCON increased throughout the 1970s and 1980s, and, by the early 1990s, Indian
immigrants were a significant presence within ISKCON (Zaidman 2000). At least some
ISKCON temples had become significant pilgrimage sites for Indian Hindus (Rochford
and Bailey 2006). These developments would eventually lead to significant changes in
the religious practices and identities of both westerners and Indians within ISKCON
through micro-level transnational interactions between members of the two groups.
As more and more immigrant Indian Hindus began attending, ISKCON was able to
draw upon them for resources as it addressed problems of leadership, financial stability,
legitimacy, and domestic culture following Prabhupad’s death. The Indian immigrants
created a new context in which ISKCON was able to successfully stabilize.
Leadership
After Prabhupad’s death in 1977, an already weakened ISKCON leadership was further
compromised by an intense power struggle between the GBC and the 11 recently
appointed gurus over which group would have the ultimate authority within ISKCON
(Rochford 1985; Shinn 1987). The conflict was complicated by internal differences in the
interpretation of Prabhupad’s writings and by high-ranking devotees and temple presi-
dents who were also vying for local power and authority.
While many of these conflicts were resolved through disciplinary actions undertaken
by the GBC against several of the gurus, the movement of Indians into local positions of
power and influence served to stabilize many of the temple-level conflicts and also
encouraged a greater degree of Indian participation. Indian leaders in Chicago could
serve as behavioral role models for non-Indian devotees by serving as living examples of
Vedic culture and lifestyle.
The Indian devotees with whom we spoke took this responsibility very seriously. As
one Indian devotee explained:
To have birth in India in this day and age is real interesting cause so many people
travel to India as one of the holiest lands in the world cause there’s so much culture
and so much religion there. So to have birth there is actually a pretty special thing,
and it means a lot of responsibility in [that] you have to propagate the knowledge

that’s kind of been passed down from generations. . . . There’s a certain amount of
things you have to do [if you’re born in India], whether it’s informing other people
or just being faithful in what you’ve been taught since birth.
Financial Stability
Public sankirtan had been one of ISKCON’s primary means for raising money, and the
decline in membership following Prabhupad’s death meant that there were fewer people
for fund-raising activities. In response, ISKCON leaders broadened sankirtan beyond
book distribution and donation requests to include explicitly moneymaking business
endeavors such as reproduction Chinese screen paintings and collegiate football bumper
stickers (Shinn and Bromley 1989). In some cases, devotees would conceal their identi-
ties as members of ISKCON by wearing Western clothing instead of their usual dhotis in
order to increase sales (Rochford 1985:179).
It did not take long for this type of fund-raising to attract the attention of the media.
The resulting bad press did little to help ISKCON’s public image, especially when
combined with leadership scandals and the rise of the anticult movement. Many devo-
tees who had difficulty justifying their participation left ISKCON, leading to additional
membership loss.
Indian immigrants played a key role in reducing ISKCON’s reliance on potentially
controversial fund-raising strategies by providing a new source of money. Through an
official Life Member program, ISKCON offered Indians a lifetime membership for a
one-time payment of $1,111. However, the scope of the financial contributions of Indian
immigrants goes beyond these memberships alone. For example, during every Sunday
service, we observed that the majority of the roughly 150 Indian attendees brought bags
of food and money donations. These resources go toward the maintenance and upkeep
of the deities, including covering the expenses of the temple building where the deities
reside and providing for the temple devotees who care for the deities. Between Septem-
ber and December of 2000, the Chicago temple received over $37,000 in donations
representing 35 percent of its total income over that period (ISKCON 2001:2).
Indian immigrants also provide something else that is just as important as this
money—an acceptable answer to the lingering question “Where did the money come
from?” (Michael 1989). ISKCON remains haunted by the specter of its past fund-raising
scandals, and the Indian immigrant population provides a convenient and legitimate
answer for anyone questioning the organization’s financial situation.
Legitimacy
In the early post-Prabhupad years, fund-raising controversies were only part of a series
of scandals over drugs, guns, and murder involving several of the 11 gurus and other
high-ranking devotees (see Rochford 1985; Hubner and Gruson 1988; Shinn and
Bromley 1989; Muster 1997). The mid-1980s saw reports of child abuse involving
devotees and ISKCON’s boarding schools (see Rochford 1998). The GBC disciplined
many of those in violation, and, in all, 6 of the 11 gurus were expelled from ISKCON
while several devotees served prison time (Shinn and Bromley 1989). All of these

incidents were covered by the media, and the end result was that despite the GBC’s
disciplinary actions, the public turned against ISKCON the “cult.” Anticult organizations
charged ISKCON with “brainwashing.” In several cases, devotees were kidnapped and
“deprogrammed” by their parents with the help of groups such as Free the Children of
God, the American Family Foundation, and the Citizens Freedom Foundation (Shinn
1987; Melton 1989). In a devastating 1983 lawsuit, ISKCON was ordered to pay $32.5
million in the George v. ISKCON brainwashing case (see Bromley 1989). While ISKCON
appealed the decision and paid only $75,000 in the end, the damage to its public image
was considerable.
The expanding presence of Indian immigrants gave ISKCON a way to address its
legitimacy problems. Micro-level transnational interactions between westerners and
Indians within ISKCON temples led to increased Indian participation and a more
conscious effort by westerners to minister to Indians. In undertaking ministry to Indian
Hindus, ISKCON shifted its public image by blurring its boundary with broader Hin-
duism, and was able to present itself as a traditional Indian religious organization—that
is, as a religion rather than as a “cult.” As a result of this association with Hinduism,
ISKCON was able to enter into dialogues and relationships with other more traditional
and “legitimate” religious groups in the United States. In Chicago, for instance, the
temple has close ties to a number of neighborhood Christian churches, which has led to
informational and educational meetings and the sharing of facilities. The Chicago
temple also actively participates in several neighborhood- and city-level inter-religious
organizations and activities, including Pathways to Peace and the Council for a
Parliament of World Religions.
Internal Culture
The final major issue ISKCON faced after Prabhupad’s death was its difficulty in adapting
to the life-cycle demands of its first-generation members. As these devotees married and
had children, they found that ISKCON lacked the necessary internal domestic culture to
support them and their families (Rochford 1997). In particular, ISKCON children in the
public school setting (see Rochford 1999) and the large number of devotees who sought
employment outside of ISKCON (see Rochford 2000) were forced to renegotiate their
daily lives and identities in order to better fit into their new mainstream context. As a
result, many of the boundaries distancing ISKCON from the outside world broke down
as many of its members made peace with the external culture and altered their commit-
ment to ISKCON. Some accommodated themselves by deemphasizing the counter-
cultural aspects of ISKCON practices, while many left the movement altogether.
Indian immigrants served to strengthen ISKCON’s internal culture by providing a
cultural model for Western devotees to emulate. Now instead of just having Western
devotees attempting to replicate elements of Vedic culture, there were ethnic Indians that
modeled Vedic culture or the “Indian way” for devotees and for guiding ISKCON’s
internal domestic culture. Through their micro-level transnational interactions with
Indian immigrants, Western devotees altered their religious behaviors and identities to
fall more in line with an Indian ideal. One Western devotee explicitly equated Krishna

Consciousness with the “Indian way” and explained that by doing things in this way, he
and other westerners were able to live more Krishna Conscious lives.
Devotees’ attempts to do things “the Indian way” are reflected in almost every part
of their daily lives. They wear Indian dhotis and saris. They eat Indian vegetarian food.
Many of them speak one or more Indian languages. They study Indian religious texts
such as the Bhagavad-Gita and the Srimad-Bhagvatam, and they learn to read and recite
the ancient Indian language of Sanskrit. The temples feature elaborately decorated
deities and other religious symbols, and with the chanting, incense, decorations, and
Indian food, they sound, smell, look, and taste like temples throughout India. Most
importantly, whatever their nationality or racial or ethnic background, they have
devoted their lives to a religion that finds its origin in Indian Hinduism and an Indian
prophet. All of these behaviors were present prior to increased Indian immigrant
involvement in ISKCON, but commitment to them declined in the post-Prabhupad
period. With the influx of immigrants from India, ISKCON’s original ideas and practices
were reestablished, and the interactions between westerners and Indians at the micro-
level supported continued commitment to them. In other words, ISKCON’s religious
and lifestyle demands gained a level of increased legitimacy. All of these elements of the
“Indian way” are fundamentally interconnected to the practice of Krishna Conscious-
ness within ISKCON and provide a suitable cultural framework within which to be
Krishna Conscious in Western society.
To summarize, with the help of Indian immigrants in the 1980s and 1990s, ISKCON
in large part succeeded in stabilizing itself as a more-or-less legitimate religious orga-
nization. Its recreation of Vedic culture and incorporation of the “Indian way” repro-
duced Indian and Hindu ethnicity and culture and attracted a sizable congregation of
Indian immigrants that supported the organization. More importantly, post-1965
Indian immigration, after helping to stabilize ISKCON, has also created a social space
within which ISKCON is able to refocus its resources and energies into its movement
goals of individual conversion and societal transformation with a new target
population—Indian immigrants. This shift has also resulted in changes within ISKCON
in terms of religious practice and identity—for both Indian immigrants and
westerners—as we will further discuss below.
THE RISE (AGAIN) OF ISKCON AS A RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT (2000– )

Between 2001 and 2005, the number of temple devotees in Chicago fluctuated between
15 and 20 with an additional 25 to 30 householders. The temple president was Indian as
was one of the spiritual masters in 2001–2002. Between half and two-thirds of the
temple devotees and the vast majority of the householders were of Indian origin.2 The
core of the householder group was made up of 10 or so Indian families, most of whom
were in their late-20s to late-30s and had only become active in the temple in recent
years. There was also a smaller core group of householder Indians in their 50s and 60s
who had been involved longer. Currently, the congregation is rounded out by roughly
750 Indians who have paid significant dues to become official Life Members, along with

a large population of other Indian Hindus who are not members of any kind but
occasionally attend and support the temple.
Within its new context, ISKCON, in Chicago and elsewhere,3 has begun to refocus on
its transformative goals and to reestablish itself as an active religious movement. In
particular, much of the energy and resources that had been directed toward organiza-
tional stabilization are once again being directed toward conversion activities. However,
the character of ISKCON’s outreach has also changed in response to its changing
context. Instead of targeting young, disenchanted Western seekers, the movement now
focuses its attention on Indians. This represents a shift in conversion practice on the part
of ISKCON, shaped by the micro-level transnationalism existing within the temple.
To understand this process, the social movement literature dealing with framing and
identity is helpful (see, for example, Snow et al. 1986; Friedman and McAdam 1992;
Klandermans 1992; Snow and Benford 1992; Tarrow 1992). Frames provide individuals
with interpretive schemas through which they perceive, understand, and assign meaning
to the world and their experiences in it (Goffman 1974). A primary task of any social
movement, religious or otherwise, is to link its master frame with the frames of par-
ticular persons, thus developing in individuals an identification with the movement and
a desire to participate in it.
ISKCON’s master frame is a specific interpretation of Krishna Consciousness, which
emphasizes a spiritually oriented Vedic culture, spirit-based language and identification,
and universalism. It articulates the need for a Krishna Conscious society and self as an
alternative to those provided by the West. In the 1960s and 1970s, this master frame
resonated well with American countercultural frames and attracted many countercul-
tural youth to ISKCON. With the increase in the number of Indian participants,
ISKCON has found a new group with whom its master frame might resonate. Because
all of the Indians that come to ISKCON are “Hindu” by one definition or another, what
is required of them is that they shift their religio-cultural identity frame from their
particular version of Hinduism to that of ISKCON’s Krishna Consciousness version.
This shift—when it occurs—is the product of immigrants continuing involvement
in ISKCON and their interactions with both Western and Indian devotees. It repre-
sents a significant religious innovation shaping Indian immigrants’ new identity
construction—an innovation produced by the microcosmic transnationalism occurring
within ISKCON temples.
Not all Indian immigrants, of course, do shift their frame. The vast majority of the
Indians who attend ISKCON do so at first despite Western involvement and leadership. In
fact, they often view ISKCON as deviant or questionably legitimate because of Western
involvement. The temples and deities may be Hindu or Vaisnav, but the westerners
certainly are not. Over time and increased involvement, however, some of the Indians
change their perceptions of ISKCON and the westerners involved. Many come to view
ISKCON as at least religiously legitimate, while a smaller number completely align their
religio-cultural frame with that of ISKCON and fully convert. This frame alignment is a
gradual process that begins with their initial exposure to ISKCON, and varies depending
on the Hindu religious background participants bring to the ISKCON temple setting.

At first, Hindus who either worship a god other than Krishna as supreme or under-
stand all gods as being more or less equal view ISKCON as theologically incorrect or as
overly Krishna-focused, respectively. They attend because they are socially comfortable
there or because they have no other nearby options. (Many of the larger, more pan-
Hindu temples are in the Chicago suburbs.) When they attend, they pay little attention
to the Western devotees—both because westerners are westerners and because they are
a different type of Hindu.
Other Hindus come from the Vaisnav tradition and recognize Krishna and his
relationship to Vishnu though they are not explicitly “Krishna Conscious” in
ISKCON’s terms. For this group, ISKCON serves their religious needs as Vaisnavs, but
they question the qualifications and religious legitimacy of the Western leadership.
They are, however, very impressed with some aspects of the Chicago ISKCON temple.
When we asked this group about their first impressions of the temple, all of them
responded that they had been most surprised by the deities and by the devotees’
impeccable maintenance of them. Their initial positive impressions led the Vaisnavs to
more closely inspect the overall devotional service and knowledge of the Western
devotees. Again, they were impressed, and began to compare these practices with those
of other Indians, both in India and at other temples in the west. Surprisingly, the
westerners compared quite well, and in many cases, they were perceived as being better
than Indians in their religious practice. Through their interactions with the Western
devotees, Indian immigrants began to alter their understanding of ISKCON’s religious
practice and qualifications.
As a result of these and other positive interactions within the Chicago temple, the
Vaisnavs begin to understand ISKCON and its Western devotees as legitimate. The fact
that the Western devotees are Western does still matter, but that fact becomes less
important because they have demonstrated their religious qualifications. This does not
mean, however, that these Vaisnavs consider themselves ISKCON devotees.
Indian Devotees
Indian devotees of ISKCON are both the target and the vehicle for the reemergence of
ISKCON as a movement. They differ from other Indians at the temple in that they
self-identify in the language of Krishna Consciousness as “spirit-souls” and make use of
the same “-bodied” language as the Western devotees by rejecting “Hindu” or “Indian”
identifications in favor of “brown-bodied.” For example, when asked about his racial or
ethnic identity, one Indian devotee explained:
We are not these bodies. We are actually spirit-souls. When we are spirit-souls, the
body is external. According to the Veda, the body can change. It can be changed.
It can be black or brown or white. It is because of weather or the atmosphere we
are put into. It is nothing to do with I am different from you, and you are different
from me. I die. I get disease. I become old. I, you know, take birth. That I do there
in India, you do in America. So what is the difference between you and me? It is
the same—souls.

Indian devotees were the smallest group of Indians at the Chicago temple. Most live
outside of the temple as householders, and none had been born into ISKCON. Most had
been formally initiated into the movement, and those who had not been were planning
to be. Initiation is important because it not only requires that an Indian tolerate Western
devotees but that he/she fully accepts them to the point where he/she actually takes a
Western sanyassi as a spiritual master, an almost unheard of occurrence outside of
ISKCON. Taking a westerner as a spiritual master is obviously the result of a change in
an Indian’s perception of Western devotees, but even more importantly, it exposes a
fundamental change in an Indian’s self-identification—the shift from “Hindu” or
“Indian” to “brown-bodied.” It is not that “brown-bodied” Indian devotees accept the
Western sanyassis as spiritual masters despite their being Western. It is that the categories
of “Indian” and “Western” no longer have the same meaning or importance. They are no
longer primary categories of identification because they are physical, bodily-oriented
concepts. The only thing that is important at this point is the understanding that
everyone is a spirit-soul, part and parcel of Krishna, regardless of whatever physical body
the soul happens to inhabit at a particular time.
So how do Indians become devotees? What leads them to convert and what role does
ISKCON play? The key is that those Indians who convert and become devotees of the
movement are those who have become more involved at the temple and with temple
activities. The “process [of] awakening the consciousness from dormancy,” as one Indian
devotee put it, has everything to do with becoming socially involved at ISKCON, and it
is something that ISKCON takes an active role in promoting.
ISKCON devotees—both Indian and Western—are not blind to the experiences of
the Indian immigrants in their midst. They witness what they perceive as a loss of
Indianness by immigrants. When we asked a Western devotee what he thought was the
biggest challenge facing Indian immigrants in the United States, he replied, “Keeping
their heritage in perspective and not going off track by being in a different country
. . . surrounded by different cultural values.” He continued:
ISKCON plays a role in helping Indian immigrants maintain their heritage by
actively reminding them. That is why, in our services, we wear the traditional garb,
[and] the prayers are chanted in the original Sanskrit tongue. A great deal of [our]
speaking [to Indian immigrants]—even in group discussion or support group
discussion—is just to remind the immigrants about their heritage, and generally, by
this type of set-up—like support groups, through temple lectures and talks—I think
it’s effective at getting the point across.
Devotees even speak of trying to “save” Indians from American society. When this
effort to save Indians is combined with the Indians’ own unease in a new cultural
context, ISKCON’s Krishna Conscious master frame can provide a way for Indian
immigrants to make sense of their lives and the situations in which they find themselves
as well as providing them with a solution—greater involvement in ISKCON. ISKCON’s
master frame is introduced to Indian immigrants and reinforced through their micro-
level interactions with devotees at ISKCON and ISKCON-related events. Over time,
some of them convert.

The Process of Conversion

It may seem strange to speak of the “conversion” of Indian immigrants into ISKCON.
After all, Krishna Consciousness itself can be broadly defined as a form of Hinduism,
which is the natal religion of all the Indians that attend ISKCON temples. However,
within the sociology of new religious movements, conversion is a useful concept because
of the perceived “deviance” of many of the new religious groups to which one may
convert. Converting from one’s natal form of Hinduism to ISKCON’s Krishna Con-
sciousness is important because of the questionable if not outright deviant status that
ISKCON has for many Hindus. Because ISKCON’s membership—and more impor-
tantly, its leadership—has historically been Western, the organization has had a ques-
tionable reputation among Indians both in India and in the West. An Indian joining
ISKCON can seem as strange and “deviant” to other Indians as it does to other west-
erners when a westerner joins. The conversion of Indian immigrants into ISKCON
represents a new religious innovation in both practice and identity—the adoption of
what is in effect a transnational identity mirroring the microcosmic transnationalism of
ISKCON congregations in the United States.
The process of conversion has two main steps, both of which represent important
elements of micro-level transnationalism. First, Indians must develop ISKCON-based
social networks. At one Sunday feast at the Chicago temple, we were sitting with a group
of Indian devotees when we were approached by an Indian couple. The woman
explained that she and her husband were very interested in finding out more about the
temple because they had seen “so many people come from India [to the United States]
and change.” So many of them, she continued, had “lost their culture and gotten caught
up in the materialism.” She explained that she and her husband saw the Chicago temple
as a place where they thought they could escape the materialism of the United States and
reinforce their Indian cultural heritage. One householder confirmed that this had been
the case for him, and welcomed the couple to eat with us and to discuss ISKCON and
Krishna Consciousness in more detail. This situation—Indians coming to the temple
and establishing social relationships with Indian devotees—was a common first step in
the conversion process.
One Indian devotee explained that while he had been familiar with ISKCON in India
and even attended services there occasionally, his Krishna Consciousness was not
“reawakened” until he befriended some devotees in Chicago. Another Indian devotee
told us that his family had first attended ISKCON when he was a child because of the
“word of mouth of a friend.” Devotees, especially Indian devotees, take an active role in
socializing and befriending Indians at the temple, particularly young, educated, profes-
sional Indians. One Indian devotee explained, “We have programs, you know. When a
new [person] comes, we just show him around and try to . . . be friendly with him—
friendly in the sense [of trying] to make a good relationship with him.”
Part of the devotee socialization of Indians is focused on reforming the spiritual and
scriptural understandings of those Indians who practice some type of Hinduism outside
of Krishna Consciousness. Devotees—both Western and Indian—often told us that
most Indians were confused about their religion. One Indian devotee told us:

Basically, in India, the spiritual touch is always there, but a lot of people are mis-
guided as to what true religion is and how we should aspire for spiritual life.
. . . Confused in the sense that there are so many different religions in India. Even in
Hinduism there are so many different sects of people who follow different
things. . . . They are not truly taking from scriptures because scriptures are very
clear, and everybody has come up with their own motivation and own ideas to
propagate a particular way of life.
The majority of devotees’ contact with Indians takes place at the Sunday feast, but it
also occurs at work or school where Indian householder devotees interact with other
Indians. In addition, devotees occasionally travel to other Hindu temples in the greater
Chicago area and distribute literature about ISKCON and Krishna Consciousness to
Indians there. The devotees invite Indians to attend services at the temple outside of the
Sunday program, to come to home programs and services, or to participate in religious
classes, especially those dealing with the Bhagavad-Gita and the Srimad-Bhagvatam. At
these events, Indians meet and befriend other Indians, eat Indian foods, speak Indian
languages, and study Indian scriptures. ISKCON devotees—again, especially those who
are Indian—provide Indian immigrants with a friendly, comfortable environment where
the immigrants can feel at home in a country where they might usually not. It is within this
friendly environment that Indians intensify their ISKCON-based social ties, learn about
Krishna Consciousness, and develop and solidify an ISKCON-based identity.
The second step in the conversion process is entering into ISKCON’s system of social
and religious support. This step is closely connected with the first and is vital for
nurturing the Krishna Consciousness of those on their way to initiation as well as those
who have been initiated, especially householders who live and work outside of the
temple environment. To this end, Indian devotees have created a social infrastructure
that supports their religious life in the outside world and allows them to avoid the
renegotiation of their Krishna Consciousness that affected their white predecessors.
One important part of this social infrastructure is coming to the temple as often as
possible to interact with other devotees while practicing Krishna Consciousness in the
temple itself. But what is likely the most important aspect of the social infrastructure is
the tight network of Indian householder devotees. These devotees go to school, work,
and live outside the temple, but they spend much of their free time together in religious
classes and programs in each other’s homes, especially on the weekends. Each of their
homes is adorned with deities and pictures of Krishna and Prabhupad and serves as a
temple outside of the main Chicago temple. While they may not be able to attend the
Chicago temple everyday, they have replicated the most important aspects of it into their
homes in order to facilitate their practice—both individual and collective—of Krishna
Consciousness in the outside world. For the most part, their white predecessors were
unable to accomplish this regular social networking outside of the temple, and ISKCON
suffered as a result.
When we asked Indian householders what people they felt closest to, all of them
responded “other devotees.” Similarly, they also all told us that they spent the majority of
their free time “in association with” other devotees. Again, this is especially the case on

the weekends. One Indian householder remarked, “Weekends are when we try to meet.
Sometimes I go to some devotee’s house, and [other times] some devotees come to my
house. Then we sit and discuss spiritual life, and we read Srila Prabhupad’s books, and
we do kirtans and do bhajans and chant.” Another devotee echoed this. “On weekends
. . . we go and meet [and] get together with other devotees—the householders—and we
share our realizations. We share . . . and we study together and have some spiritual songs
and prayers together. We enjoy taking prasadam together.”
While they practice Krishna Consciousness individually or with their families during
the week, these weekend activities are extremely important for the support of Indian
householders. They serve to bring the community of householders together on a regular
basis to replicate the activities that go on at the Chicago temple. The weekend programs
take place on Friday and/or Saturday evenings and are attended almost entirely by
Indians.
One class we observed began with each of the householders providing examples of
their experiences with the power of Krishna during the previous week. These testimonies
were often emotional and frequently dealt with interacting with members of other
religious groups at work or at school or with a situation in which Krishna Consciousness
had helped overcome some adversity. The other householders encouraged each speaker
with supportive comments, and when he/she finished, everyone applauded. After the
testimonies, the group chanted together followed by a study/discussion of the week’s text.
At the time, the householder group was working through The Bhagavad-Gita As It Is
(ISKCON’s version of the Bhagavad-Gita, which includes commentary written by
Prabhupad). Each week the group covered two or three verses. They chanted each verse
in Sanskrit and then read the translation and Prabhupad’s commentary. Each of the
householders identified important points from each verse, which were written down for
later discussion. After completing the evening’s readings, they returned to these points to
discuss them further. Frequently, these discussions dealt with the difficulties of being
Krishna Conscious in the West, how to best overcome these difficulties, and how to apply
Krishna Consciousness in one’s daily life.
These classes serve an important role in the conversion process by educating Indian
householders about Krishna Consciousness and by providing them with practical
understandings and applications of it. The classes also help the householders become
religious specialists, which in turn increases their opportunities for formal organiza-
tional involvement—especially preaching—at the temple, intensifying their commit-
ment to Krishna Consciousness and to ISKCON.
An important part of the religious training provided by ISKCON devotees at these
home programs is educating Indians about the differences between Krishna Conscious-
ness and Hinduism and explicitly drawing a line between the two. As Knott (2000:158)
has noted, while devotees continue to challenge comparisons to Hinduism within
ISKCON temples, they are also very aware of the benefits of this association in the public
context. In the Chicago temple, we found that, publicly, devotees did not draw a clear
distinction between Hinduism and Krishna Consciousness, but they did make the
differences very clear in religious classes and private home services.

One of the most important differences has to do with demigods and demigod
worship. ISKCON teaches that Krishna is the supreme god and is superior to all other
Hindu deities. ISKCON refers to these other deities as “demigods” that, while important
and powerful in their own ways, are subservient to Krishna who created and empowers
them. The demigods are his servants. ISKCON’s theological understanding of the
supremacy of Krishna and the subservience of the demigods represents a fundamental
difference between Krishna Consciousness and a broader, more multi-theistic Hinduism
or with other forms of Hinduism which elevate another deity as supreme. From the
perspective of devotees, Hindus worship demigods for material reasons—to get or
accomplish things—rather than for spiritual reasons. One Indian devotee equated
demigod worship with “a business transaction”: “[It’s] like, ‘Oh, if you give me this, I’ll
really do a number on the prayer or whatever this week.’ ”
Not surprisingly, discussions of demigod worship were an important part of the
home programs. During one of the home programs we observed, the group identified
demigods as one of the important points from their Bhagavad-Gita readings. After a
brief discussion of the relationship between demigods and Krishna, a newcomer to the
group—who has since become initiated—asked whether demigods could be worshiped.
The group talked over this question for a few minutes and concluded that it was possible
to worship a demigod in order to ask for the strength and clarity to better worship
Krishna. It would be better, they agreed, to just worship Krishna as he is the supreme
god, but especially at the beginning stages of one’s Krishna Consciousness, a demigod
might serve as a means by which to become closer to Krishna but should not be an end
in itself. The man thanked the others and explained that he had been confused because
“in India, I used to worship all the gods because that’s what I had been taught by my
parents. There and here everyone did it just because we were taught to.” He then asked
the group whether or not he should be criticizing demigod worship when he sees others
doing it. The group decided that it was not their place to judge demigod worshipers.
Instead they should educate demigod worshipers by example and by instructing people
when questioned about the subject. Here, we see how devotees construct and illustrate
the difference between Krishna Consciousness and Hinduism. We also see that they
explicitly concern themselves with how to communicate this innovation back into the
original Hindu setting.
Selective Conversion
It is important to note that ISKCON devotees in Chicago—both Western and
Indian—do not target all Indian immigrants as potential converts. Instead, they tend to
foster relationships mostly with those at the upper end of the socioeconomic ladder. At
the same time, not all of the Indians who attend ISKCON in Chicago are interested in
socializing with devotees, attending ISKCON activities outside of the Sunday program,
or even in Krishna Consciousness. As Rangaswamy (1995:438–39) discusses, the Indian
population of Chicago is divided into two main groups. The first group consists of
highly educated professionals who have settled in the Chicago suburbs and have expe-
rienced substantial economic success. This group represented the majority of the first

post-1965 Indian immigrants and continues to be a significant sector of Indian immi-

gration. However, beginning in the late-1970s and early-1980s, a second group of Indian
immigrants appeared on the scene. Unlike those Indians in the first group, these immi-
grants lacked the education and skills necessary to experience similar economic success.
These nonprofessional Indians were largely unable to locate in the suburbs, and many
began settling near Devon Avenue on the north side of Chicago and near the ISKCON
temple.
We found that there are more of these Devon Avenue Indians attending the ISKCON
temple for the Sunday program than there are suburban professionals. However, the
Devon Avenue Indians generally ignore and are ignored by the devotees, who focus the
majority of their attention on the suburban Indians. This situation results in a physical
separation during the Sunday programs. The devotees—both Western and Indian—and
the suburban Indians were always located at the front of the prayer hall near the deities.
They played instruments and danced. They led the chanting and chanted the loudest.
They sat closest to the speaker during the sermon/class. In short, they were the “active”
group at the temple.
In contrast, the Devon Avenue Indian congregants sat nearer the back of the prayer
hall in groups of 10–15 people. They did not play instruments or dance, and while they
sometimes chanted, they did so at a very low volume and never led any of the chants.
Many in this group did not leave their coats or shoes in the temple shoe room, carrying
them instead into the prayer hall. The women wore bright colored shulwar kameeses and
saris, but the men generally wore Western clothing, providing a stark contrast to the
white and saffron dhotis of the male devotees and suburban Indians. During the service,
Indians in this group typically sat or stood facing the deities and paid little attention to
the devotees.
On a couple of occasions, we saw a few of these Indians watching the devotees chant
and dance. They seemed to be amused and actually laughed. We were left with the
impression that while most of the Devon Avenue Indians were largely indifferent to the
devotees, at least some of them thought their ISKCON hosts to be a little silly. Many of
these Indians did not stay for the entire service. They would enter the prayer hall, go to
the front where they would pray and leave gifts of money, flowers, or food for the deities,
and leave, not paying much attention to the rest of the service. In short, this was the
“passive” group at the temple. The devotees and the Devon Avenue Indians usually had
little or no direct interaction with one another.
The experience of Devon Avenue Indians highlights an element of elitism in
ISKCON’s revived movement activity, especially in whom it targets. ISKCON and its
devotees place a great deal of emphasis on knowledge. While they believe that Krishna
Consciousness is available to anyone, they also believe that only those who possess the
necessary intelligence to fully understand Krishna Consciousness and its difference from
Hinduism will truly benefit from it. This has two main implications for devotee-Indian
interactions. First, devotees are “realistic” about the chances of the average Hindu/Devon
Avenue Indian becoming Krishna Conscious—most will not. Second, devotees are par-
ticularly interested in college-educated Indians who come to the temple because their

educational background suggests the kind of intellectual ability that devotees believe to
be necessary to truly reflect on Krishna Consciousness.
Temple visitors with this educational profile are particularly attractive to ISKCON,
and devotees target this group—the majority of which is Indian—in their networking
and proselytizing efforts. As a result, those Indians with higher education levels and the
professions and incomes their education bestows (i.e., the suburban Indians) are more
likely to become actively involved in ISKCON because they are intentionally targeted for
increased involvement. Their socioeconomic class homogeneity with Western devotees
facilitates the transnational religious innovation we have been discussing and enables the
emergence of a transnational ISKCON identity. It also leads to a division between groups
of Indians within the temple based on education level and perceived intelligence. For
devotees, this division is one between “Hindus,” whom devotees already believe to be
somewhat uneducated because of their Hinduism, and those who are Krishna
Conscious.
When we asked one devotee about the difference between Hindus and those who are
Krishna Conscious, he explained that “most [Hindus] here still acknowledge Krishna,
but they may not recognize Krishna as the ultimate Godhead. . . . Many Hindus aren’t
equipped with the spiritual and scriptural understanding.” This devotee seems to leave
room for Hindus to gain this understanding, but other devotees we spoke with were less
optimistic. One Indian devotee told us that Krishna Consciousness was no different
from any other religion, except that it possessed a “higher knowledge” that was unavail-
able to other religions. In order to fully understand this higher knowledge, he explained,
one must have the intelligence to understand one’s role in the world and one’s relation-
ship to Krishna. He claimed that this intelligence requirement was why almost all of the
devotees—especially the Indian devotees—at the temple have advanced degrees; they
have the intelligence and education necessary to understand Krishna Consciousness.
On several occasions, devotees at the temple explained that they enjoyed speaking
with us because of our level of education and the assumption that we were fully able to
understand their comments about Krishna Consciousness and ISKCON. Several devo-
tees told us that it was pointless to preach to “certain groups” because they did not have
the level of intelligence necessary to understand what they were being told. These
devotees never directly told us to which group(s) they were referring, but it seemed
obvious from the context of the discussions (most were in relation to demigod worship)
that they were talking about the Devon Avenue Indians. Considering the importance of
education and intelligence for devotees, it is important to note that many Indian devo-
tees recalled first befriending other devotees at school or at their professional-level jobs.
Selective Nonconversion
The lack of interaction between the devotees and the Devon Avenue Indians/Hindus is
not just one-sided, however. The majority of the Indian congregants at the temple ignore
the devotees as well. One such man characterized himself as “Hindu” and explained that
his family attends ISKCON primarily because it is close and has deities to worship. That
the temple is a Krishna temple is not particularly important to his family because they

view all of the gods as being the same. As he explained, “We just go there to pray to the
God, meet other people, and that’s all we worry about, you know. We don’t care who is
in charge of the temple or who is the devotee or who are coming.” When we asked how
he worships at the temple, he replied, “I just look at the gods straight, and I don’t bother
myself to look around at what’s going on [with the devotees].” He and his family, like
other Indian congregants at the temple, use the temple for their own purposes while
ignoring or at least remaining indifferent to ISKCON and its devotees.
In short, the temple’s devotees largely ignore the Devon Avenue Indians while
concentrating their proselytizing efforts on the educated professional suburban Indians
who attend the temple. The Devon Avenue population returns the compliment by
ignoring the devotees as well. As a result, the temple’s Indian householder devotees are
from the educated professional group. Ironically, despite the temple’s focus on the
suburban group, as we discuss above, the temple relies on the donations and support of
the Devon Avenue Indians—the temple’s recognized “wide base of congregational
support”—as much as it does the suburban Indians, if not more.
CONCLUSION
Two general observations about ISKCON are clear. First, ISKCON’s history is intimately
tied to immigration and, more specifically, to the two-way transnational flows between
India and the United States. From its origins as a formal religious movement founded in
the United States by an Indian immigrant to its current efforts at saving immigrant
Hindus from the temptations of materialism and Western life, immigration and tran-
snationalism have been key factors in ISKCON’s life course. Second, as with any religion
or new religious movement, changing context has had an important effect on ISKCON’s
development. The context of the 1960s and the counterculture was key for ISKCON’s
early success while the post-Prabhupad context of organizational instability and height-
ened public suspicions of deviant “cults” led to an intense and potentially devastating
period of internal reorganization. The current context of Indian involvement in
ISKCON has created new opportunities for the reemergence of ISKCON as a religious
movement.
While this process appears to be in its infancy in the Chicago temple, it is having a
dynamic effect on both the temple itself and the Indian immigrants that worship there.
The larger meso- and macro-level transnational flows have created a context in which
ISKCON temples themselves have become locations for micro-level transnational inter-
actions and processes. This micro-level transnationalism has led to new innovations
in religious identities and practices for Western devotees, Indian immigrants, and for
ISKCON itself. The movement is rising again, but it looks and acts differently than in the
past. It includes significant numbers of Indians and increasingly targets educated pro-
fessional Indians rather than white counterculture “seekers.” This shift engenders less
external opposition, and in fact, facilitates some interfaith interactions, however limited.
In short, immigration has reshaped ISKCON as both an organization and a movement,
and ISKCON has impacted the lives of those Indian immigrants who participate in it.

Given what happened to the original movement as it failed to maintain its leader-
ship, financial stability, legitimacy, and sustained membership commitment, it will be
important to observe what happens to ISKCON as Indians continue their participation.
Will the immigrant devotees and householders continue to prosper within ISKCON,
maintaining an effective bridge between ISKCON and the outside world? Or, like their
counterculture predecessors, will they also find the outside world more attractive as they
age and perhaps experience a renegotiation of their ISKCON identities? There is also the
question of ISKCON’s future as an organization and movement. With increased Indian
participation, will it remain committed to its universalistic movement goals? Or will
Indian influence within ISKCON overpower its emergent transnational identity and
move it toward becoming a more Indian-specific religious and/or cultural center?
The intersection of ISKCON and Indian immigrants is revealing for the study of
post-1965 immigration and religion in general. Within the context of ISKCON, Indian
devotees are interacting with Western devotees, constructing and practicing a specific,
innovative version of Hinduism that supports them in actively recreating their identities
in North America. Investigation of Hindu-based groups like ISKCON can help scholars
of Indian immigration and religion to expand their analysis beyond the pan-Indian
“Ecumenical” (Williams 1988) and/or “American” (Kurien 1999) model(s) of North
American Hinduism in which Indian immigrants of differing Hindu backgrounds are
united within temples catering to a wide variety of Hindu beliefs.
Our study demonstrates that Indian immigrants have a variety of options available
to them for negotiating, understanding, engaging in, and activating their religious
practice and identities in a new context. These options are made available (or not) at the
local congregational and subcongregational levels through micro-level transnational
interactions as Indian immigrants encounter their religious peers—both native and
Western. Indian immigrants often become more religious after their immigration than
they had been in their home countries (Fenton 1988; Williams 1988). But that finding
does not go far enough for understanding post-1965 immigration and religion—Indian
or otherwise. We must also try to understand the variety of ways that immigrants
become more religious and the specific directions and outcomes of this religious inten-
sification. Our research on ISKCON and Indians in Chicago is a step toward a more
complex and comprehensive understanding of the religious engagement of post-1965
immigrants and the effects of this engagement both on the immigrants themselves and
on larger religious institutions and movements.
This point also leads to larger questions about the study of new religious movements
more generally. Researchers have in the past been especially alert to the “newness” of such
movements. Our work suggests that new religious movements may often, in fact, be not
all that new. Rather, they may be emergent from previous religious instantiations,
combining and adapting previous religious forms to create something that becomes
innovative and new. Recent decades have witnessed a dramatic increase in the transna-
tional migration of religious people and ideas. We should thus expect the continuing
emergence of “new” religious movements, but should focus on how their newness may be
a product of transnational processes at both the macro- and micro-interactional levels.
The potential worldwide spread of religious innovation through transnational net-

works is particularly interesting in relation to Warner’s (1993) “new paradigm” model of
American religion. Warner has argued that immigration contributes to American reli-
gious diversity and pluralism, increasing religious vitality, renewal, and innovation. But
as the religious vitality, renewal, and innovation originating in the context of the United
States spreads throughout the world via immigrant transnational networks, it is likely
also to have an impact on the global religious economy, potentially reproducing the
American competitive pluralistic religious economy in other regions of the world.
At this point, the overall number of Indian devotees in the Chicago ISKCON temple
remains somewhat small in comparison to the total number of Indians who attend the
temple. However, as history has repeatedly shown, significant changes can be wrought by
small numbers of committed people. We should not underestimate their potential.
Likely, then, it is not a question of if, but rather a question of how recent immigration
will change religious life and culture in both the United States and in other countries
coupled by transnational flows—a question that will be important for scholars of
immigration, new religious movements, and the sociology of religion.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research was funded by a grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts. For a careful
reading of earlier drafts of the manuscript, we are grateful to Dirk Ficca, Randal Hepner,
Prema Kurien, Paul Numrich, Tracy Pintchman, E. Burke Rochford, Jr., R. Stephen
Warner, Raymond Williams, and Rhys Williams. We also benefited from the insightful
comments of TSQ’s editor, Peter Kivisto, and anonymous reviewers.
NOTES
1
Religion, Immigration, and Civil Society in Chicago was a three-year project of Loyola University
Chicago’s McNamara Center for the Social Study of Religion, directed by Paul Numrich and Fred
Kniss, and funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts.
2
Householders are similar to devotees, except that they do not take vows of celibacy. They maintain
private homes with their families rather than residing in the temple, and support themselves by
taking jobs in the “outside world.”
3
While our claims regarding the resurgence of ISKCON’s movement activity are based on our
observations in Chicago, we have reason to believe that our argument may be generalizable, given
the similar demographic trends in other North American ISKCON temples (Zaidman 2000;
Vande Berg 2005).
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ISSN: 0038-0253 (Print) 1533-8525 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/utsq20

Iskcon and Immigrants: The Rise, Decline, and Rise

Travis Vande Berg & Fred Kniss

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