Back To Prabhupada, Issue 5, Autumn 2004
We have already described in Issue 3 the daring distribution plan which resulted in over 1100 Back To Prabhupada (BTP) magazines being distributed during the Mayapur festival in West Bengal, India, right in the heart of the "lion's den" of ISKCON's world headquarters, whilst devotees were on parikrama "protected" by heavy security. In the same spirit, our brave devotees decided to distribute BTPs to the many devotees who attended Ratha Yatras and other festivals this summer. Though such distribution was successful with almost 4000 BTPs being distributed, such an endeavour was not without great personal risk, as you will read below!
15 IRM devotees from India, UK, New York, Florida and California came together at this festival to work together in passing out as many BTPs as possible. However, as soon as the devotees began passing the magazines out, they were harassed by the ISKCON festival organisers who tried to get them to stop, insisting that they would call the police if they didn't. Our devotees told them to go right ahead, and helpfully pointed out the many officers nearby who were policing the event!
One of the devotees was pushing a big cart containing all the BTPs at the rear of the parade from which all the distributors would periodically replenish their supply of magazines. Following along side him was GBC Malati Dasi who was following the Ratha cart in a van. Seeing this devotee pushing a big cart full of magazines, she began yelling at him madly, saying that he must throw all the magazines in the garbage can. This went on for a while, but he just ignored her. Then she became incensed and began spraying water at the devotee and the cart full of magazines. However, immediately the tables were to be turned! About 5 minutes later, there was commotion as a policeman began yelling madly at Malati to get out of her van. The reason: because the van's radiator immediately began spraying water, and the policeman became worried that it could blow up. She had no choice but to comply and leave her van parked in the middle of the street. That was the end of the parade for her! It seems that after yelling at a devotee and spraying water on him and the BTPs, she got an instant karmic reaction of being yelled at and having water sprayed from her van, which resulted in her being stranded on the road!
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By the time the parade reached the park, virtually everyone seemed to be walking around with a magazine in their hands, having been swamped from all directions by 15 devotees and 1000 magazines! And there were still people at the park who came up to us requesting magazines, but alas we had run out.
Again, IRM devotees from all over the country came together in LA to work unitedly to ensure that as many devotees as possible received the truth about Srila Prabhupada's mercy being freely available to all. However just before the trip, to ensure that enough IRM New York devotees could attend, a staunch Srila Prabupada disciple, Mother Akara, who used to serve at the original 55th Street skyscraper temple in Manhanttan, went out on sankirtan on the streets of New York and collected enough funds for herself and five other devotees to fly to the event! Not wanting to run into the same problems of running out of stock as we had in New York, this time our devotees had come armed with 1500 magazines!
Again the parade was swamped very quickly with devotees and magazines. Devotees by the dozens were reaching for BTPs. Everywhere appreciative hands were grabbing magazines and everyone was all smiles.
There were so many BTPs in everyone's hands, and so many of us, that the usual "devotee/thug" contingent which normally tries to stop our preaching efforts with violence, didn't know what to do.
They began shouting, "They're everywhere! Don't take those!". Of course, these shouts were drowned out by so many more shouts of "Can I have one!"
After a few hundred magazines were distributed, HH Jayadvaita Swami went into a panic (perhaps unsurprisingly, since he was exposed in BTP 4 as having admitted that the GBC's philosophical justification for Guru successors "stretches the truth"), and he organised a group of devotees to go around taking magazines back from the devotees who had already received them. He then boasted that he was going to use the magazines as "firewood". After a while, he and his team had managed to collect a boxful of magazines back, and a brahmacari was charged with disposing of the box. On the way, however, he was intercepted by Ghanashyama, one of the IRM devotees from New York. Somehow, he managed to retrieve the box from the brahmacari, and all the magazines were re-distributed!
Nevertheless, by the end of the day Jayadvaita Swami had managed to collect another half-box of BTPs, which was placed behind the BBT book table guarded by numerous devotees. However, as the last beat of the drum on a perfect day, the IRM's lion Jayananda Das walked behind the BBT table and just simply took the box away. Nobody moved or said a word. And quickly all these magazines were distributed again. Then Jayananda marched over to Jayadvaita Swami and said with a smile, "You won't be able to set Srila Prabhupada on fire this winter, because I have taken all the BTPs back and redistributed them!"
In London Madhusudana Das, accompanied by Bhakta Murray, set out armed with boxes of BTPs. As elsewhere, most devotees were very happy to receive the magazines and hundreds were passed out very quickly. Unfortunately, this success attracted the envy of the usual thug squad masquerading as "devotees" and Madhusudana was soon surrounded by no less than eight of these "devotees" - 5 dressed in dhoti, tilak etc, aided by 3 young Indians dressed in T-shirts and pants. Being completely surrounded, he was unable to escape. The three Indians then attacked Madhusudana, trying to steal the BTP magazines from his grip. This attack took place on the upper level of Trafalgar Square and was watched by hundreds of devotees, Hindus and tourists. Madhusudana is over 50 years old and was alone, and yet he was facing 8 youngsters - so you can see that these GBC goons definitely believe in a fair fight! They knocked Madhusudana to the ground but mercifully Bhakta Murray came to his rescue. He bravely rushed at the assailants frightening them off, which allowed Madhusudana time to find his feet again. And then these brave "warriors" all fled! As they were running away, Bhakta Murray pulled out his camera and took pictures of the culprits. One such picture of an assailant running away is shown here.
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Due to the assault the police were alerted. They were curious to know what the problem was. Indeed, they were surprised because they were under the impression that the Hare Krishnas were peaceful types. Madhusudana asked them if he was breaking any law by distributing BTP. They emphatically said "NO!" In fact, they even offered to escort him for the rest of the parade if need be! The ISKCON festival organisers told the police the magazine was offensive because it was "racist"! So the police had a black policeman check it out for evidence of racism. This left the police completely baffled as to what was "racist" in the magazine!
Unfortunately that night, due to having been knocked down earlier, Madhusudana did have some trouble sleeping due to a pain in his left leg and ankle, but it was a small sacrifice to pay to ensure that hundreds of devotees received the truth about Srila Prabhupada as the real initiating Guru of ISKCON.
Other festivals
These were smaller festivals attended by much less people, but they still proved fertile ground for spreading Srila Prabhupada's message.
As soon as Madhusudana and Bhakta Murray arrived, the local ISKCON Temple President approached them with aggression and threatened to have them "taken out" by the security. Unfortunately, this violent attitude was to set the mood for the rest of the day.
Most of the distribution here occurred due to devotees on the procession approaching Madhusudana and Bhakta Murray and actually asking them for a copy! There was also a group of young girls dressed in saris, supposedly bhaktins, who would spend most of their time rushing up to devotees who had received a magazine, retrieving it from them and then crushing it and throwing it into the garbage (despite Srila Prabhupada's picture adorning the front cover of each issue). Luckily, our devotees spotted this and were able to recover the magazines from the rubbish piles.
The organisers asked our distributors to leave the festival site and they did, but they stayed nearby. However, that did not satisfy the GBC goon squad, five of whom who then surrounded and attacked our devotees. In fact, so vicious was their assault that they even snatched the walking stick of an elderly Indian gentleman who was hobbling past and started beating Bhakta Murray over the head with it. Soon they were joined by about 10 more "devotee-thugs" and they also started to attack our two defenceless devotees. At this point, some sane people intervened, giving our devotees enough time to escape and make their way to a nearby shopping centre.
However, this was not to be the end. Soon a much larger force of around 20 thugs came chasing after them into the shopping centre, and knocked both of our devotees to the ground. In the process, Madhusudana cracked his head on the floor causing bleeding. Luckily again some others intervened, and our devotees were able to escape and call the police to file a crime report.
We are grateful to Lord Jagannath that our devotees "only" suffered cuts, scratches and all-over bruising in the service of disseminating the truth about Srila Prabhupada.
As our intrepid duo Madhusudana and Bhakta Murray arrived at this Ratha Yatra, they spotted a van with devotees parked just behind the Ratha cart. They approached the driver, who immediately upon seeing them demanded "Give me a magazine!" He said they were devotees from Manchester, and he then proceeded to give them an invitation to the Manchester Ratha Yatra, asking them to come there and pass out BTPs!
Later, Madhusudana was standing in front of the Rath cart when along came a reporter from the local newspaper. He started asking Madhusudana about the festival taking notes in shorthand! The reporter was eventually given two issues of BTP.
Later, Madhusudana was attacked by six devotees who attempted to grab all the magazines from him. However, in attempting to do so, the ring-leader of the attackers fell over an elderly Indian lady nearby, and thankfully that caused such a commotion that the attack ended there and then.
Across the ocean, our Los Angeles IRM supporter, Nimai Das, a second-generation gurukuli, became so fired-up due to the successful BTP distribution at the LA Ratha Yatra in which he took part, that he drove all the way to San Francisco for the Ratha Yatra there the following week, and passed out BTPs there with the help of Balarama Das, a second generation gurukuli from Hawaii. He also had earlier passed out magazines at the Srila Prabhupada festival in Los Angeles all by himself.
As thousands of BTPs thus begin to flood the world, support for the IRM is growing rapidly on a daily basis as devotees all over the world are made aware of the truth about Srila Prabhupada which has been hidden from them for so long.
Srila Prabhupada and BTP ki jaya!
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