“Soviet Russia confronted three principal threats: pop music, Western tradition and Hare Krishna.” This was an remark by Semyon Tsvigun, deputy head of the KGB, the USSR’s feared spy company. It was the Nineteen Eighties and a number of other Iskcon followers had been imprisoned for chanting “Hare Krishna.” Iskcon or Worldwide Society for Krishna Consciousness was a motion based by AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada in the US and confronted challenges on Soviet soil, together with the demise of a number of the devotees. Nonetheless, the Hare Krishna motion has come a great distance and has turn out to be a part of Russian society.
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi landed within the Russian metropolis of Kazan On October 22, in the course of the Brics summit, a number of devotees had been seen chanting ‘Hare Krishna’ upon their arrival. A video by Iskcon devotees exhibits how the motion has been assimilated into Russian society.
This was a motion that attracted the Russians shortly after their entry into Russia. However with the altering political temper of Soviet Russia, a more durable battle awaited him.
In line with the Soviet newspaper Sotsialisticheskaya Industriya, the motion attracted educated sectors in Russia. From engineers to technicians, Russians had hardened in opposition to Western affect, however “had been ill-equipped to cope with younger males reciting mantras,” the New York Instances reported in 1982.
However the Russians noticed greater than devotion within the motion.
One other 1983 New York Instances report quotes a Soviet newspaper that thought of “the Krishna group within the Soviet Union to be a deliberate American ‘deviation’ whose victims turned mentally deformed and whose American chief was nothing lower than an agent of the Company.” Intelligence Heart”. “.
A number of devotees had been arrested for being CIA brokers.
One other downside the Russians had with the motion was the way it emphasised meditation and ease. This didn’t please Soviet Russia, which thought it distracted folks from their day by day issues, the Soviet newspaper reported.
It was additionally a overseas method of displaying devotion.
“The group is marked [even now] as a result of their distinctly overseas customs, which arouse the mistrust of outsiders inherent in lots of Russians, mentioned non secular research skilled Sergei Filatov,” a Moscow Instances report states.
“They’re too vibrant and visual,” Filatov added.
These devotees supplied a life free from materialism.
“We battle in opposition to drunkenness and condemn smoking, and yoga prohibits the consumption of alcohol and nicotine. We attempt to disgrace gross materialism, and yoga calls for asceticism and renunciation of the attributes of well-being,” says Sotsialisticheskaya Industriya, a Soviet newspaper printed by the Central Committee of the Communist Get together.
For all these causes, the motion had confrontations with the Russian State.
“I had clashes with the KGB, the police and even the military,” mentioned Karen Khachaturyan, 48, who joined the motion in 1986.
HOW ISCKON ENTERED RUSSIA
Srila Prabhupada, the founding father of Isckon, needed to go to the USSR as an “official consultant” of India. He even wrote a letter discussing this problem with the Ministry of Tradition, in line with Again to Godhead, Isckon’s journal.
They denied him entry and gave him no purpose.
After a number of makes an attempt, he obtained a vacationer visa that allowed him a brief keep. Nonetheless, he was not allowed to provide a lecture at Moscow College.
However even with these limitations, Prabhupada was in a position to go away an impression on some Russians.
The Isckon motion got here to Russia when Prabhupada met Anatoly Pinyayev.
Pinyayev would turn out to be Ananta-Shanti Dasa, his solitary devotee within the USSR. However this may not be for lengthy.
Additional assist got here within the type of Prabhupada’s dialog with Professor GG Kotovsky, then head of the Division of Indian and South Asian Research of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Prabhupada made an amazing impression on Professor Kotovsky, who printed their dialog in a distinguished Russian newspaper on the Otkrytyi Discussion board.
It was Ananta-Shanti who unfold Prabhupada’s message to a number of Soviets who turned devotees.
“Simply as you’ll be able to decide whether or not rice is well-cooked by selecting a small grain, so you’ll be able to know a complete nation by taking a look at one among its fastidiously chosen younger males,” Prabhupada mentioned after assembly Ananta-Shanti, in line with Isckon journal.
USSR SENDS ISKCON DEVOTEES TO PRISON, SOME DIE
Iskcon would start to achieve reputation within the Nineteen Seventies.
In 1977 and 1979, Bhaktivedanta E-book Belief acquired an invite from the Moscow Worldwide E-book Truthful.
A number of Muscovites appreciated Prabhupada’s books, the New York Instances reported.
“To draw guests,” the newspaper quoted one of many devotees, “we supplied Indian sweets that different devotees and I ready. We performed Hare Krishna music. Brightly coloured books with placing photographs of legendary beings lined the cabinets. Guests had been invited truthful attendees to fill out the order types and the cash, between 5 and 30 rubles, needed to be deposited instantly,” the NYT reported.
From then on, the momentum continued.
Within the Nineteen Eighties, below the federal government of Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, a number of Isckon devotees had been imprisoned.
A troublesome relationship emerged between Isckon and the USSR.
It was a time when Isckon’s devotees appeared to be a risk to the Soviet Union.
A struggle adopted, but it surely was smaller and fought between a handful of devotees and the Soviet state.
Devotees had been despatched to prisons, labor camps and psychiatric wards. They had been severely mistreated by police and politicians, in line with a report on Hare Krishnas within the Soviet Union within the collections of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library’s Digital Library.
In line with a number of Isckon reviews, a pregnant girl was imprisoned for translating the Gita into Russian.
A number of devotees even died.
Then the campaigns of the governing physique of Iskcon and its commissioner, Kirtiraja Dasa, started.
He started a global marketing campaign of spreading information and holding demonstrations to strain the authorities to launch the devotees.
He created the Committee for the Liberation of the Soviet Hare Krishnas, and located appreciable help for it on the Reagan-Gorbachev summit in Reykjavk, within the United Nations, and within the worldwide media.
On the November 1986 assembly in Vienna of the Fee on Safety and Cooperation in Europe, the worldwide physique analyzing the human rights provisions of the Helsinki accords, there was once more a name to attract consideration to the devotees.
An album was additionally began with “liberate the Soviet Krishnas”, a plea by Sri Prahlada Das to the Soviet authorities. It was launched as a single.
Lastly, these devotees had been launched.
HOW ISKCON DEVOTEES GOT AND LOST A TEMPLE IN MOSCOW
In 1988, the Council of Non secular Affairs even registered Isckon, in line with the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada’s 2020 ‘Russia: Remedy of Krishna’s Followers’ report.
These devotees may pray and even sing in public areas.
Moscow even allotted two-story buildings to devotees. This may turn out to be his temple. This was the primary Isckon temple within the historical past of Russia and the USSR.
In 1991, an utility for an genuine Vedic temple was additionally accepted.
However one other battle started after the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church known as the teachings of the Bhagavad-gÄët&amacr the product of a “false faith.”
Different religions had been described as a risk to “nationwide consciousness and cultural identification.”
In 1997, a invoice handed by the Russian parliament (Duma) thought of the Russian Orthodox Church the one faith of the Russian Federation.
Solely three religions had been accepted as three conventional Russian beliefs: “Judaism, Islam and Buddhism.”
By now, the Iskcon temple had turn out to be the one place for Indian worshipers. Within the Nineteen Nineties alone, 97 registered communities, 22 monasteries and 250 origin teams had been shaped, reviews Isckon journal.
The Isckon temple in Russia was decimated in 2004 after Moscow’s mayor signed an order for a brand new Isckon temple on the identical land, the Moscow Instances reported.
However the Russian Orthodox Church and different non secular leaders spoke out in opposition to this order.
This time, the protests passed off in Pushkin Sq., within the heart of Moscow. It was even seen “Krishna’s followers are brainwashed” and “mates defend their religion.”
Town’s government prosecutor’s workplace returned the order.
At the moment, help got here from Isckon devotees in Russia. Even the Vishwa Hindu Parishad campaigned to “defend Russian Hindus”.
Lastly, the land was assigned to Iskcon. In 2006, round 6,000 devotees entered an incomplete temple to have a good time Janmashtami.
CHALLENGES FOR ISKCON CONTINUE IN RUSSIA
Regardless of the challenges, an increasing number of devotees have been drawn to Iskcon Russia.
“The institution of this temple in Russia is big – traditionally, symbolically, emotionally and spiritually. The temple may also be big and can host 1000’s of devotees, guests and seekers,” mentioned Bhakti Vijnana Goswami, an Isckon chief in Russia.
The devotees nonetheless do not need a temple, however their work for the neighborhood and their devotion to Lord Krishna continues.
Devotees even helped victims of a disastrous flood in Krymsk in 2012 and even misplaced their volunteers within the first Chechen struggle within the Nineteen Nineties, the Moscow Instances reviews.
“It was positively worse previously,” Khachaturyan advised the Moscow Instances in 2014.
“Individuals see that we merely chant the holy names with pleasure, distribute books and do nothing detrimental,” he mentioned.
A decade later, the story appears to have developed even additional. Now that India’s mushy energy is well known the world over, there may be better acceptance. The movies of the Hare Krishna bhajan within the presence of Prime Minister Modi in Russia are an instance of this.
