The Monk’s Podcast 44 with Bhakti Purushottam Maharaj – ISKCON Tribal Care

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Hare Krishna Maharaj thank you very much for joining today for this monk’s podcast it is it is a great honour to host you and I have heard your lectures and been nourished by especially your sweet and insightful narration of the lord’s pastimes but along with that recently especially last several years the tribal care initiative which you have pioneered is something which is just few parallels in our movement so I thought I wanted to know more about it I thought we could discuss that today so can you share how you got inspired to start this initiative Maharaj you see I got inspiration because I saw the mood of Jaitanya Mahaprabhu is to special bhakti joga works better for people they are simple and humble then I observed these are the inbuilt qualities among the tribal people they are organically very simple because they are away from complicated and complex material lifestyle they maintain a very simple natural life and they are humble also because they don’t have so much they are not so rich or so educated to feel very proud so I thought Mahaprabhu’s message is very must be fitting message to these tribal people that most qualified and deserving people then when I started bringing this message to them I could see very interesting way very simple way and so deeply they are accepting this and one more thing I observed also thousands of tribal youth roaming in the forest endlessly then when I started to give them education and teach them spiritual subject matter I saw they are very receptive very receptive and very focused and they remember, memorise these verses very quickly then I realised because of this, because they are not distracted, their mind is very focused, so many many nice things then I found then I realised the real treasure of India is there in the forest and mountains not only in the forms of woods or forms of mines real treasure is there hiding in the forest and the youths are so talented youths and at the same time I realised how foolish we are other people from abroad, they have come and taken advantage of this innocent, simple and humble tribal people and we were so foolish we were sitting idle not using our real resources that our country has so that is how this came up Yes Maharaj Before I was introduced to Bhakti, my father was like a preacher for the government he used to go to very remote villages and he used to do public welfare documentaries prepared by the government for awareness of diseases and other things so at that time I also used to travel to small villages and I could see people were very simple what you said over there so now you have been preaching in say I think Orissa Bengal for more than three decades so was it some particular incidents that started that inspired you to start this focus or apart from the traditional preaching that we were doing what specifically triggered this? so what happened we have a temple in Jharkhand okay there are nearby tribal people are there so somehow or other it came to my mind I told the temple president that you should preach to tribals then he said but they are all drunkards, they are all hunters then I told him then don’t tell him out for regulative principles tell him just to chant Hare Krishna because there is a lot of supporting statements in scriptures for these forest dwellers, tribal people they because of their lifestyle and everything even if they don’t follow regulative principles when they are chanting that will work upon them better than we so called civilised people I read in one so I told him don’t tell them about no meat eating no drinking, just tell them to chant Hare Krishna that will help then he was doing after 2-3 years when I went there then he introduced me to some tribal people that already initiated this was Vishwanath? which year was this? 7-8 years before yes I started tribal 5 years before so then when I saw then I said how they become vegetarian yes Maharaj they have taken initiation then I realised the holy name itself preach to the people our preaching is not acting upon people when somebody just chant Hare Krishna take the holy name by the power of holy name these people’s life are changing then I took interest I thought this is a very important project we must explore and we are not exploring this area this is a big treasure is there then I started working on this ISKCON tribal care initiative we have 5 initiatives care initiative educational care then health care social care emotional care spiritual care different areas gradually it is developing they are very nice people very easy to approach then they easily see you go to city there are so many arguments those people you tell them to do, they just do it you go to some village whole village they buy not free, we don’t give free they buy Japa Mala they buy Gita we don’t give free Gita we give reduced price so it is like that so then I gradually these tribal children join become Brahmachari now we have 2000 Brahmacharis in Mayapur how many? we have about 16-17 Brahmacharis ok and in Mayapur we have like 6-7 Brahmacharis, they are the best book distributors we have Mayapur Sanketan and all by the lockdown I thought Mayapur is a very big area that we have not explored ok where other communities 100-200 years before they have come there and they have been working on them like that oh it’s true Maharaj, what is the culture or the religion of these tribals do they worship some Devatas or do they worship forest gods they have their Kundavats or what do they previously worship different tribal area they have different way of worshipping ok but it doesn’t some tribal but they can easily take up Krishna Bhakti their previous forms of worship and Krishna Bhakti don’t conflict with each other anytime I am telling you that some area they worship little bit it depends where these tribals located some tribals in deep forest their culture is different some tribals are very close to city area their culture is different they are exposed some area they worship Shiva that is better quality and some they worship Kali, Durga some they worship ghosts most of them they do Bali animal sacrifice and ghost worship and some tribals also they don’t think they are Hindu they think we have our own religion like this so different area different what do they call their religion or no name we have Shantal religion like this so like that they have their own culture one religion each tribal have their own culture, one language, one race one faith like that but the point is definitely they identify to Hinduism more than any other religion but other religion they come care for them some other they divert them when we go it is more easy to reach to these people interestingly you should know one thing in Jharkhand there is one tribe called Shantal and in that tribe they have some Guru Babas they do preach to their people they worship all demigods all kinds of things but interestingly lakhs of these tribals they are all pure vegetarian no onion no garlic no wine, no intoxication so much street they don’t eat food cooked by others also so they are called Safahur they keep Shafsutra they wear white cloths so it is like Mahaprabhu’s mercy readymade waiting so when we go and speak to the Guru Babas they are very nicely accepting to chant Hare Krishna like that so were these people Vaishnavas earlier or how is it that they have such a pure or sattvic culture that is that I have to explore what is the root they have present Guru Babas where it started from it is not hundreds or thousands lakhs of people you know it is so challenging to make people vegetarian and how they what they speak to them this is not like one tribe it is not one tribe like that within that tribe these people they go and preach individuals and make them so it is very interesting what they speak, how they do how they are able to do some of these people they have taken very interest in Guru Babas in Krishna Consciousness chanting and all other groups Bengal or they are in Jharkhand Jharkhand district and some other districts also ok that is very interesting so Maharaj technically how are tribals defined are these people living far away from the cities or living in the forest or is it by their caste or race or how is a person called a tribal tribals are mainly those they stay in forest and mountains so they don’t have no they are the tribes there are thousands of tribes in India but they don’t have any dwelling place like a common village or something like that, they live scattered in scattered in the forests they have village but maybe one village could be one or two mile radius because they have so much free land one house here, one house there one house here like this but they call it one village like 50 houses or 20 houses some places the houses are very close to each other some places are far from each other like that then what happens in due course of time jungles are cut many ministers are there from tribal background so even if they are educated they will be identified as tribal like that civil caste and civil tribe okay, so it’s more based on you could say birth that certain people are called tribals by birth the tribals and among tribals there are different tribes Shanta, Lumunda, Riyang Kargi, Bhel tribes like this thousands of groups are there okay so we are doing tribal care in which all parts, I saw on your website you are doing in many many parts of that part of the country, which all places currently we are doing we are now our presence is there in Tripura, Assam Nagaland little bit then Jharkhand Bengal Orissa Andhra then Somalia and Maharashtra also from they are doing and also they are doing then we have Gujarat some places like that oh, so is all this centralised or is it that different centres are just doing on their own broadly speaking up to now up to now like they are doing whoever we had a meeting yesterday okay some area maybe but from our tribal care ministry we have we are directly doing this Assam, Tripura, Jharkhand Andhra like this and we are encouraging all other centres so we can come in one group so that it will be nice so that our activities can be magnified we can help each other so this tribal area is done like that okay so Maharaj sometimes the some of the schedule caste and schedule tribes they are often quite anti-Hindu because they feel that in the past we have been exploited and so do you experience that sentiment or these tribes are not so much like that till today I have not faced any people that they are become very angry upon Hindus or Brahmanas because they look them down but but it is fact Hindus and Brahmanas they look them down they don’t care for them and they consider untouchables maybe they are not mentioning to me to us that we are going, we are very caring sitting this that but it is true that they have been deprived or they have been treated I would say not nicely or in a caring mood but I don’t know in Assam Tripura I don’t see that they have become very antagonistic maybe it could be Madhya Pradesh or Uttar Pradesh where only it is that all this concept is very prominent Brahmana groups are very prominent but Bengal, Assam, Tripura it is not like that they have not been mistreated by Brahmanas or mistreated by Hindus it is not like that though some area like it, like Tripura always Bengali tribals they have conflict Tripura whole state was tribal only Bengali infiltrated inside and that became more prominent, so because of that otherwise caste wise I don’t think they are very much against Hindus or Brahmanas like that that’s interesting one thing which I have noticed in our movement is that if somebody becomes a serious devotee then the background really doesn’t matter much if somebody is a dedicated devotee, they become empowered they get the facilities and they can do outreach so they will also be finding it comfortable in our movement because there is no discrimination they are cared for that is quite positive I saw notice on your website that you get all these tribals to come together once a year on Ram Navami to Mayapur so when you bring them to Mayapur how do the general people over there see them are they welcomed positively by the people in Mayapur or is it that they are treated like lower class people means is caste discrimination still an active presence Mayapur ISKCON devotee not Mayapur ISKCON devotees but in general in I know devotees don’t discriminate no when this takes place in ISKCON there is no lower caste just higher caste yes of course so they feel a sense of belonging over here yes Maharaj and when the tribal convention takes place when our devotees see these tribal people so simple so humble so nice they are all moved instead of looking them down they become very affectionate towards them lot of love and affection from ISKCON devotees and from everybody so my point is Hindus also lot of Hindus not developing very much loving attitude towards them so they feel very happy when they come to this tribal convention oh amazing you mentioned that you are offering them tribal holistic care you are providing health support educational support and various apart from spiritual support so is all this supported by the government also because all this will require a lot of resources financial, human, infrastructural so how do we get all these resources to provide this tribal care well government has thousands of crores for this tribal care and because Hindus are not so much interested so crores thousands of crores been channelised to Christian institutions and whether in the interest of government or whatever it is so Christian people have taken advantage of it and hundreds of big big hostels schools, hospitals they have built with government money but impression is given Christians are helping but actual government giving that that is one way and another thing is a lot of budget government has and in between people are eating all that money also it is not reaching to the people there, that is second thing and last thing is we don’t get a single penny help from government, very helpless situation so last 4-5 years we have been trying ministers are involved but they cannot manage or ask one paisa from thousands of crores so we are just begging from our devotees and we are helping to the tribals, that is present situation neither money nor government help nor anything I go, I travel I go to temples I go to UK, America, different places I explain to devotees and whatever I get with that, I have built 10 schools now government gave us 20 schools to run because they can’t run then we have more than 100 parcellas, about 5000 children studying we have many community centres we have built many clean drinking water projects such things are happening like that oh so how is it, if the government is secular, if they are supporting Christians, how can they not support us or is it that Christians have more credibility established because of what they have done in the past because that would be discussed they have more credibility and also to get money from government you have to know the channel you know oh ok we put up the channel to this government and the government is so bureaucratic and maybe I am not sure, maybe when you want to get some government funding, you have to spend some money here and there, pocket money you have to put ok we are not so expert in doing that yes maybe they are thinking, they are taking from others some sadhu they can take from us and they don’t give us also that could be another reason also oh ok that’s amazing to actually generate all the financial resources for doing this that’s very resourceful so normally when the Christians use government funds then can they actually convert people to Christianity if they are doing that or when people get when the tribals get supported by Christians means do the Christians convert them directly or it is more discreet say the Christians whatever social welfare activities they do they are very particular about giving them their knowledge of the religion that is fast they don’t they don’t leave any effort they don’t keep aside any effort any help they do to anybody that must follow the teachings of Bible so that agenda is there but they do it, they don’t do it openly but interesting they are not challenged by anybody or government doesn’t challenge and Hindus are happy people they are having happy time you do whatever you want, we do whatever we want and that’s how it is like this really so in a sense they are using government funds to promote their religion yes definitely and what government funds government means that is all tax of Hindus Hindus money is used for spreading Christianity government is getting tax from Hindus and penalising to tribals that’s what happens I don’t accuse Christian people because we people are lazy what government will do our Hindu people are sitting idle we have no mechanism to get money from government and spend it for tribal people it’s so obvious, you see our Hindu group apart from our scholars there are so many other societies, big big kathakars big big things happening all in big big cities nobody takes trouble to go there Christians 100 years they have taken the trouble to go there the whole state is now become Christian Nagaland, Mizoram all those 95% all Christians 3 states fully Christian 95% Nagaland Mizoram and which one one more one more state in that side Manipur Mizoram Nagaland, Mizoram one more so then when they become Christian do they become hostile to Hinduism or they are only nominally Christian because Christians they offer them some support or something like that see all kinds of people there some people they become Christian they become very Christian they become hostile towards us nobody has behaved badly we maintain relationship with Christians and everybody because we don’t go against them and but there are varieties of people some people are because of getting help by name they are Christian some people they become Christian now they don’t get any help they are not happy Christians like this that’s true and the Christian missionaries who come there are they Indians or are they non-Indians those who preach to them the main people they come from Europe, America different places but most most of the people are from Kerala and Tamil Nadu all the fathers in eastern India north east mainly from Kerala and Tamil Nadu interesting so they get trained they get recruited over there they get trained and they come and do service here ok yes they have one gesture project I told you that did you go to that site they have a gesture project 50 billion dollars they have big college to train people how to convert mechanism how to convert only thousands of youth are getting trained up now recently one article came that somebody said 10 crore people they want to convert to Christianity so these are all open things nothing strictly happening 10 crore they want to convert yes I will send that link to you I put it on ICC some very big person telling about oh amazing 10 crore is almost it’s a very large number in how many years they want to do this I have not seen where they convert they don’t convert in Europe or America or Russia they cannot convert in Arabic countries yes Africa and India Africa is only converted either Muslim or Christian they are mainly mainly Bangladesh nothing much mainly India Nepal converting India when I was in America I was at some interfaith conferences and many times among Christians there they consider it actually as a very noble and noble activity of great sacrifice to go to India and they don’t say we are converting but we are going on missionary work and what they say is that these people are poor they are deprived and we are uplifting their lives so they often portray more as humanitarian than religious but it seems they always bring together the two humanitarian and religious together isn’t it it is not it seems it is so obvious it is like Bhagavata pastati to apastati you are like all it is so obvious rapidly they are increasing their numbers it is so clear till if they say we are going to uplift them and we believe it and or we pretend like we are believing this then nobody is more foolish than us the whole state has become Christian what is happening in Kerala what is happening in Tamil Nadu in Andhra Pradesh also situation is very miserable there but you are saying that we have not faced any conflicts we are also doing a significant amount of tribal care so don’t the Christians feel threatened that we are actually taking the tribals towards us and they will not be available or there are many many tribals so they don’t bother so much we are not reaching to the Christians they are not challenged and we are reaching only to Hindus and we are too small in front of them they are like western we are like one cup of water so they will feel challenged in future if we can do something substantial they may feel challenged but sometimes our tribal caregivers they get little hard time they report to me some Christian youth they give little hard time need police protection but not so gross way we have faced any trouble like that and we are trying we are trying to move forward in such a way that we have no confrontation with Christian people because many people they ask me Maharaj you are going to tribal are you converting Christians to Hindu so my answer to them is first let us make Hindus proper Hindu Hindus are not the Hindu let us take care of the Hindus thousands of tribals not converted to Christianity let us take care of them why you go up to Ghar Wapsi those there in the Ghar we are not taking care of them and we are running behind the others come back to the house do you understand my point yes yes ok are you taking care of those tribals they are already not converted that we are not doing and we are after bringing the others back to Hinduism good but first let us take care as I told the conversion will stop within 7 days all we have to stand by these people who are not yet converted just by our presence conversion will stop ok helplessly they are nobody to help them nobody goes to those far distance mountain forest like 10-20 km forest 40 km forest so that become a paradise for other community people to spread there is no challenge over there no competitor, no challenge so our Hindu organisations are not interested like that oh ok in eastern we started this and I hope people will take interest if eastern can put 5% of that energy and that resources what man power, what money power we have 5% it then we can achieve so much but in eastern it is a challenge also now people are busy with their own projects don’t take it so seriously like that yes Maharaj so when you say that we don’t confront Christians that’s because we don’t reach to the people whom they are reaching we have other people to reach out to that’s how confrontations are being avoided we openly we don’t reach to their community but when we do programmes for distribution Christians will come and also many places when we do programmes we invite VIPs they are from Christian background MLA or District Magistrate or Anshul Pradhan they are from Christian background we do some school opening we bring them also so like that so they come they don’t mind coming no no they come they are very nice they come in your school you have Christian children in your hostel you have Christian children also our school are Christian children also we have example like that oh ok so when we say run these schools or other you could say humanitarian initiatives are all of these run by devotees or they are mainly managed by us and there are other people who are taking care of it initially we started our devotees then now in due course of time many tribal people they have taken initiation also they have become devotees we don’t have any farmy people we have mostly devotees or some devotional minded people like that oh ok we don’t hire people like farmy people so much engaging them not like we don’t have that much oh ok and in these schools we teach the normal syllabus and we also teach some bhakti or how much freedom do we have to teach in these schools see we we teach them normal syllabus common curriculum but we teach them something bhakti point is there is ample opportunity to teach them bhakti because what we teach them in forest nobody is that talent the problem is where is the teacher where is we don’t have people to go to the school from our eastern side guide them teach them the bhakti we don’t have that people are busy in city you understand my point but where is the Christian people they fly from Europe they fly from America spend 50 months I have good background people they saved tribal teach to them but in our case up to now it has not happened I don’t see any good family people they want to go to the forest give their love and care we don’t see some other congregation like that except they just give 2000 donation up to now they give some donation that’s all ok so Maharaj till now how many tribals have we been able to reach and how many have say become initiated or is there some track record of that well we don’t have I know how many states we have record of how many villages yesterday we have a meeting tribal care committee national committee Sohrang Prabhu is part of that also we told our tribal care office to make a survey find out exactly how many villages we have covered our individual tribal care givers they know everything we just have to put it together ok but roughly it will be how much means in thousands or in tens of thousands or how much will it be roughly roughly village will be how many not many we will have about 300 villages maximum we are covering and that means how many people roughly 300 villages 400 villages then it’s average 100 families how much is that 100 families means 3-4 people in one family yes 100 families in average 100 families in per village 400 village means how much family coming ok that’s 40,000 40,000 families that means about 16,000 people we could say yes we have link we have relationship with them and I will say those in relationship with us there is no question they will get converted to other religion there is no question irrespective irrespective of how much we are helping them because of our presence only that they will not feel inclined to go other community and other community people will not dare to enter into that village also oh ok interesting and usually when we have the festival at Ram Navami how many people are able to come to Mayapur we get maximum 1800-2000 like that oh I see and all this has happened in the last just 4-5 years yes 4 years ya so that’s amazing in just 5 years it’s a significant number of people who have been reached I will not say it’s significant because because of our limited resources number is like this it could have more devotee more money it could be 100 times more it is like that wherever you go you get results, response there wherever you go, any village you go make our presence then we get immediate results from the people response and results it’s a matter of gathering more resources of manpower and life ok it’s amazing so Maharaj traditionally in our movement there has been some concern that some concern that we shouldn’t get too much into humanitarian activities so sometimes when we do food for life or we start a hospital there has been some criticism at the same time we cannot just care for the soul and say we will not care for the body so how do you deal with this challenge because you are also doing humanitarian care but then you are also doing spiritual so how do you balance that I saw somewhere I forgot to save that quote Prophet saying unless you feed people if they are hungry they will not accept your religion yes I have seen that quote yes send it to me I can save it so that’s why it is not humanitarian exactly when you take care of the soul you have to take care of the body at least in these people’s case and one thing I have observed I have been doing school water this that very nice it’s a life because COVID-19 we did hundreds of villages free prasadam distribution thousands of people I got very good donation and I saw people are much more happy eating prasadam than opening school, college, hospitals instant happiness when I was thinking Prabhupada has the best way that he has given us distribute prasadam only that’s why I am encouraging our tribal caregivers that whatever school, college we will do it but now give more importance go village to village give them prasadam give them prasadam and that big smile in their face that is pure prasad distribution so that is very good result our humanitarian work is nothing in comparison to what others are doing we are very negligible okay so I think the fear of some devotees is that if we get too much into humanitarian work then our spiritual outreach may get lost but you are able to do both in parallel so it’s not a in that sense it’s not a risk isn’t it what are devotees thinking that is correct because if you go for Krishna consciousness you don’t get much importance you don’t get much donation we go for humanitarian then people love you they like you, they praise you lot of donation comes as a result our attention goes more on that than the devotional and that is what has happened to other society also but in our case we have agenda behind this you know as we go we have a target to reach we have a school and we have a other society we are using humanitarian and dharma like a pinch of dharma is there touch of dharma religious or spiritual they give it like Ramakrishna Mishra and Bharatanatyam Sangha they have school material education first and then just little prayer this that Ramakrishna Mishra schools are there tribal children are studying but they don’t have target like Christians but we have a target like Christians but we want to now give them much more than these things so our goal is different so there is no question we will be distracted because we are double way community like I have not three I have double tree community in one village 40 deep forest there are 40 families out of which 9 families have taken initiation 12 families have become vegetarian they are doing agriculture farming with small scale so our goal is different we are not end of business doing some hospital or some school like that we want to get result out of it so I hope it will not divert us so if I understand right what you are saying is in many other Hindu organisations they don’t have much spirituality anyway so then humanitarianism is what is the most focus in our case spirituality is quite prominent our practises, our philosophy so naturally that emphasis will come out when we go out also yes Maharaj and when we do all these programmes so when we go to the tribal do we make some namahattas or what do we do over there or is it in the schools itself we have the programmes or in people’s homes or how do the programmes happen there we don’t call it namahatta we open tribal care centre and different villages we build community community centre they do patwa, they gather once a week they do some festival like that then we have some area which is very conducive to get good help to develop a project just like in Bengal, Uralia there is a place called Ajodhya Hill we call it Janaka Sutta project Janaka Sutta project school, hostel vocational training centre main place and surrounding 50-60 villages they gather from there same way in Hilakandi district we have also two main centres one Nilagiri project another Nilagiri project so here we have temple, we have devotees we have school, then from there they go village to village and in Tripura also we have like that, so organically this is coming up gradually ok so we don’t have to in any way curtail ourselves so devotees can go in saffron, wear tilak do Harinam, conduct festivals, we don’t have to in any way hide our bhakti do we have to do that in any way? we go as a devotee not as a that’s wonderful and Maharaj sir, this is quite wonderful hearing about tribal care can you also speak something about the outreach in Mayapur and Bengal apart from the tribal care because we also have international headquarters in Mayapur and then I heard that outreach in Bengal is also going on in a very big way so how are things going on there? Mayapur our biggest outreach is Namahata, thousands of Namahata centres they have very big number of followers then last 20 years we have started Gita correspondence that also now thousands of people joining doing full Gita correspondence for attending convention, exams getting certificated then my surrounding village we have local preaching programmes also like different things oh ok and how do you see the events that Mayapur temple comes up do you see that that will affect our preaching itself in a big way or our preaching will depend more on our Namahata and other initiatives see when Mayapur temple opens that will enhance our preaching but through Namahata we are making our foothold in village, our presence is there big temple will come, people will come very surprised, very happy clever to it but first we have to make our foothold in every village that is very important in Bombay thousands of people are coming but we have to reach in Maharashtra every village then we have thousands of followers hmm like that both has to become side by side, we have to make devotee in the field then we have to make temple, then come and see like that ok yes Maharaj then the temples will become not just like tourist places for visiting but they will be like spiritual nourishing places for people who have already been connected yes Maharaj Mayapur whole infrastructure is used so much seminars going on, so many training and big big Namahata building Gita Karta building, MIE and so much courses going on, that means people are getting on training you know seminar training now this one is not people come and not like any Hindu temple people come take darshan, do little puja, give little darshan and go, it is not like that anybody who comes they will get really groomed lessons before they leave so many ways like that Maharaj you have also been quite prolific in writing books so which books are you currently writing on writing I have now 2 books just recently going on one is Srimandi which describes everything about Jagannath temple inside and another is Narasimha Appearance other is Narasimha Dapas Appearance everything about Narasimha Ugra Narasimha in Mayapur or which Narasimha not about Mayapur, about Narasimha oh ok Narasimha of blood and ring oh ok wonderful Maharaj has been very informative and inspiring to hear about how this initiative has taken off and I will put the information about the websites also below the YouTube description and devotees can visit and those devotees who want to support they can also support through online and is there any concluding words you would like to speak Maharaj all this main support we want this news to spread that ISKCON is working on tribal people helping them that is first thing this news spreading and second is wherever devotees they are everywhere they have tribal people instead of giving us financial help more important is if they can help tribal people there and communicate with us ok we have tribal people here 20-30-40 villages give some guidance we will take care of the tribal we don’t need money from them if they want I can give money to them money books I want now man more than the money oh ok that’s amazing yes Maharaj thank you very much for your time and attention and sharing your wisdom and your experiences thank you