Prabhupada life-story 05 – Indian Partition – Transcendence amidst turbulence

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This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Thank you. Hare Krishna.
Hare Krishna. Welcome back to our series on Prabhupada’s life story. We’re discussing about Shri Prabhupada’s working with his God brothers and then trying to start the League of Devotees.
Here we see an exalted devotee trying his best to work as hard as possible to purify and elevate the consciousness of people by giving them the spiritual wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita. While functioning in the world, we may have the noblest of intentions, and those intentions are definitely enough to please the Lord. At the same time, along with the intentions, in this world, we need resources.
And without the resources, the intentions in themselves do not bring about effects. So Shri Prabhupada, who had been given the title Bhaktivedanta Swami in due course when he had taken sannyas, he had been trying various things to try to share Krishna’s message. So even when he had been a pharmacist pursuing his business, his interest had been in spirituality, in trying to share the Bhakti wisdom of ancient India.
So he would meet many influential people either during the course of his business or specifically for the purpose of developing his spiritual outreach. And he tried through various means to get the resources by which his spiritual mission could be fulfilled. So normally, if we look at our life, somebody, we want to do something, what all do we need? We may need financial resources, we may need human resources, we may need infrastructural resources.
This is broadly, these are things which we need. Somebody wants to start a business, they need money, they need infrastructure, they need manpower. So similarly, Shri Prabhupada, when he was trying to share Krishna’s message, the purpose itself was transcendental.
But the means by which he would do it, that was actually had to be, he needed practical resources. And as we mentioned that, as his business, he was doing it, but along with that, he was also slowly focusing more and more on the spiritual side of outreach. And he had to do this amidst very difficult circumstances.
So we will look at the buildup to his sannyas and then his exclusive focus on the writing and speaking, which ultimately led to his momentous step of going abroad. Now, Shri Prabhupada was in the 1940s. That was the time when the World War took place.
And that was about the 1939-44 was the Second World War. And that was a time when Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati’s mission had also become fractured because the spiritual master of that mission, that is Bhakti Siddhanta Saraswati Thakur himself, had just departed a few years ago. And Abhay Charanarvind, that was his initial name, but he was also called Abhay or Abhay Babu.
He was trying in his own way to do what he could. Now, the one result of the Second World War was the, not just the devastation of life that happened in various parts of the world. India was not directly hit by the Second World War in its mainstream land.
So if you consider the main areas of warfare of the Second World War were with Germany, which was largely in Europe, some parts of Africa, some parts of Asia, especially Russia, where Germany had attacked. The attack which happened on the Indian front came not from the West, but from the East. It was Japan that attacked India with the intention of conquering.
And they basically wanted to defeat Britain, which was ruling India at that time. Now, the Indians had in the First World War assisted the British in good faith that they would get help. They would get freedom or at least greater, greater administrative powers, but that had not happened.
And that is why when the Second World War came up, Indians were divided about whether to help the British or not. So some Indians led by Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, they decided to form an Indian National Army. And they decided to side with the Axis powers.
The Allied powers were Britain, France and majority and eventually Russia also entered when Russia was attacked. And America also entered when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. So, and the Axis powers were primarily Germany, Italy, and Japan.
So, now the, in British, they, if you consider Britain was a very small country, and they got majority of their resources from India, because India was considered the crown of the British Empire. It was a huge country, richly endowed with natural resources, and enormously endowed with human resources. India had a significant population even then.
So, the Indian National Army was comprised of Indians who had been recruited in India to fight against the Britishers. The Britishers labeled them as insurgents. And along with that, there are many Indian soldiers who are fighting in the British Army on the side of the Allies, because they had been recruited in the Army by the Britishers.
And some or many of them were arrested and made prisoners of war by the Germans. And Bose had made a deal with the Axis powers that if those prisoners of war could be released, then they would fight for India’s independence and fight for the Axis powers against the Allies. Along with this, the British, they desperately needed India’s support.
So, they tried to crush the Indian National Army. But more than that, they, in order to force Indians to join their army, they adopted very brutal policies. They started causing basic necessities of life, such as grains and food, and medicines to be unavailable.
And the prices started shooting up because of the hoarding. And then the only source of money at that time for people was the army. That was the only way they could have a regular salary.
And thus, people were forced to join the army even when they were unwilling and many times untrained. And when Japan came on the, through its aggression, came on the eastern coast of India, at that time, the British started using a scorched earth policy. That means that they started destroying whatever grains were available in Bengal, Calcutta and other areas, so that even if they lose their territory and Japan wins that territory, still Japan will not get any resources locally.
And thus, the Japanese progress will be slowed down because they will have to get food and other resources shipped in from their country or other places. Now, what happened in between the crossfire was that terribly, it is the Bengalis, because Bengal was the vortex point where Japan was trying to attack India and the Britishers adopted the scorched earth policy there. So, there was a terrible famine.
One of the worst famines in recent Indian history occurred over there. And thousands upon thousands of people suffered. It was Abhay Babu, he lived in the midst of such misery.
The Gaudiya Mart itself was already going through internal torment, but it came, also suffered through external torment. So, that which was supposed to promise independence, it turned out to be quite terrible. And Prabhupada himself experienced the, he lived through the nightmare of bombing.
And the Japanese were in order, in their bid to capture Calcutta, they often, they tried to bomb Calcutta. So, bomb alerts would come and certain bomb shelters had been built. So, people, as soon as the bomb alert would come, they would leave their homes and go to those bomb shelters, which most of them were like underground places.
So, if bombs fall, they will blow up the houses and those who are inside the houses may die. But those who are under the ground or in bomb shelters, they will survive. So, Prabhupada lived amidst such bomb shelters, lived amidst such bombing.
And his mood was that, at that time, he was just so calm, so composed. He, at one time, he was cooking for Krishna. He was making kachoris and other food items to offer to Krishna.
And at that time, the bomb alerts went off and people started leaving. And Prabhupada, this consciousness, he was still, at that time, a grahastha, but he was still always an exalted consciousness. And he just thought that, actually, Krishna is coming as these bombs.
A devotee can see Krishna everywhere. In 6.13, the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna says that, a devotee sees Me everywhere and sees everything in Me. So, Prabhupada saw Krishna coming as the bombs.
Krishna also says, At death, I am that takes away everything. Time, I am the destroyer of all the worlds. So, the Bhagavad Gita gives a very inclusive conception of God wherein even death can be seen as a manifestation of the Divine.
Now, of course, God is not destructive in Himself. God actually destroys the temporary to make way for the eternal. The destruction of the temporary is meant to jolt our consciousness to explore that eternal and then follow the appropriate processes for experiencing and eventually relishing the eternal.
Now, Prabhupada, because his consciousness was already steeped in the eternal, he’s already absorbed in serving Krishna, when he heard the bombs falling nearby in his vicinity, he thought that this is actually simply Krishna coming in another form. It says Krishna is in the form of a deity, Krishna comes in the form of a bomb. What is the difference? Prabhupada continued cooking for his deities.
He was not overwhelmed by fear and trauma because of this bomb. Such was his God consciousness. And not only that, Prabhupada acknowledged that this, when Krishna comes in the form of bomb, that is not a very pleasant form of Krishna to see.
Krishna as Shyama Sundar, Krishna as the deity form is very attractive and very allure, very spiritually, devotionally, divinely alluring. Now, after the war, eventually Britain became very weakened and when insurgency in India, both non-violent and violent started becoming stronger, or the independence movement was gaining momentum, then eventually Britain decided to leave India. Now, Bengal had been the place which the Britain had conquered first.
When the East India Company had come to India, the major part of India which they had conquered first was Britain. And the major awakening in India that had happened in terms of recognizing the atrocities of the British and rebelling against it, that had also happened in Bengal. That had been called the Bengal Renaissance, which had happened from the, in the major part of the 19th century.
And so, Bengal was the, for much time, Calcutta was also the headquarter of the British Empire. Later they moved into the Indian heartland, Delhi. But Bengal was a very important province.
And now what happened, as India started nearing independence, the Hindu-Muslim violence started getting heightened. For centuries, Muslims who had invaded India, conquered India, and then converted many people in India, had lived in India and populated India through reproduction also, they had had the taste of ruling India, of dominating India and dominating the Hindus. Now, but when the British came and the British started ruling India, then they subordinated both the Hindus and the Muslims.
Now, when India started leaving, when the British started leaving, at that time, it became clear that India was going to adopt a democratic form of government. And in democratic form of government, the Muslims felt that because the Hindus number far more than us, so, our interests would be compromised. And they were incited by some, by some Britishers also who felt that India as a, if it is one country, it will be extremely powerful.
So, if India is divided into two, British had always followed a policy of divide and rule in India. So, they felt that if Hindus, Muslims could be divided further, then that they would keep fighting with each other, and that would decrease the power that India would have over the world. And both, so, because of the historical fault lines that were there, and because those historical fault lines were exploited by the political vested interests of those times, both on the part of the British as well as in the part of certain Muslim rulers, that the time of independence became an extremely explosive time.
The partition of India was a traumatic event and the riots that happened before that were also traumatic. So, Prabhupada lived through those riots. And Prabhupada says that how at one particular time, he saw that people were fighting with each other, people were killing each other and Prabhupada would say that, you know, after a person would be killed, the corpse would be lying on the body and the government officials would come and sweep the corpse away.
At that time, how would anyone know? What difference would it make whether that person was a Hindu or a Muslim? Now, when the blood falls in the body, the blood knows no difference in colors. So, Prabhupada saw the essential commonality of all living beings. He saw with a spiritual vision.
He saw that whether it is a Hindu body or a Muslim body, it is the same soul that beats within that body, similar soul that beats within that body. So, in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna states in the 18th chapter, 20th verse that actually, to see the essential commonality and spirituality of all living beings is a vision of knowledge. In 18.20, Krishna says that to see the commonality of, see that one imperishable spiritual nature exists in all living beings, that is the vision of the mode of goodness, that is knowledge in the mode of goodness.
Although there is diversity at the level of the body, there is similarity at the level of the soul. And although Prabhupada lived at a time when there was violence and murder that was happening, Prabhupada’s spiritual vision towards God, he saw a bomb as a manifestation of Krishna and his spiritual vision towards other living beings. He saw Muslims and Hindus who were on a murderous fight against each other, he saw them all as spiritual beings who had somehow been grievously, tragically, monstrously misled.
Now, India, when it became independent, it was also partitioned because of the excessive communal tensions that flared up. And, of course, the major partition happened in Pakistan and India. Pakistan was divided into East Pakistan also, part of Bengal that became Bangladesh.
And there’s a lot of people, thousands and thousands of people had to leave their homes and go to the other part. So, Muslims left from India to Pakistan, Hindus left from Pakistan to India. And then, it devastated people’s lives because on the way, people were slaughtered, people died of hunger.
And it was one of the what was supposed to be a beginning of a bright move, of a bright new phase in life. It began for the nation in a very great darkness and misery. Actually, Prabhupada had, as we discussed earlier, been also following Gandhiji earlier.
And then, when he had met Bhakti Sanath Sri Thakur, the influence of his spiritual master transformed him from a national activist, a social activist to a spiritual activist. And Prabhupada worked tirelessly, he not only maintained his spiritual consciousness, but through his writings, through his discussions, he was offering spiritual solution to people’s problems. He’s noticed how when a prominent newspaper said that India after independence has still also not got peace.
So, it seems that Providence has not ordained peace for India. So, Prabhupada wrote from the Bhagavad Gita saying that how this world is dukkha le, without spiritual consciousness, peace cannot be had. So, Gandhiji had been instrumental in enabling India to non-violently resist the British rule and gain independence.
But he had become increasingly distressed and sidelined as India was fractured into two, India and Pakistan, and as the violence between the two communities increased. So, Prabhupada wrote letters to him and told him that, you know, he wrote a letter. Prabhupada at that time was, relatively speaking, an unknown sadhu, just like an ordinary person.
He was not even in the renounced order at that time. And Gandhiji was a leader of national, even international renown, who was seen as an architect of India’s freedom struggle, who was celebrated as the father of India. But Prabhupada, in his humble compassion, cautioned Gandhiji.
He said that, actually, as we age, we need to withdraw from worldly engagement and focus on spiritual growth. Since Gandhiji was among all the Indian spiritual leaders at those times, Gandhiji was among the most spiritual. He used to read the Bhagavad Gita.
He used to memorize Gita verses, quote Gita verses. He would daily go for prayer meetings and he would inspire many other people to come with him for prayer meetings. So, Prabhupada wrote a letter to Gandhiji saying that, let us meet and we will discuss the Bhagavad Gita.
And with the understanding of the Bhagavad Gita more assimilated, then it can contribute much more to the world. Otherwise, the results will be tragic. Prabhupada’s letter went unanswered and then tragedy struck India in the form of Gandhiji being assassinated.
Some people felt that he was being unduly compromising towards the interests of the Muslims and he was speaking, he was working against the interests of the Hindus and a Hindu extremist assassinated him. And Prabhupada’s letter turned out to be prophetic in a sense. Now, Prabhupada, at this, through it all, although at a national level so much turbulence was happening, Prabhupada was fixed in transcendence and he was trying, he was acting as a voice of spiritual sanity and spiritual maturity.
Amid this political and communal upheaval that was sweeping across India, through his writings, through his discussions, he was giving the undisturbed transcendental perspective. Although, unfortunately, nobody was hearing at that time, but one person was hearing. Krishna, present in the heart of Shri Prabhupada and present in the hearts of all living being was hearing.
And Prabhupada, he continued speaking, knowing that Krishna would inspire people to hear sooner or later. And it was Prabhupada’s spirituality and his conviction in the absolute necessity of spiritual consciousness for solving world problems had become even more deepened through all this. And what Bhaktivedanta Sri Thakur had told him in principle that spiritual elevation of consciousness is more important than national liberation of India, that became apparent to him.
Because neither did Indians themselves really substantially improve after independence, because India’s condition became worse, at least for the first few years. And the Indian leader who had worked tirelessly to gain independence for India was himself assassinated. So, Prabhupada, he crystallized and refined and imbued with a deeper conviction, his writings and his presentations, as he continued sharing the spiritual message of the Bhagavad Gita, of the Bhakti wisdom tradition with people through his writings and talks.
How those writings and talks would eventually emerge for the world to benefit, that we’ll discuss in our future sessions.