Bombay
November 25, 1972
Although Prabhupāda had come to Bombay with hopes of finishing the land transaction, Mr. N. was still delaying, despite the new agreement. Obviously his stalling was simply part of his plan to cheat ISKCON. Śrīla Prabhupāda waited many days in Bombay, finally departing for a paṇḍāl program in Ahmedabad. He left behind instructions for his disciples to get the deed on the new terms or else to take back the original two lakhs of rupees paid as the down payment.

While Śrīla Prabhupāda was away, however, Śyāmasundara, Tamāla Kṛṣṇa Goswami, and the others began talking about how even if they could one day get the deed to the Juhu property, to develop Hare Krishna Land the way Prabhupāda had envisioned would be practically impossible. Śyāmasundara argued that even if they got the land, how could they really expect to build a big temple and hotel out here in the jungle? It just wouldn’t work. Meanwhile, from Ahmedabad Prabhupāda continued to wage his Bombay campaign, and he requested Mr. N. and Mr. D. to come to Ahmedabad to try and make a settlement. They declined.

In Bombay the devotees learned that if they wanted to get back their down payment as well as the money they had deposited toward the five-lakh gains tax, then they would have to cancel the new agreement. They were confused, and their time was running out.

One morning one of Prabhupāda’s disciples, Viśākhā-devī dāsī, arrived in Ahmedabad from Bombay. Prabhupāda called for her and told her to return to Bombay immediately with a message. Out of concern that his leaders in Bombay not make a wrong decision and decide to relinquish the land, he told her to tell them that they should not under any circumstances cancel the agreement with Mr. N. “Actually,” he said, “this is not a woman’s job, but everyone else here is either engaged in the paṇḍāl or has not been with us long enough to do this task.”

Viśākhā took the next train out of Ahmedabad and arrived in Bombay the following morning. But what Prabhupāda had foreseen had already happened: the devotees had canceled the sales agreement. They were convinced that to get the land would be a mistake, and their lawyers had agreed, pointing out that if the devotees wanted to retrieve their money, they should cancel the agreement immediately. When the devotees heard Prabhupāda’s message from Ahmedabad, confusion reigned. They now had no legal standing, no claim to the land. And they had failed to carry out Prabhupāda’s desire! Girirāja phoned Prabhupāda in Ahmedabad to tell him what had happened.

“Bhaktivedanta Swami here,” Prabhupāda said as he took the telephone. Girirāja was saying that a devotee had come from Ahmedabad with a message. “Yes, yes,” Prabhupāda said, “what is the point?” Finally Girirāja blurted out that they had canceled the sales agreement. Prabhupāda was silent. Then in a voice that expressed both anger and resignation, he said, “Then everything is finished.”

“I shall be the last man to give up the Hare Krishna Land to the rogue Mr. N.,” Prabhupāda wrote to a life member just before leaving Ahmedabad for Bombay. Prabhupāda was now immediately planning how to rectify his disciples’ mistake. No money had yet been transferred, so perhaps it was not too late.

Mr. N. could not possibly understand why Prabhupāda was so determined in his fight to keep the Juhu land. Not that Prabhupāda had kept his motives hidden, but only a devotee can understand the mind or actions of another devotee. Mr. N. was dealing with Prabhupāda just as he had dealt with C. Company. He had cheated them, and now he would cheat ISKCON. He could only surmise that Prabhupāda and his disciples were driven by the same motive as he himself, the only motive he could understand: material possessiveness.

Actually, even Prabhupāda’s disciples were having difficulty understanding Prabhupāda’s unbreakable determination. Prabhupāda’s main motive was to preach Kṛṣṇa consciousness in Bombay. Śrīla Prabhupāda said, “My Guru Mahārāja ordered me to preach Kṛṣṇa consciousness in the West, and I have done that. Now I want to preach in India.” Bombay was the most important city in India – the gateway. And within Bombay, Kṛṣṇa had somehow led Prabhupāda to this land, where he had begun preaching and had brought the Deities of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa. In Prabhupāda’s eyes, the land was suitable for the large, gorgeous temple and international hotel he had planned.

Bombay was an important city and required grand temple worship, large festivals, mass prasādam distribution, and a variety of Vedic cultural programs. The Juhu land seemed ideal for a school, a theater, a library, apartments – a Hare Kṛṣṇa city. So how could Prabhupāda retreat from this rogue who was trying to cheat him? There would always be persons opposed to Kṛṣṇa consciousness, Prabhupāda said, but that did not mean the devotees should give in. A preacher had to be tolerant, and sometimes, when all else failed and Kṛṣṇa’s interest was at stake, he had to fight.

Another reason Prabhupāda refused to give up this particular plot of land was that he had promised the Deities, Rādhā-Rāsavihārī. He had invited Kṛṣṇa here and prayed, “Dear Sir, please stay here, and I will build You a beautiful temple.” When Prabhupāda had been touring and a devotee from Bombay had written him that the Deities were being neglected, Prabhupāda had written back insisting that these “abominable activities” be rectified. The Deity of Kṛṣṇa was not a stone statue but was actually Kṛṣṇa, eager to reciprocate with His sincere devotee.

So if using the land for missionary work was the obvious or external reason for Prabhupāda’s determination to keep his Hare Krishna Land, then the internal reason was his personal commitment to Their Lordships Śrī Śrī Rādhā-Rāsavihārī. Certainly Mr. N. and his associates could never understand this. Even Prabhupāda’s own disciples could not realize it fully. Prabhupāda had brought Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa into very poor conditions, but with the promise of something wonderful to come. At his request Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa had come, and They were standing patiently, giving eternal benediction to Their worshipers, while Prabhupāda struggled to fulfill his promise.

Five hundred years ago each of the six Gosvāmīs of Vṛndāvana had had his own Deity, for whom he had built a beautiful temple. But Prabhupāda was empowered to install and maintain many Deities. In his Western world headquarters were the opulent Rukmiṇī-Dvārakādhīśa, in New York Rādhā-Govinda, in Dallas big Rādhā-Kālacandajī, on a traveling bus in America with Kīrtanānanda Swami and Viṣṇujana Swami were Rādhā-Dāmodara, in London Rādhā-London-īśvara, in Māyāpur Rādhā-Mādhava, and in Australia Rādhā-Gopīnātha. All were Prabhupāda’s worshipable Deities, arcā-vigraha incarnations of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa appearing at the request of Their pure devotee for the benefit of neophyte devotees in various places around the world.

To establish many Deities was one of Śrīla Prabhupāda’s prime contributions as a world preacher. And when he would visit each temple, he would always stand reverently before the Deities, taking Their blessings, and then he would offer prostrated obeisances. “Be humble,” he would instruct the devotees. “Always remember you are dealing with Kṛṣṇa.” And sometimes he would be unable to suppress his ecstatic symptoms of love for the Deities. Through his representatives, his many disciples, he worshiped all these Deities, but in the case of Rādhā-Rāsavihārī his involvement was more direct. Having taken India as his own managerial duty, he considered caring for this Deity his specific responsibility.

Prabhupāda’s fighting spirit to keep the land was so keen that he sometimes appeared to be fighting for fighting’s sake. He sometimes even compared Mr. N. to the demon Kaṁsa in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, who had repeatedly tried to kill Kṛṣṇa. Just as Kaṁsa had employed many minor demons in his attempts to kill Kṛṣṇa, so Mr. N. had employed demoniac agents like lawyers, friends, and hoodlums. Kṛṣṇa’s killing of demons like Kaṁsa was His pastime, or līlā – He enjoyed it. And Prabhupāda, as the servant of Kṛṣṇa, was fully absorbed in this fighting. He was vigilant, militant. When Mr. N. bluffed or frightened the devotees, causing them to back down, Prabhupāda held his ground. He took naturally to the fight; Kṛṣṇa and Kṛṣṇa’s mission were being challenged.

Never before had Prabhupāda been so threatened or met such active enemies. In New Delhi, when he had been selling his Back to Godhead magazines, he had often met with brusque words, and in America people had ignored him and occasionally heckled him. But no one had seriously attempted to stop his preaching. Here, however, was a demon working actively to cheat him, to destroy his preaching, to disperse his disciples, and to displace his deity. He was forced to fight, and his disciples, if they were to understand his mood, would also have to fight.

Prabhupāda was acting as the protector and the parent of the Deities and of ISKCON Bombay. As he had described in The Nectar of Devotion, many great devotees have an eternal relationship with Kṛṣṇa as His protector. When as a child Kṛṣṇa had fought the serpent Kāliya, Kṛṣṇa’s mother and father had been plunged into transcendental anxiety. They had seen their child entangled in the coils of the serpent and, fearing for Kṛṣṇa’s life, had wanted to protect Him. The eternal mother and father of Kṛṣṇa always worry that Kṛṣṇa may meet with harm, and when danger appears to come, their natural anxiety increases many times. In this way they show the most intense love for Kṛṣṇa. Śrīla Prabhupāda’s mood was to protect Rādhā-Rāsavihārī and also his Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement. Although he knew that Kṛṣṇa was the supreme protector and that nobody could oppose His will, out of a protective desire to spread Kṛṣṇa’s glories he feared that the demon Mr. N. might harm Kṛṣṇa.

Prabhupāda’s feelings of anxiety and protectiveness extended to his disciples also. Although out of duty he often criticized and corrected them privately, before others he usually defended and praised them. When Dr. Patel, a Bombay physician, had criticized the way the devotees were living, not protecting themselves from mosquitoes, Prabhupāda had said that because his devotees were liberated and did not identify with their bodies, such things did not trouble them.

Prabhupāda saw his disciples as children, with little worldly experience; they did not know how to deal with rogues and could be easily tricked. But if the son was gullible, the father would have to be shrewd and strong to protect his family. As protector of the devotees and of Kṛṣṇa’s mission, Prabhupāda wanted to establish good housing so that his disciples could serve Kṛṣṇa in comfort – even elegance. Prabhupāda’s spiritual master, Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī, had taught the same thing when he said that preachers of Kṛṣṇa consciousness should have the best of everything, because they were doing the best service to Kṛṣṇa. Prabhupāda was therefore determined to establish his Hare Kṛṣṇa city in Bombay. He did not take the attitude of a naked mendicant, who cares for nothing of this material world. He felt responsible for his thousands of disciples, and therefore he took on so many anxieties.

Mr. N. could not know what motives were driving Śrīla Prabhupāda. Nor could he imagine the full ramifications of opposing Kṛṣṇa and Kṛṣṇa’s pure devotee, even though the danger of such a position had been explained in India’s most famous classics, Bhagavad-gītā, Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, and Rāmāyaṇa. Prabhupāda was fighting on the side of Kṛṣṇa; therefore, Mr. N. was opposing the Supreme Personality of Godhead.

By Prabhupāda’s disciples’ cancellation of the agreement, ISKCON’s legal position had been weakened. But Prabhupāda had faith that if the devotees just maintained possession of the land, their position would remain strong. At the same time, he urged the devotees to preach more. They should not think that without a temple they could not preach, so he arranged for another big Bombay paṇḍāl festival downtown, which proved to be a great success, with twenty thousand attending nightly.

Important guests like Mr. R.K. Ganatra, the mayor of Bombay, made introductory speeches, and the devotees also took an active part, organizing, advertising, cooking and distributing prasādam, distributing Śrīla Prabhupāda’s books, and preaching at a question-and-answer booth. The paṇḍāl festival served to lift the devotees out of the doldrums of their protracted legal fight and the austerity of their living at Juhu.

During the last week of January 1973, Prabhupāda met with Mr. N. at the residence of Mr. Mahadevia. Although Prabhupāda’s lawyers had filed a criminal case against Mr. N., Prabhupāda wanted to attempt an out-of-court settlement. He had always been gracious and charming with Mr. N., and Mr. N. had always appeared responsive and polite. But this time was different. Gone were the smiles and friendly words. The two were remaining barely civil to each other. After a few minutes, Prabhupāda asked his disciples to leave the room.

Speaking in Hindi, Mr. N. began accusing Prabhupāda and the devotees of being connected with the CIA. “I will come on Monday,” said Mr. N. tersely, “with a check for two lakhs to pay back your down payment.”

“All right,” Prabhupāda replied. “If you don’t want to part with your land, then we will leave. But think before you do this.”

Mr. N. continued his accusations. “You people are calling yourselves the owners of the land, but you are just a big disturbance to the whole area, getting up at four and all this…”

“We do not claim to be the owner,” Prabhupāda replied. “Kṛṣṇa is the real owner. I am not the real owner. Kṛṣṇa is already there on His land. Why are you bothering us so much? Simply take the money and give us the land. Or, if you want us to vacate, then prepare the check.” Prabhupāda had been speaking with restraint, but now his tone became angry. “Bring out your check, and we will vacate tomorrow morning. No, we will vacate tonight! Give us our money back. Have you the money?”

Mr. N. shouted, “I will remove the Deities myself! I will break the temple and remove the Deities!” Mr. N. then stormed out of the room.

That week Mr. N. was hospitalized after a severe heart attack. Two weeks later he died. When Prabhupāda heard of Mr. N.’s death, he was at first silent. Then he quoted a verse Prahlāda Mahārāja had spoken following the death of his demoniac father, Hiraṇyakaśipu: modeta sādhur api vṛścika-sarpa-hatyā. “Even a saint is pleased when a snake or scorpion is killed.”

Mrs. N., although not as legally astute as her late husband, carried on the fight, and her lawyers, eager to collect their fees, pursued even more intently than she the litigation to drive out ISKCON. In April 1973, at ISKCON’s instigation, ISKCON’s case came before the High Court. There were tactical delays, however, and month after month passed with no decision.

Prabhupāda did not commit himself to construction on the land, because he had no deed and no assurance of one. He toured the West, returned to India, but still nothing had happened to resolve the matter. Life in ISKCON Bombay was peaceful, but progress remained stunted, the outcome uncertain.

Then one day, without warning, Mrs. N. launched a violent attack. On the morning of June 1, while the devotees were attending their routine duties, a truck drove onto the Juhu property. A demolition squad had come to dismantle the temple. Somehow Mrs. N. had convinced an official in the city government to authorize demolition of the temple, a modest structure of brick and steel-reinforced concrete. When Girirāja attempted to show the officer in charge a letter establishing ISKCON’s rights, the man ignored the letter and signaled for the demolition to begin. Soon more trucks arrived, until nearly one hundred demolitionists, working with blowtorches and sledgehammers, swarmed over the property.

The demolitionists mounted ladders and began breaking the roof of the temple hall with sledgehammers. Others used torches to cut through the steel supports. The plan of the demolition squad was to knock out the steel supports of the kīrtana hall and proceed methodically toward the Deity house, wherein Rādhā-Rāsavihārī stood. The devotees tried to stop the demolition, but policemen soon appeared on the scene and, working in pairs, would grab the dissenters by the legs and arms and carry them away. Police dragged the women away by the hair, while tenants on the land looked on. Some were glad to see the demolition, although others were sympathetic. Out of fear of the police, however, no one moved to help the devotees.

One devotee, Maniṣvi, ran to a telephone and called Mr. Mahadevia, who, along with his friend Mr. Vinoda Gupta, rushed to Hare Krishna Land, to find the police dragging off the last protesting devotee by the hair. She had been trying to close the doors to the altar to protect the Deities when three policemen had wrestled her away. Mr. Mahadevia rushed to the house of a sympathetic tenant, Mr. Acarya, and phoned his brother Chandra Mahadevia, a wealthy businessman and friend of Bal Thakura, the leader of one of the most influential political parties in Bombay.

Mr. Chandra Mahadevia informed Bal Thakura of the emergency: at the instigation of a Hindu and under the order of a Hindu municipal officer, a Hindu temple of Lord Viṣṇu was being demolished. Mr. Thakura in turn informed the municipal commissioner, who denied knowing of any order to demolish the temple and who in turn phoned the local ward office that had sent out the demolition squad. The ward office sent a man to stop the demolition. The officer arrived around two P.M., just as the demolition squad had cut through the last pillars and were dismantling the roof above the Deities. The order to stop the demolition was given to the ward officer in charge, who then stopped the demolition squad.

Prabhupāda was in Calcutta at the time of the attack, and when the devotees reached him by phone, he told them to organize the local ISKCON sympathizers and life members and protest the attack by mass publicity. They should also expose the persons responsible. This would be very effective against Mrs. N. and her party.

Prabhupāda mentioned various life members he thought would help. Mr. Sada Jiwatlal, the head of the Hindu Viswa Parishad, should help with publicity, since his organization was a defender of Hindu dharma and was meant for handling such cases as this. Mr. Sethi should help in preventing further violence. This episode, Prabhupāda said, had been part of Kṛṣṇa’s plan; the devotees should not be afraid.

The next morning a photo of the demolished temple appeared on the front page of the Free Press Journal with the headline, “UNAUTHORIZED TEMPLE DEMOLISHED BY MUNICIPAL AUTHORITIES.”

Devotees began counteracting the bad publicity. Mr. Sada Jiwatlal turned his downtown office into an ISKCON office, and he and the devotees began the campaign. Despite the unfavorable propaganda, many Indians were shocked at the violence, and the municipal corporation unanimously condemned those officials responsible for the attack on a Hindu temple. Devotees, working from six A.M. to nine P.M. at Sada Jiwatlal’s office, phoned the newspapers, wrote letters and circulars, and contacted possible sympathizers.

Mr. Vinoda Gupta, a member of the Jan-Sangh political party, which favored maintaining India’s Hindu culture, joined with Kartikeya Mahadevia and others to form a “Save the Temple” committee. Mr. Gupta published his own leaflet declaring ISKCON to be a bona fide Hindu organization. As Girirāja met with and elicited the support of government officials, many of Bombay’s leading citizens, appreciating the authenticity of the Hare Kṛṣṇa movement, began to show sympathy and offer assistance.

Thus the plan of Mrs. N. and her lawyers backfired. Although they had been thinking they were dealing with only a mere handful of young foreigners, they soon found themselves facing many of Bombay’s most influential citizens.

Śrīla Prabhupāda predicted that the results would be positive. A few days after the incident he wrote,

The demolition of our temple by the municipality has strengthened our position. The municipality standing committee has condemned the hasty action of the municipality, and has agreed to reconstruct the shed at their cost. Not only that, the temporary construction shall continue to stay until the court decision is there as to who is the proprietor of the land. Under the circumstances we should immediately reconstruct the Deity shed. Barbed wire fencing should be immediately done to cover the naked land. And if possible, immediately in front of the Deity shed, a temporary pandal should be constructed, with our materials. If it is so done, then I can go to Bombay and begin Bhagawat Parayana, to continue until the court decision is there. This is my desire.

Prabhupāda also asked Girirāja to give full coverage of the temple demolition in his Hare Krishna Monthly journal to life members. Prabhupāda himself wrote an article for the Monthly describing his movement and the events leading to the attack on the temple. He condemned the Bombay municipality for having the “audacity to smash our temple, against the law and principle of religious faith.” A clique in Bombay, he said, had conspired to drive the devotees from their land without returning their money, and he asked for sympathizers and life members of the Kṛṣṇa consciousness movement to come forward and help him at this difficult hour.

Only about a dozen ISKCON life members responded to Śrīla Prabhupāda’s call. There were hundreds of life members in Bombay, each of whom had donated 1,111 rupees and were receiving Prabhupāda’s books. But when it came to a personal commitment in a time of controversy, only a few were willing to help. Those who did help, however, were able to assist in ways that the innocent, naive, and uninfluential disciples of Prabhupāda could not.

The devotees began to see the entire course of events as Kṛṣṇa’s mercy, since many life members were now rendering valuable service to Prabhupāda and Lord Kṛṣṇa. In the past Prabhupāda had stayed in the homes of many life members, preaching to them and their families, convincing them of his sincerity and of the noble aims of his movement. These friends and members – like Bhagubai Patel, Beharilal Khandelwala, Brijratan Mohatta, Dr. C. Bali, and others – were acting not simply out of Hindu sentiment but out of deep respect and affection for Prabhupāda.

Girirāja, working with Sada Jiwatlal, tried to convince the municipal council to authorize the rebuilding of the temple structure. While doing so, however, he discovered that Mrs. N. had that very day (a Friday) filed for a court injunction preventing ISKCON from rebuilding. Justice Nain told Girirāja that he did not want to grant Mrs. N.’s request and that he would hear the devotee’s case on the following Monday. This meant that the devotees had from Saturday morning to Monday morning, two days, to rebuild the temple.

The devotees reasoned that, although they had no actual permission to rebuild the temple, there was as yet no law to stop them. If Justice Nain ruled against them, then to rebuild would be very difficult. They decided, therefore, to use the weekend to rebuild. Mr. Lal, a former contractor, helped arrange materials: bricks, mortar, asbestos sheets. Mr. Sethi offered a crew of laborers. At eight P.M. on Friday the masons began their work, continuing throughout the night despite the rain. And on Monday morning, when the judge learned of the new temple, he declared, “What is built is built. No one can destroy the temple.”

When Prabhupāda heard the news, he considered it a complete victory. The temple had been rebuilt, and public opinion was swinging strongly in ISKCON’s favor.