What good is literacy, when they are poor and starving
Satsvarupa Dasa Goswami: This morning in the car, a long line of Indian soldiers approached us at a run as part of some maneuver. Srila Prabhupada spoke about the nation's army and said that it was Krishna's arrangement that they should build up and fight. Vinasaya ca duskrtam. After the fight, there will be benefit for Krishna consciousness. I asked how it will benefit us. He said that these people who are against us, so many demons, will be killed, and it will show the people that the material plans have failed.
He said that they will take it as natural law, like Malthus' law that the nations have to fight periodically because of overpopulation. But they don't know that Krishna is behind the natural law. A young, local scholar joined us on the walk. He asked Srila Prabhupada about some books which had different versions of the Ramayana. "What different version? " asked Srila Prabhupada. "Valmiki's is the original." He seemed displeased with the man. Prabhupada stated that his Guru Maharaja said it is no good reading many books and carrying them around like an ass. Better to read and know thoroughly a few books. The poor scholar could not raise any decent inquiry about his own spiritual life. He only asked a few more questions about editions and texts and Sanskrit, and Srila Prabhupada appeared gruff in response.
I thought, Srila Prabhupada is simply waiting for you to surrender. Why don't you ask about the meaning of life? Why don't you admit that you are lost and need a spiritual master? Just while I was writing this down after the walk, the scholar came up to me to see what I was typing. He talked some more and now I understand that he doesn't even want to translate Prabhupada's books unless he gets paid. When he saw that it was only devotion, he got insulted and left.
Today, Sanjaya Gandhi is coming to town. They have a big banner on the road, something like Each to Teach, proclaiming that everyone should become literate. Srila Prabhupada, looking out the car window at this poor, barren land and said, "What good is literacy if they are poor and starving? " He said that they come to our evening program to get a little kichari, not because it's prasadam, but because they are hungry. They will take many years of education, get a little money for their employment, and what is the benefit? Life is not meant for such education. Look, there is so much expanded land. Why don't they work it? They are hungry and poor. Later, there was a report from Hyderabad about starting a school there and many children coming to learn English.
Prabhupada said, "Don't give this much priority." He said, In India, you can start a big English class, but they will just come, get enough education to become a clerk, and then leave the devotees and leave the farm to get some miserable job in town. He said that it is not that everyone has to learn in an educated way even to read. When he heard the gurukula boys (when they walk and chant at Mayapur) he said, Even if they never become literate, just that they can do this much (they were chanting Gita verses in Bengali), they will become perfect.
Suddenly, young men exercising came running toward us. The people are hungry and poor while others are taking residence in a big house and running. They are running because they have overeaten while others are starving. Educate them and then, as the years go by, they will join the Naxalite movement and kill all the rich men. People have to be properly engaged by working the land. In our ISKCON also, unless people are properly engaged. Otherwise, they will be idle brains, fish-fish, sex, and women. (Fish-fish is Prabhupada's sound for gossip.)