We should enter politics

Amarendra: I was a political radical before I joined Prabhupada’s movement, but I more or less put that all aside when I became a devotee. But then when Srila Prabhupada was traveling, a letter from Shyamasundar detailing Prabhupada’s activities arrived and it also mentioned Prabhupada’s comment, “We should enter politics.” When I saw that, I immediately thought, “Oh, politics. I can do that?” I was astonished and couldn’t believe it. I immediately started working on a political preaching program. According to the election laws, to get on the ballot for elective position, all you had to do was get a certain number of signatures on a petition and turn it into the registrar. Once you were on the ballot they had to invite you to every engagement and give you equal time under the fairness doctrine. I wrote Prabhupada and told him about this and I got two letters in 1972 where Prabhupada gave me the approval to do that. He told me, “I like this very much.” Those letters are in the archives and they weren’t just for me. Prabhupada was saying that this is a very good opportunity to preach widely and distribute our books. Prabhupada saw that as an opportunity, not so much that we were going to get elected, but to preach and distribute books.

He did say in the first letter I received, “Our platform is very simple. People should come together and have kirtan and then afterwards there should be wide-scale distribution of Krishna prasadam. That is our platform. Who will not be attracted?” He said, “Yes, I want you to endeavor for these political posts. You should expose these Nixons and replace them.” That was a quote from this letter that was prior to the Watergate scandal. He said, “Politician means ‘pick-pocket’; tell the people whatever they want to hear to get elected and then pick their pocket because they know that in two to four years they could be out of office. Therefore, they grab all the money they can in the meantime.” Prabhupada said, “The people are innocent, but these rascal leaders have misled them. I am very encouraged that you boys and girls can expose these Nixons and replace them.” He encouraged us to realize that we also have a grave responsibility as to the condition of the world. Prabhupada was exhibiting his Vaishnava sentiment like that of Prahlad Maharaj and Advaita Acharya; the suffering of the conditioned souls makes the pure devotee suffer. He suffers seeing them suffer due to their identification to the body. The political leaders keep people in the bodily concept of life with the assistance of the material scientists who give them facility for sense enjoyment. In the Bhagavatam, Prabhupada spares no quarter. He attacks the politicians viciously over and over again, especially in the First Canto with Pariksit Maharaj and the Fourth Canto with Prithu Maharaj. Therefore, Prabhupada liked this idea of getting in the middle of that whole process and sabotage it, so to speak, to change their agenda. Once we got on the ballot and were able to debate, all the other candidates for whatever the office was would be saying, “Oh yeah, I believe in God! I go to church. I do this, I do that…” They were all trying to justify their spiritual qualifications. We were thus successful in changing the discussion from all of these ridiculous and stupid mundane issues to something that was really important because as Prabhupada says over and over again, the only solution is God-conscious leadership.