Given that the ISKCON’s practices and ideals realistically still remain far from mainstream Western culture, it is not surprising that indigenous people still hold stereotypical perceptions of the words ‘Hare Krishna’. Despite all the public relations work, strong links with the Indian community and institutional changes that have taken place in ISKCON since the early days, in this piece I try to argue that much work is still to be done if we are seeking a clear and unified image of what we are as a movement in the eyes of most people in this country. In 2004 I decided to organise a number of short interviews to be carried out in a variety of towns and cities across England. People were approached and asked one simple question:
What do you know about the Hare Krishna movement?
It was the immediate responses that were recorded, even if some interviewees had more to say afterwards, as the initial impressions of people were the main focus of my investigations. To my knowledge, to date there have been no recorded surveys of this nature in Britain. Unfortunately, then, I have been unable to make any comparisons showing any possible shift in public opinion. However, we do know ISKCON first reached public attention in Britain in the late 1960s, and its members were very much known for their ‘shaven heads and robes’ and for ‘dancing in the streets’. I would suggest that any movement away from this image would, to some degree, represents a shift in public perception.
In each of seven separate locations across England, forty people were surveyed by myself or by some of my contacts who, like me, were not dressed as devotees during the survey. The locations included Tring, Camden, Wembley, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds and Launceston. I realise that a larger figure of interviewees would have been more appropriate if the aim was to gain a more representative cross-section of the English public, but there were practical limitations. However, I feel the results are sufficient to suggest certain interesting patterns. Naturally people responded in their own unique ways, but all the responses elicited generally fell into one of the following categories:
Shaven heads, robes and dancing with cymbals
Free food, restaurants
Hindu link
Book distribution
George Harrison/ Beatles
Buddhist connection
Gauranga (this will be explained in the analysis of the results)
Glastonbury
Boy George
Peace
Hippies
A Cult
Don’t know
The Interview Results: Tring
Tring is a very small but fairly wealthy town in west Hertfordshire and it has a high percentage of commuters to London.
How survey conducted:
The interviewers asked their friends and contacts, who were predominantly indigenous middle class professionals, indigenous and nearly all over thirty-five years of age.
When survey conducted:
Feb/ March 2004
Results:
The centre of Camden, a town within north London, is famous for its artistic image and its youth from the underground music scene of the modern counter-culture, along with an acute problem of drug abuse.
How survey conducted:
The interviewers informally approached their friends and contacts who were all aged between twenty and forty.
When survey conducted:
April 2004
Results:
Wembley, in northwest Greater London, has a large Asian population. The Ealing Road in particular is known for its Indian shops and devotees regularly frequent the area, either visiting shops or houses. Every year ISKCON leads the Diwali Parade down the Ealing Road, which is a major community event attended by tens of thousands.
How survey conducted:
For three consecutive Saturdays people were briefly stopped at various places along the Ealing Road.
When survey conducted:
January/ February 2004
Results:
Manchester
Manchester is a large post-industrial city with a very high student population. Like other big urban centres such as Birmingham, the city is undergoing much investment.
How survey conducted:
The interviewers stopped people at random along Market Street on a Saturday, one of the busiest areas in central Manchester.
When survey conducted:
May 2004
Results:
Birmingham, a large post-industrial city, not only has within it a small ISKCON temple, but the disciples of Narayan Maharaj [4] have one also, and both groups perform singing and chanting in the city centre.
How survey conducted:
The interviewer approached people on New Street, a busy pedestrian thoroughfare in the centre of the city.
When survey conducted:
June 2004
Results:
Today Leeds is vibrant in areas of finance, business services, the arts and in the retail trade. The city has become home to over seventy five different nationalities, but the Muslim population is the largest ethnic minority group.
How survey conducted:
People were stopped in various places in and around central Leeds.
When survey conducted:
June 2004
Results:
Launceston is a small semi-rural town in Cornwall. Many farmers or people with farming connections live in the area. Many old people are known to retire to Cornwall, including this area. But, during the summer, there are also many tourists.
How survey conducted:
The interviewer informally asked friends and contacts, who were mostly aged between fifty and eighty. Only two interviewees were under thirty-five years of age.
When survey conducted:
May/ June 2004
Results:
Many of the people interviewed in Tring were professionals who work in the Greater London area, and perhaps that would account for the fact that half identified with the street chanting image: they may have been slightly more exposed to such activity than those who work elsewhere. This result, which is a stereotypical image of the movement, suggests that knowledge of ISKCON’s wide variety of cultural activities has yet to penetrate the world of the middle-class indigenous people of much of southern England.
The younger interviewees of Camden, I would suggest, reveal a different understanding as compared with people of Tring. The counter-culture has a higher profile there and people are more informed about ISKCON. Camden has been a prime spot for hiring halls for festivals, for chanting in the street and for book distribution. The Hare Krishna Food for All van, which distributes free food to the less fortunate, has been operating in the area since the mid-1980s.
In Manchester city centre one is just as likely to meet a student as a long-term local resident. Therefore, the city centre has many people new to the area who will soon move on after their studies. It is noteworthy that a fairly high percentage (25%) did not know anything at all about ISKCON, despite its presence in the city for nearly thirty years. However, in Birmingham, the high figure of twenty out of forty in connection with the chanting on the street is almost certainly because of the activities of both ISKCON and the followers of Narayan Maharaj. Nine out of forty in Birmingham connected Hare Krishna with Hinduism, whilst in Manchester Hinduism was not mentioned at all. One obvious way one might account for this is in terms of the higher Asian population in Birmingham.
There was at least one interviewee in most towns who considered the Hare Krishna movement to be a form of, or to be connected with, Buddhism. I would assume this is to do with the external similarities of Buddhist and Hare Krishna monks: men in both traditions have shaven heads and wear similar robes - - at least from the perspective of the untrained eye. Moreover, Buddhism tends to be generally more well-known in the West, which may also account for people mistaking the Hare Krishna devotees for Buddhists.
Interestingly, in Leeds the unusual category of Gouranga appears prominently. This is a Bengali word meaning “the golden limbed one”, another name for Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu. Scottish devotees are known for their habit of entering English towns in the north of England to distribute books and encouraging people they meet to say “Gouranga” as a means of spiritual purification.
In Launceston by far the largest response given to the interview question was “don’t know”. I suggest the reasons for this include the lack of ISKCON activity in the area, that many people interviewed were senior citizens and that Launceston is generally not a multi-cultural town.
If one compares the results of Launceston with Wembley’s Ealing Road, one notes how differently the Hare Krishna movement is perceived across parts of England today. The result gained in Wembley perhaps speaks for itself, given that Bhaktivedanta Manor in particular is recognised for its major Hindu festivals. Yet, if ISKCON as a preaching movement wishes to be known and understood by as many people as possible, then it could be argued there is an imbalance that needs to be addressed. Those indigenous folk who are most familiar with ISKCON are undoubtedly the younger generations, and the further one is from multi-cultural areas like London the less familiar people appear to be. If ISKCON then is to continue to expand, one major consideration for its leaders is to establish exactly how the Society wants to be perceived by the general public, whether they be indigenous folk or people of Indian descent.