Kurma, I was browsing through the newspaper archives in Melbourne and I found this photo of you getting dragged away by the police! Would you like to publish it on your website? Could you give us a bit of background to the event.

(Name withheld, Chadstone Victoria, Australia)

Thanks so much! I haven't seen this picture for ages. They were exciting times. The story is that back in the seventies, the Hare Krishna's did a lot of street chanting, and we also used to sell our Back to Godhead magazines with great enthusiasm. As enthusiastic as we were to chant and distribute literature, the Melbourne City Council were equally enthusiastic to enforce their city by-laws, specifically ones based around unlawful assembly, public nuisance, and street distribution of literature without a licence.

This photo was taken in the autumn of 1979. The Krishna devotees had accrued well over $60,000 of unpaid fines, and the MCC with the assistance of the Police were hunting us down and arresting us on sight. One fateful Friday afternoon, a group of us were chanting outsider Myer when I was spotted and identified by the MCC posse and dragged away, literally, halfway down the gutters of Bourke Street by two policemen.

By the time the 'Age' newspaper photographer arrived (after being quickly summonsed from his office around the corner in Spencer Street by some thoughtful onlookers), the police had managed to find a couple more reinforcements to lift me from the gutter and carry me bodily
to the 'Paddy Wagon'. I spent 6 days in Pentridge prison, where I fasted the whole time.

My fasting raised so much media coverage that the Prison authorities backed down, released me, and not long after, all charges were dropped, and hopes to retrieve the fines abandoned forever. Ah! heady days indeed.

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