The true story of Hare Krishna: Sex, drugs, The Beatles and 50 years of scandal

They’ve been dancing and chanting in Oxford Street for half a century. But what are they singing about and where did they come from? Ed Prideaux goes in search of the truth

Hare Krishna targeted The Beatles, knowing the group would bring them global attention (Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images)

Fifty years ago this month, the Hare Krishna movement made London its permanent home. At the feet of their guru, the temple’s six founding members opened the doors of the group’s first-ever UK branch in a small property on Bury Place in Bloomsbury. In the half-century since, the Hare Krishna movement – otherwise known as ISKCON, or the International Society for Krishna Consciousness – has become one of the more curious and recognisable fixtures of British life.

You can usually hear them in the distance. Among the ambient noise of cars, chatter and traffic lights, their chants and beating drums stand out like a beam of saffron light. They dance, dart and circle, join arms, shout and sing, and call for strangers to join them. Bright-eyed devotees circle among the crowd, armed to the teeth with overspilling leaflets and mounds of books. Chanting, yoga, free food, meditation. Read this book: tell me what you think! The temple is always open!

They always seem happy. And they’re a fairly inoffensive lot. However, what they’re singing about is something most of us don’t understand; and most of us know even less about how they got here. The movement begins and ends with one man. Despite having died more than 40 years ago, Swami Prabhupada, translated as “the one at whose feet masters sit” – is still the group’s central acarya, or spiritual master.