Prahlada and the Krishna Kids

In the campaign for world peace, more and more children seem to be stepping into the spotlight. Youngsters have written letters to world leaders, and Sydney schoolboy Eamon Burke recently visited the Soviet Union at the invitation of President Gorbachev. Now, a 12-year-old boy from Australia's Hare Krishna community has written a peace song, calling for the release of fellow sect members from Russian prisons, psychiatric hospitals and labour camps. Tracy Bowden reports on a musical play from the Krishnas to the Kremlin.

These children are growing up in the idyllic surroundings of the Hare Krishna farm at Moolambar in northern New South Wales. But they're learning that for followers of their faith elsewhere, there are harsher realities. What do you know about the Soviet Union? Can you think of anything you know about the Soviet Union, Pralad?

It's cold. It's cold. It all started in a history lesson, the subject, the Soviet Union. and its treatment of Hare Krishnas. All the devotees have been put in concentration camps and hospitals where they make them a bit crazy.

They're not being able to follow religion or their choice. Just for chanting Hare Krishna, they get persecuted. Then the children learnt of the death of a Krishna baby in a Russian jail. The baby's mother was in a concentration camp and the baby was only allowed to see her mother One hour every day, and she just died.

We thought that if we wrote to Gorbachev, and if we wrote a song for the world, that it might help in a little way. Prahlad was born into the Krishna religion 12 years ago. He wrote words to the song, and the musician did the rest. What would you say to Mr.

Gorbachev if you could ever talk to him? I would tell him how I don't think he would like it if he were persecuted. for us will I just believe So for the Krishna kids it was out of the temple into the recording studio and onto the peace bandwagon Will bring more attention to the human rights position in the USSR. Do you think it can do any good? The field can do something to help could stop.

Tracy Bowden reporting. That single will be released later this month through EMI and a follow-up single is planned called Surprise Surprise Mr Reagan. That's all we have for tonight. Back at the same time tomorrow night.

Tomorrow night the program is coming out of Perth. We'll see you then. Good night. Call themselves Prahlad and the Krishna Kids and they're the latest act to be signed in Australia by the big record company EMI.

It may be a little unfair to compare them with Australian crawl pseudo echo and other names signed in the past but emi says the song please let my friends go has definite commercial potential worldwide i looked at it as a commercial proposition secondly there was nothing nothing wrong about what these kids were trying to achieve um i'm not a krishna devotee this is not a hari krishna company um but there's a bunch of kids that believe that they're You know, some of their family, if you like, are being held in Russia. It's religious persecution. On top of that, it is a very attractive little song. The kids sing it extremely well.

And it has a broader appeal, I would think, outside the Krishna circle. The face paint and the sarongs are no marketing gimmick. These children belong to a new generation of Australians born into the Hare Krishna faith. They believe as their parents believe.

Prahlad's song, for which he wrote the words but not the music, is a plea to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev for the release of 25 Hare Krishnas imprisoned in the Soviet Union for their beliefs. Though the recording contract with EMI and royalties from worldwide record sales could amount to many thousands of dollars, the star-to-be seems to be in it for all the right reasons. Asking Mr Gorbachev to let our friends be free and freeing the Soviet Hare Krishnas from being persecuted simply for their religious beliefs. To help other people as well?

Yes. The song's for everyone. Hindus, Jews, Muslims, everyone. The ritzy pool area isn't normally made available to followers Prahlad's age.

Neither is this chandelier-filled room built for the Sikh spiritual leader in Australia. But then Prahlad is on the brink of contributing to all this, in spirit at the very least. It's called Hare Krishna World, 330 hectares of lush farmland near Moolambar in northern North Wales. The sect paid $80,000 for the property nine years ago.

Today it's claimed to be worth $3.8 million. Rising each morning at 3.30 to begin their day of rituals means these children see little of the outside. Hare Krishna World has its own school, complete with live-in teachers. OK, pack up now.

I'm going to do some reading. Pralaya, can you read from Ingenious Inventions? From page 29. Professor Craze was excited.

He was about to test the Splosh-o-matic. Many of the community's 100 or so parents have enough money to send their children to India, where Hare Krishna high schools have been established. EMI has grown big by backing winners and if their parents are anything to go by Pallad and the Krishna kids seem certain winners Impressed by his sincerity, by his purity you speak to Pallad, you speak to the children they have a great concern about their friends in Russia and also about the future of this planet I mean it's their future that we're talking about and it's not only them but it's also So, you know, it's all... In fact, Pilate is more or less calling on all children, not just Hare Krishna children, all children to write letters to either Mr Reagan or Mr Gorbachev to establish a far better world where people like Hare Krishnas can practise a religion of their choice.

The project's executive producer, Gary Anderson, may be new to the recording industry, but he's an old hand at turning ideas into money for the Krishnas. He started by managing the sect's lucrative incense dealership in Sydney. He's now negotiating for a second song written by Prahlad to be marketed by EMI in the United States. How much money do you hope to make out of this exercise?

We don't know exactly what money is to be made, but we do know that the money that is made will go to a... We have Food for Life program in Sydney and Melbourne, Hare Krishna Food for Life, and we will establish these. Already these Food for Life programs are very respected by people like Ted Knoffs and even governmental people within both the Liberal Party and the Labour Party are very respectful of our work in that field and we feel that the money will go there. Prahlad, in the meantime, has remained completely unfazed by it all.

Are you going to enjoy the success it might bring you? Yes. People saying you're a good singer? If the Soviet Hare Krishnas are freed, I think it will be a success.

And how about what your friends say about you, your ability to sing and make good music? You're not so worried about that? No, not at all.