Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India by Akshaya Mukul

Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India by Akshaya Mukul
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

After wading through Writer, Rebel, Soldier, Lover: The Many Lives of Agyeya by the author, I was looking forward to this book and can happily aver that I was not disappointed. It is an extensively researched scholarly work that is unbiased and non-judgemental, by and large. It is essentially centred around the towering and influential personality of one of the co-founders and editor – Hanuman Prasad Poddar (after whom a cancer hospital is named in Gorakhpur). It is an indispensable and monumental reference work (83 pages out of 539 comprise the Bibliography and Notes) for scholars on Hinduism (specifically sanatana dharma), adherents of Hindutva, and the present governing political dispensation in India – although the obscurantist philosophy of Gita Press may not appeal to people against casteism and patriarchy. The author has clarified

…the idea behind the book is not to sing paens of Gita Press but to place it within the larger canvas of Hindu nationalism in colonial and post-colonial India.

It would be interesting to determine any correlation between the slow rise over the eight decades of Gita Press and Kalyan (200,000 subscribers and 100,00 subscribers for the English edition – Kalyan Kalptaru) and the dissemination of its Hindutva teachings with the assertiveness and strident nationalism of Hindus and the consequent rise of the saffron power of the BJP from political wilderness to the ruling corridors of power.
While talking about the content of the Kalyan and other publications of Gita Press there are some outrageous examples. There is a bizarre comparison of communism with the egalitarianism preached in Bhagvadgita.

Gita Press realized the need to provide an alternative to the new ideology, something that would not threaten the tenets of sanatan Hindu dharma yet celebrate the concept of equality. The alternative was discovered in the Bhagvadgita – an Indian version of communism, divinely ordained.

An almost Talibanesque attitude towards women prevailed

In all Gita Press publications on women, the language used is reformative in tone and prescriptive in nature. Poddar and others made it clear that a woman’s non-adherence to the set rules could affect the broader Hindu society. The onus was on the woman to be the flag bearer of morality, purity and chastity. Only then could an ideal family – and by extension an ideal nation – be formed.

And

In 1936 Poddar regretted the new wave of modernity that aimed to put men and women on an equal educational footing, so much so that even were becoming ‘teachers, clerks, lawyers, barristers, writers, politicians, and members of municipalities and councils. Such ideas of progress, Poddar said, were turning women anti-God and anti-religion.

Moreover,

It is a different matter that the burden of these rituals with shastric sanction fell more on women who usually had very little or no say in matters concerning their space. The ideal world of a Hindu nari followed the narrow path of daughter, wife and mother. It was a task Gita Press took extremely seriously, as expressed not only through the pages of Kalyan but also in scores of pamphlets on women.

Goyandka, the other co-founder of Gita Press, was even more regressive

To educate and build the character, strength and mental purity of girls and women, Goyandka laid stress on hard physical labour. Even harsh words and rebukes by elders were to be considered by a woman as a form of education.

Something out of Calvin and Hobbes!
The author observes

Drawing from Hitler’s Germany was not an innocuous act, but Gita Press’s affirmation of its regard for the fascist ruler. In fact, when it comes to the ‘women’s question’, there is a great deal of similarity between Nazi Germany, Gita Press and other Hindu nationalist organizations like the RSS, Hindu Mahasabha and others; in particular, the ‘hysterical protective anxiety about numbers’ vis-à-vis the Muslims shown by Gita Press and the entire Hindu right owes a lot to Hitler.

Besides his hectic schedule at Gita Press, Poddar had the time, energy, determination for other related activities – he was the probable initiator of the Ram Janambhoomi and Krishna Janambhoomi revival; he led a spirited and tireless campaign against cow slaughter (the fruition of those efforts is evident now). His messianic campaign to protect cows was one of the factors leading to the going of separate ways from Gandhi. He was one of the founder members of the radical VHP.
The author concludes ominously

Its numerous moral tracts continue to attract readers in schools and homes, and its journals and books carry its ideology across India and overseas, propagating the dream of a time when Hindu and India will become synonymous

A great book! An unusual look at Indian history through the fortunes of an Indian Publishing House.

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