Gita Press’s agenda may not have been communal – but it undoubtedly helped shape sectarian mindsets

Translated from Hindi by Tarun Bhartiya.

A few days ago, the Narendra Modi government announced the Gandhi Peace Prize for Gita Press, Gorakhpur. Gita Press was founded in 1923 as a publishing house, and the publication of the Hindi monthly magazine called Kalyan began in 1926. The objective of Gita Press was to publish Hindu scriptures in Hindi translations, and to promote and propagate the Sanatan Dharma (the Eternal Hindu Religion) through Kalyan.

It was probably just two to three years after the publication of Kalyan began that my great-grandfather Kanmalji Parakh started subscribing to the magazine. Even after his death in 1955, the magazine continued to arrive at my home and perhaps my eldest uncle still subscribes to it. The underlying sentiment behind subscribing to Kalyan has always been religious. Just like performing daily prayers, going to temples, observing fasts, it has been considered an obligatory religious duty in our family to subscribe to Kalyan magazine.

When I was two-and-a-half years old, my great-grandfather passed away, and I don’t know how much he used to read Kalyan and other religious books. However, his English signature and the date are written on every book of his. Apart from Kalyan magazine, he used to order other books from Gita Press as well, especially those written by Jaidayal Goendka and Hanuman Prasad Poddar.

My grandfather, Kanakmalji Parakh, on the other hand, had no interest in reading and writing. But when the magazine arrived by mail, he would bow and offer his respects to the photos of the gods printed on the cover. I think that was the entirety of his duty towards the magazine because I hardly remember seeing him reading Kalyan. Bending and paying respects to the images of gods and goddesses was considered sufficient. A column titled “Read, Understand, and Act” was published in Kalyan, which I am sure was definitely read. Readers of Kalyan would write about their life experiences through this column.

Kalyan used to publish a special issue once a year. Sometimes it focused on gods and goddesses, other times on ancient scriptures, and at times on women’s issues, children’s issues, religious issues, devotion, cow protection, Hindu culture, and so on. These special issues received grater attention than regular monthly issues. Gita Press has published all major Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, all 18 major Puranas, Valmiki’s Ramayana, Adhyatma Ramayana, Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas, and all the other works of Tulsidas, along with their Hindi translations. Its sales run in millions.

It is true that Kalyan never published advertisements or book reviews, but Gita Press’s income does not solely depend on the publication of magazines and books. It has always been supported by Marwari merchants and had financial security from patronage extended by politically powerful Hindus.

It is often said that Gita Press has made Hindu religious texts widely available at very affordable prices through quality translations and printing. However, the motive behind making them so widely available should be questioned. Gita Press was not just a publishing institution like Navalkishor Press and Chaukhambha Prakashan. Publishing magazines and religious books was one of their many objectives. The main objective was to promote the campaign of shaping society according to the principles of Sanatan Dharma, and they prioritised the publication of literature that was useful for this campaign.

Gita Press has not published any of the four Vedas. They have not published the works of any of the Nirgun Bhakti poets. They have not published Jain and Buddhist literature. Clearly, they focused on publishing those texts of Hindu Dharma that support their conservative interpretation and can be easily disseminated to every household, even if they are not read and understood but merely used for religious rituals. These publications were not meant to be read and analysed, but to be treated like sacred ritualistic objects to be memorised and chanted. It is true that they did not publish the Manusmriti, but most of their literature promotes the teachings mentioned in the Manusmriti.

In our house, my father used to recite a chapter from the Gita, Hanuman Chalisa and verses from the Vinay Patrika every morning after bathing. During Navaratri, he would recite Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas with all the rituals for nine days. On every full moon day, we would read the Satyanarayan Katha and observe a fast. What is written in these texts and their meaning was not at all important for either the readers or the listeners, because they believed that liberation from the cycle of birth and death would come only from the words and their sounds entering their ears.

Literature from Kalyan magazine and Gita Press has always been present in our home, but if anyone has read it the most after my great grandfather, it is me. In the beginning, I did it enthusiastically, with faith and reverence, but slowly both faith and reverence started to disappear. However, for those who either did not read or read very little, the faith and belief in these texts multiplied over the years.

The reason for my decrease in faith and reverence was my interest in reading. Although I was reading religious literature, at the same time, I started reading works of Premchand, Rabindranath Tagore, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay and others. When I read the Gita published by Gita Press, I also read the commentaries of Adi Shankaracharya, Ramanujacharya, and the commentaries of Mahatma Gandhi and Radhakrishnan around it. When I read Tulsidas, I also read Kabir, Raidas, Meera, and others.

After reading the Gita Press-published Marxvad Aur Ramrajya (Marxism and Ram’s Kingdom) by Swami Karpatra, I also read the review of it written by Rahul Sankrityayan. Swami Karpatra was a popular proselytiser of the Sanatan Dharma who advocated for Hindu society to abide by the ideals of Manusmriti, and for this, he had also formed a political party named the Ramrajya Parishad. He was a staunch opponent of the Congress and of Jawaharlal Nehru, and actively participated in the cow protection movement.

My growing interest in reading meant that I started reading various other popular Hindi magazines such as Dharmayug, Saptahik Hindustan, Dinman, Sarika and Madhuri. It reached the point where I started developing an interest in reading books on history, philosophy, sociology, and political science. This extensive habit of studying played an important role in saving me from sinking in the swamp of religious conservatism and loosened the grip of religious books on me.

At this very moment, a question started arising in my mind about why my elders used to subscribe to Kalyan magazine and literature from the Gita Press. It wasn’t just about religion; it was about the caste-based patriarchal structure of Hindu society more than anything else. Before knowing which religious books were published by the Gita Press, it is essential to understand the kind of society the Gita Press and its promoters aimed to create.

While millions of copies of Gita Press books are sold, their reach is limited to the Hindu upper-caste and backward-caste communities. I highly doubt that Dalits and Adivasis read Gita Press books. The direct answer to why my great-grandfather started subscribing to Kalyan is that he was very religious and conservative. He had an interest only in religious books. We did not get newspapers at home, nor did we read any other form of literature.

Traditionally, our family had a connection with Jainism, but my great-grandfather or his father started following the Vaishnava religion. Whatever beliefs upper-caste Hindus had, my great-grandfather and the whole family believed in them too. He worshipped idols, believed in caste practices, considered the cow a mother figure and adhered strictly to untouchability. They would not eat food touched by Muslims, Dalits or lower-caste Hindus, and had to take a bath if their shadow fell on them.

The women in our house wore veils and remained behind curtains. For the women, speaking to my grandfather or father was not possible without a veil. My grandmother, aunt, and mother were illiterate. As for the widows, forget about them.

Theirs was the ideal and inviolable orthodox Hindu social order. It is this Hindu worldview that the Gita Press has been propagating for the past hundred years.

For the past hundred years, the Gita Press has been advocating the varna (caste) system in the name of Sanatana Dharma. They believe in untouchability, oppose the entry of Dalits into temples, oppose women’s freedom, and are against sending girls to schools and colleges. They are against widow remarriage and take pride in the practice of sati. These ideologies have been propagated through small books in various languages for the past hundred years. These books have been published in the millions.

Most of the content in these books goes against the provisions of the Constitution and should have been long banned. However, ironically, since Jawaharlal Nehru’s time, the Gita Press has been granted permission to open bookstalls at railway stations, and they have been given leeway to spread anti-constitutional ideas in the name of religion publicly.

A senior Hindi author recently said that “there is no connection between Gita Press and the RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh]. Gita Press has never supported the idea of creating a Hindu nation.” He ought to be told that that Gita Press may not have overtly supported the Hindu right, but it has incessantly worked towards creating a Hindu community that initially supported the Jan Sangh and later the Bharatiya Janata Party.

In my teens, I asked my father why he voted for the Jan Sangh. He replied that it was the party of Hindus. I asked if the Congress was the party of Muslims. He replied that it was not specifically a party of Muslims, but Muslims and Dalits (at that time, the term Dalit was not in circulation, so you can guess what the word was) vote for the Congress, so Hindus should vote for the Jan Sangh. I then asked, but Dalits are also Hindus, and he said, yes, but they are not equal to the upper castes.

Then I told him that Brahmins in Jodhpur voted for the Congress, so he said that Brahmins are being corrupted in the Congress’s circle. They dine with Muslims and even accept Dalit votes. Around the same time, my uncle’s Brahmin friend had tea with his Muslim friend in a restaurant, and my grandfather strongly advised my uncle to stop socialising with his Brahmin friend.

Hanuman Prasad Poddar, Jaydayal Goyandka, and other Marwaris who established Gita Press had a similar mindset to that of my elders. Their family structure was similar and their thinking was also the same. The establishment of Gita Press aimed to bring Hindu religious scriptures to the masses, but its fundamental objective was to oppose the progressive movements that supported women’s education, widow remarriage, and opposed child marriage, caste system, and caste discrimination. Gita Press was established to protect Hindu society from the clutches of these reform movements.

The Ramcharitmanas and Bhagavad Gita were promoted the most because both scriptures support the caste system. Through their books they propagated what kind of Hindu families and women should be. If someone still supports Gita Press even after reading those books, there is no need to say where they stand socially and politically. Undoubtedly, communalism was not on the agenda of Gita Press, but the kind of Hindu mindset they were shaping and continue to shape cannot escape being sectarian.

It is not a coincidence that Hanuman Prasad Poddar was a member of the Hindu Mahasabha and was arrested after the assassination of Gandhi. He never hid his proximity to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. The Sangh was banned after Gandhi’s assassination. But when the ban was lifted and Golwalkar was released from jail, Hanuman Prasad Poddar was the chief guest at the welcoming event.

When the Constituent Assembly was drafting the Constitution, Gita Press and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh opposed all progressive provisions that were being included in the document. They were also among those who opposed the Hindu Code Bill and demanded Ambedkar’s resignation – because their faith was in the Manusmriti, not in the Constitution. They were also active during the cow protection movement.

Hanuman Prasad Poddar became close to Mahatma Gandhi because Gandhi also referred to himself as a Sanatani. In the early years, Gandhi unreservedly believed in the caste system. Poddar thought that Gandhi’s popularity could be advantageous. However, Gandhi’s involvement in the Independence movement and his deepening connection with the poor led to the rift between them. Gandhi started to despise the literature of the Gita Press. Around the same time, my great-grandfather wrote, “Nehru Nadhi Athah, Gandhi Jal Se Gandi Bhayi” (Nehru—a limitless river that got tainted with Gandhi water).

The Gita Press and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh had no direct involvement in the Independence movement, but Gandhi did. Gandhi felt that the participation of people from all castes, religions, and women in the fight for Independence was crucial. It was due to this thinking that the distance between Mahatma Gandhi and the Gita Press increased. Poddar did not like Gandhi’s campaign for the upliftment of Dalits and women’s participation in the Independence movement. For the Gita Press, a woman’s life meant always staying under the protection of men, considering the husband as god, worshipping him and bearing him sons.

It is not just a coincidence that the religious literature of Gita Press has played an active role in making Hindu society, especially Hindi-speaking Hindu society, deeply conservative and reactionary, both religiously and socially. Such reactionary Hindus are easily prepared to fall into the trap of communal fascism. Although we may not recognise the contribution of the Gita Press, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Bharatiya Janata Party surely do, and it is for this invaluable contribution that the Gandhi Peace Prize is being awarded to the Gita Press. The Gandhi Peace Prize has been given to the Gita Press with the intention of covering up its treasonous role and connecting it to Gandhi once again to portray Gandhi as a Sanatani Hindu.

Not only I, but also my family gradually started to break free from the traditions and beliefs of the ideal Hindu society that the literature of the Gita Press was imparting. Even my father’s thinking had changed considerably by the 1990s. However, it seems that the world around us hasn’t changed as much, and so it is not surprising that on social media, prominent leftist/progressive historians, poets and writers of the Hindi world are rallying in defence of the Gita Press.

Jawari Mal Parakh, a critic of Hindi literature and culture, has written extensively on cinema and media, He retired as a Professor of Hindi from Indira Gandhi National Open University.

He posted this long note on Facebook in response to the defence of Gita Press mounted by many leftist Hindi writers and critics when the government announced on June 18 that the publishing house had won the prestigious Gandhi Peace Prize. These defenders of Gita Press pointed to the role the publisher played in creating a Hindi reading public sphere and also how the founders of the press were close to Gandhi.