Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India (15 page)

Run by Gita Press, Swargashram is still among the largest ashrams in Rishikesh, with close to a hundred rooms for visitors and year-round religious congregations. And Gobind Bhawan, the parent organization that originally operated from rented accommodation in Calcutta’s Banstalla Street, got land of its own on Mahatma Gandhi Road (erstwhile Harrison Road) in 1949.

When Goyandka was busy brainstorming for his
Gita Tattva Vivechani
, his brother-turned-adopted-son Mohanlal lost his youngest son, a loss that shook Goyandka. No longer in fine health himself, though he remained engaged with various religious and philanthropic activities, Goyandka could not stay aloof from family affairs. His wife passed away in 1960 in Bankura, and then came news of Mohanlal’s arrest in 1964 in Calcutta. It could not have happened at a worse time. Poddar’s letter to Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri requesting his release indicates that Mohanlal had been arrested under the Defence of India Act. Poddar told Shastri that Mohanlal was an old acolyte of Gandhi’s who had rendered selfless service to the people of Bankura and worked all his life to popularize khadi. Poddar blamed the West Bengal government for not taking account of this. ‘Please exercise your influence and get an innocent man free,’ Poddar pleaded with Shastri, adding that Mohanlal was being deprived of caring for his father who had no one else to look after him.
¹⁸¹

With Mohanlal still in jail, Goyandka requested Poddar and others to shift him to Rishikesh, which they did. At the end of March 1965, Poddar came from Gorakhpur to Rishikesh and even Mohanlal got parole to visit his father. Bedridden by now, Goyandka had refused ‘English’ (allopathic) medicine of any kind. Over the next few days, more and more of his followers gathered in Rishikesh. Goyandka would still dictate letters and ask Poddar to recite his favourite religious verses while he waited for the inevitable end. On 17 April, Goyandka was laid outdoors for followers to have a last darshan; by four in the evening, he was no more. His followers refused to believe he died in the conventional sense—for them Goyandka’s body and soul had merged with Brahman (the absolute reality which includes the divine). Thus, he became Brahmalin Jayadayal Goyandka.

The following month,
Kalyan
carried several tributes to its founder. Trustees of Gobind Bhawan appealed to Goyandka’s disciples not to mourn his death but follow his divine lessons and model their character on him. Poddar wrote that though the world had been deprived of Goyandka’s physical presence, sermons and exemplary character, he continued to live in the minds of everyone.
¹⁸²

Gita Press would now be the sole concern of Poddar, a responsibility he had already been shouldering despite repeated attempts to relinquish it. So overwhelming was the influence of Goyandka and Poddar on Gita Press that even today the two names continue to grace the pages of
Kalyan
, month after month.

The question of a name for the journal came up, and Poddar suggested
Kalyan
(which could mean beneficence, welfare or good fortune). The other two wholeheartedly agreed and it was decided that the first issue of
Kalyan
be out by Akshaya Tritiya, an auspicious day in the Hindu calendar. The magazine would be published by Goyandka’s Gita Press, already established in Gorakhpur but languishing; in the coming years,
Kalyan
would catapult Gita Press to new heights and unrivalled success.
¹

With most practical concerns taken care of, Poddar was left with the editorial responsibility of requisitioning articles for the journal from his wide network of contacts—spiritual men, politicians and writers he had met in his various avatars as a revolutionary, businessman and acolyte of Jaydayal Goyandka. The first issue of
Kalyan
came out in August 1926, published by Venkateshwar Press under the aegis of Goyandka’s Bombay-based Satsang Bhavan. Offered at an annual subscription of Rs 3 in India and Rs 4 overseas, the monthly magazine claimed to represent bhakti (devotion), gyan (knowledge), vairagya (asceticism) and dharma (religion).

The cover of the inaugural issue was plain but tastefully designed. The inside cover had a colour painting of young Lord Krishna with his flute at the centre of the page with stanzas from the Gita all around. The journal also spelt out its nine rules, the most prominent among them being publication on Krishna Ekadashi that falls in the first fortnight of each month, not accepting any commercial advertisement, and restricting the contents to devotion, divine power and tales of gods.

The thirty-four-page inaugural issue of
Kalyan
had two articles by Goyandka, one on ways to achieve kalyan and the second his replies to a series of questions from devotees. He wrote in Marwari that was translated into highly Sanskritized Hindi. Both Goyandka and Poddar would don the mantle of religious/social agony columnists throughout their life. The inaugural issue also carried an excerpt of M.K. Gandhi’s article from
Navjivan
on the meaning of the innate or natural, and a very short ‘filler’ piece by Rabindranath Tagore on the pitfalls of desire, both material and physical. Gandhi’s influence would be more prominent in subsequent issues that very first year.

The method and mission of
Kalyan
was explained through two separate comments by Poddar, who preferred to write under the generic title of editor. The first of these editorial comments—‘
Kalyan Ki
Avashyakta
’ (Need for Beneficence)—dwelt on the multiple connotations of kalyan: ‘It assumes different meanings for different people . . . For some having a woman, a male child, wealth, honour and prestige is kalyan and for others abandoning all these and leading a life of isolation is kalyan; for some usurping the wealth of others is kalyan but for many others abandoning wealth is kalyan.’ Further, ‘The person entrusted with the task of editing
Kalyan
acknowledges he does not have the qualification or the ability to carry out the task. He is yet to achieve the quality of beneficence but he believes in being good to people. Working for
Kalyan
will inspire him further to be good to people.’
²
Such self-deprecation was to become a hallmark of Poddar’s writing.

But the true goal of
Kalyan
was expressed in the editorial comment on the last pages. In his observations on the state of international affairs, Poddar lamented the direction in which Europe was headed, with constant news of death and devastation; nor was the United States spared as Poddar specifically mentioned the fire in the ammunition depot in Dover, New Jersey, that had killed many. ‘Everyone is unhappy and there is mutual distrust. In some places there are instances of rebellion, political assassination and oppression of the poor, and at other places an unsuccessful attempt to foist equality by robbing the rich. In a nutshell, people in Europe and the USA are facing a severe crisis: spiritual, divine and material.’
³
Shifting his gaze towards Asia, Poddar noted the violent civil war in China between the ruling Kuomintang or Chinese Nationalist Party and the Communist Party, the uncertainty in Iran where the Pehlavi dynasty had assumed power in 1926, and the political instability in Japan. Poddar’s first editorial was reflective of the man: sweeping historical narrative and grand designs to save Hindu society. Concerned by the rise of socialism and communism, Poddar declared that the idea of robbing the rich to feed the poor was a near-failure. He might have been an unsuccessful businessman, but throughout his long public life he always defended the free market and the running of industry and business minus state intervention.

Turning to India, Poddar wrote that the foremost problem facing the country, along with ever-existing ones like malnutrition and unemployment, was the fact that ‘two big communities are out to finish each other’. He referred in general to the destruction of temples and mosques, and killings in the name of religion. His views did not project any false objectivity, however, as the particular injustices he spelt out were always ascribed to Muslims. Poddar mentioned how attacks on the poor and defenceless (abala) and on pure unsuspecting women were misguidedly seen as furthering the cause of religion; in the same breath, without directly referring to the cow, he raised the issue of slaughter of beneficent (upkari) animals that had turned the land red. Poddar ascribed the decline in values to materialism and disbelief in the existence of the supreme lord. ‘We are aspiring to be happy by worshipping sins. If we do not remove ourselves from this path of decline, the consequences will be even more severe.’

Having set the tone, Poddar explained and interpreted the communal climate of early twentieth-century India marked by deep distrust and violence between the two communities. Under the subheading ‘Hindu– Muslim Problem’ he wrote: ‘It (violence) neither helps in the propagation of Hinduism nor is beneficial to Islam.’ Again, this objective tone was momentary, for he ended with an invocation to his co-religionists to ‘conserve strength and power’ and not use them against the poor and helpless, not even against people of the other religion, but to protect their own religion and the sanctity of their women against oppressors. ‘Such self-defence will have divine sanction.’ Poddar’s prescription was that if attacks on places of worship or on women were born out of ignorance, the perpetrators of such violence should be counselled, but in case that failed, physical means should be used. Physical strength was important, he said, but it needed sanghbal (unity of strength). Also, ‘We should remember ahimsa (non-violence) is not cowardice. Non- violence and absolution are the qualities of the fearless and brave, and not of cowards and the faint-hearted who hide in their homes.’ As the flag bearer of Gita Press,
Kalyan
had thus spelt out its concerns as well as prescribed the recipe of self-defence for Hindus.

The second issue of
Kalyan
relied mainly on the speeches of Jaydayal Goyandka and his replies to followers. There was a short article by Gandhi—whether it was extracted or exclusively written for the new journal is not clear. Stressing the importance of reciting the name of Rama, the article titled ‘
Naam Mahatmya
’ (The Greatness of God’s Name) dwelt on how in the Ramayana, by taking Rama’s name a bridge was built to reach Ravana’s Lanka. In his personal life, Gandhi said, Rama saved him from turning into a debauch. ‘I have made tall claims but if I did not have the name of Rama to recite I could not have addressed three women as my sisters.’
⁴

In contrast to Gandhi’s emphasis on purity in private life was Goyandka’s concern about the public sphere in which Hinduism, he felt, faced severe threat. Replying to a devotee’s query about ways of personal salvation, Goyandka gave first priority to salvation for Hinduism and advocated a fourfold path: propagation of religious education; religious discourse by saints and scholars; distribution of religious texts at low prices; and setting up orphanages to secure the religious identity of orphaned boys.

Simultaneously, Satsang Bhavan, the publisher of
Kalyan
in Bombay, was taking the first tentative steps towards the distribution of cheap religious texts being produced at Gita Press in Gorakhpur. With sales counters limited to Bombay, Gorakhpur, Bikaner and Delhi, Satsang Bhavan solicited agents in other places promising them ‘appropriate commission’ on the books they sold. By now thirteen titles had been published, five of them noteworthy. The first was a summary of various chapters of the Gita, the second a volume titled
Stri Dharma Prashnottari
(Questions and Answers on Women’s Dharma), the third an illustrated volume on ways to control desire and the fourth a booklet of devotional ghazals sold at two copies for one paisa (sixty-fourth of a rupee). The fifth and most expensive book was the complete Gita, priced at one rupee. All this was just the beginning; the shifting of
Kalyan
’s editorial staff to Gorakhpur in 1927 would lead to a jump in the number of religious titles published.

Yet to enlist regular contributors and find its bearings, the third issue of
Kalyan
published Jaydayal Goyandka’s reply to a year-old spiritual query by G.D. Birla. Of all the seekers of Goyandka’s wisdom, Birla was the only one identified by name. His question was related to achieving salvation, a task he said he found more insurmountable than climbing Mount Kailash. Birla wanted to know if his affluence, though put to use in the service of Gandhi and his philosophy of truth and ahimsa, was an impediment to his salvation. Goyandka agreed that wealth could be a stumbling block but said that it could be used wisely too. Praising Birla’s devotion to Gandhi, Goyandka added bhakti (devotion) to ahimsa and truth as a way out. Birla should not limit himself to reciting the name of God but should see God in everything, and with God as witness take the decision to avoid the path of sin. From the published reply it emerges that Birla had refused to accept Goyandka as his spiritual mentor, a fact Goyandka took in his stride—thanking the leading industrialist for recognizing that he lacked the qualities to be his mentor.

By the fourth issue, the distribution network for
Kalyan
and Gita Press books had slowly expanded, with new agents in Bettiah (Bihar), Bikaner, Ratlam (Central Provinces), Delhi and Tinsukia (Assam). All individual distributors were Marwari businessmen. By the beginning of the second year, Gita Press was looking to appoint thousands of agents for
Kalyan
and its other publications. Today a mammoth distribution network exists, with Gita Press bookshops in twenty cities, retail outlets in four and stalls at thirty-five railway stations across India. In recent years, Gita Press publications have become available online.

With passing months,
Kalyan
became more focused on the Hindu religion and the threat of what Poddar and others likened to a dark age. The magazine gradually began to attract big names to write articles exclusively for it. Bhupendranath Sanyal,
⁵
who had contributed short articles to the first four issues of
Kalyan
, penned a longer piece—‘
Hamar
a Param Lakshya
’ (Our Ultimate Destination)—lamenting the demise of religiosity among Hindus and how religion was the sole way out of the current crisis. This piece by Sanyal, who would go on to write forty-five articles (according to a catalogue in Gita Vatika) for
Kalyan
in coming years, was the earliest and strongest defence of sanatan Hindu dharma and articulated the larger vision of Gita Press. Sanyal, who had briefly taught at Santiniketan,
⁶
argued that the distinguishing mark of a nation was its soul that gave definition and meaning to its existence. Sanyal’s narrative was dependent on the ‘singularity of national history’ that by implication took him to a ‘single source of Indian tradition viz. ancient Hindu civilization’.
⁷
Sanyal said India—for him a country solely of Hindus—was known for its religiosity that defined the personal behaviour of Hindus, their social customs, politics and administration. ‘Religion is at the heart of India’s inception and character. It is not an imaginary entity for India but has material and organic form. If we do anything disregarding religion it would not be beneficial,’ Sanyal wrote, at one point countering Karl Marx’s ‘religion is the opiate of the masses’ with ‘religion is the medicine of masses’. Sanyal talked of an attack by ‘virodhi sabhyata’ (adversarial or foreign civilizations or religions, implying Islam or Christianity) that corrupted the tenets of sanatan Hindu dharma. As a result, he said, Hindus were looking at bijatiya (alien) culture and its material aspects with admiration and aspiration. ‘The path of eternal Hindu religion might not promise the prosperity and material comfort of European civilization but it will ensure peace, love and happiness in India.’
⁸