Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India (18 page)

The prestigious Hindi journal
Chand
came out with a special issue on Marwaris in November 1929, talking about their philanthropy and their private life in equal measure. Questioning the virility of Marwari men,
Chand
depicted a highly immoral world where the sexual desires of Marwari women were fulfilled at home by close male relatives or domestic help, and by religious men outside.

According to
Chand
, Hiralal (now called Bhaktraj) had become an expert on the Gita and his sermons were day-long affairs. He had won the confidence of Marwari men with his campaign against sending Marwari women to Muslim shamans for treatment of infertility. As his popularity grew, Hiralal added raslila (enactment of the dalliance of Krishna with gopis) to his sermons, with himself in the role of Lord Krishna and the women devotees as his gopis. Abetted by a few close women aides, Hiralal found easy prey among these devotees who so believed in his divine qualities that they would wear his photograph in amulets round their necks.
⁴⁰

Without mentioning the date,
Hindu Panch
said Hiralal’s exploits were first brought to light in Rishikesh where Goyandka had gone to give a religious discourse. Even as he was holding forth on ways of achieving salvation, a widow in the audience stood up to ask him what was the way out of a pregnancy for which Bhaktraj was responsible. Her revelation caused a major storm in Rishikesh, with many other similar cases coming to the fore. Newspapers took up the issue and came out with special supplements. Realizing that the matter was getting out of hand, Goyandka went to Calcutta to hold a meeting.
⁴¹

In his statement, Goyandka admitted he had been aware of certain wrongdoings in Gobind Bhawan but had chosen to ignore them as he considered Hiralal a man of integrity. Goyandka said that when he had come to know about women worshipping Hiralal’s photograph, ‘I had objected to it in strong words but women continued to worship him.’
⁴²
He further stated that non-cooperation with Hiralal would be the best punishment for his sins. ‘Hiralal should go to a place of pilgrimage, make his body suffer and never show his face to people.’ Goyandka cautioned his own followers who believed him to be an avatar (incarnation) of God: ‘I have said so many times, I am neither God nor a beneficent human being. God and such a human are flawless. I am not.’ He was also reported to have requested the husbands of the women victims to forgive their wives since they had surrendered themselves before Hiralal out of ignorance and genuine belief that he was an incarnation of God.
⁴³

No police case was registered against Hiralal who disappeared from Calcutta.
Hindu Panch
said the incident was not only shameful for Marwaris but for all Hindus. ‘Why is no Marwari child demanding the arrest of Hiralal Goyanka? What shame. Why are sanatanis and reformists not exhibiting their power and intelligence? A community that should have been outraged and gouged out the eyes of whoever looked at an Aryan woman is not in the least bothered about the loss of their modesty.’
⁴⁴
The weekly demanded that Gobind Bhawan be handed over to the Hindu Mahasabha, ‘which would be some atonement for the sin’.

Hindu Panch
took to task newspapers and community elders like Jamnalal Bajaj and G.D. Birla who wanted to put a lid on the incident. Uncomfortable with the media campaign against Marwaris and their philanthropic initiatives, Birla had already written to Gandhi’s associate Mahadev Desai about how ‘local vernacular papers and magazines were full of dirty literature . . . It has become difficult for one to allow young boys and girls to read such Hindi papers.’
⁴⁵
Birla alleged the incident was being used by many journals to ‘blackmail’ community leaders. He also sent Desai a copy of
Hindu Panch
of the week ended 17 May 1928 that not only devoted many pages to the Hiralal episode but even alleged the involvement of a lady teacher in a school run by Birla, and others, as accomplices in the sex scandal: ‘. . . the paper has tried to vilify a girls’ school which is being conducted by some of us here. Of course, every word written in it is false. The sole object of the editor of the paper is to harm the institution.’ Birla wondered ‘whether it would not be advisable if Gandhiji put in a word or two in
Navjivan
’
.

Gandhi wrote immediately in
Navjivan
. In the issue of 24 May 1928,
Hindu Panch
reproduced the article and
Kalyan
carried it with a footnote from Poddar that thanked the Mahatma for his article and stated that Gita Press and
Kalyan
had always stood for selfless devotion to God and had warned devotees about the consequences of misusing God’s name.
⁴⁶
Hiralal was condemned as ‘that worker’ and advised to take resort to God and atone for his sins. The gist of Gandhi’s article was that it was ‘a regrettable incident but does not surprise me’, as there were people all around who used religion for material and physical ends. ‘Those who think the name of Rama would help them get over their imperfections and desires are always successful. But those who use the name of Rama to further their physical passion are doomed.’ He also advised women never to worship a living person: ‘No living person can be called ideal. Those considered good today have turned out to be evil later. Therefore, God is worshipped. If you want to worship a human being, do that after he is dead. Worship is about devotion to qualities, not form.’
⁴⁷

Gandhi’s words had no effect on
Hindu Panch
that had taken upon itself the task of protecting the interests of sanatan Hindu dharma, whether from the rot within or from the external Muslim threat. The journal particularly condemned the conspiracy of silence within the media in Calcutta and the attempt by the Marwari leadership to brush the Hiralal episode under the carpet. It pointed out how
The Statesman
had criticized Hiralal but left out Gobind Bhawan while
Vishwamitra
had stopped accepting any article about the episode. It also bemoaned the ‘false campaign by Marwaris against monthly
Chand
and its special publication
Ablaon Ka Insaf
(Justice for Women)’.
⁴⁸
In a scathing attack on reformists and the media world, writer Satyadev Vidyalankar further argued that the Hiralal episode should have been used to usher in reforms. The job of the media, he said, giving instances of the role played by it in the USA against slavery and by writers like Tolstoy before the Russian Revolution, was to ensure that truth does not perish. ‘Editors should be able to create a feeling of anger and hatred against such incidents in the minds of the readers.’

In the face of this attack, Gita Press and
Kalyan
did something surprising. A full-page advertisement was placed in the 21 June 1928 issue of
Hindu Panch
asking readers to book the
Bhakta Ank
(Issue on Devotees), the annual number of
Kalyan
in its third year. The advertisement carried statements by Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi and Gauri Shankar Hirachand Ojha praising
Kalyan
’s contribution to the Hindu religion and to Hindi. The advertisement appeared for two consecutive weeks but was not enough to buy peace, as
Hindu Panch
continued to serialize ‘
Vyabhichar Mandir
’ (Temple of Immorality), an article on Gobind Bhawan.

The high-profile sex scandal in Calcutta had its repercussions in far- off Gorakhpur on the functioning of Gita Press and
Kalyan
. Mahavir Prasad Poddar, who had been a key person managing the affairs of Gita Press, quit soon after news of the scandal broke.
⁴⁹
A Gandhian and an important figure in Gorakhpur, he had never got along with Hanuman Prasad Poddar; however, Mahavir Prasad seems to have renewed his relationship with Gita Press later. In 1937, the United Provinces government appointed him along with Baba Raghav Das as non-official visitors to Gorakhpur jail for a period of one year,
⁵⁰
and in the records, Mahavir Prasad Poddar’s address is that of Gita Press.

The scandal had scarred Hanuman Prasad Poddar as well. He admitted to his close aide Gambhirchand Dujari, who also faced allegations of moral turpitude, that many people had turned away from Gita Press out of disappointment. He warned Dujari to be careful as ‘these are bad times and anything can happen’.
⁵¹
Poddar had also advised Dujari earlier to come to Gorakhpur alone and leave his wife with his mother: ‘I have no desire to allow any woman in Gita Vatika (Poddar’s office-cum-residence).’
⁵²

As such, Gita Press dealt with the controversy by brazening it out. The public outcry, media campaign and moral questions were met with silence and total disengagement. The fact that the scandal had taken place in Calcutta helped Gita Press to maintain a distance, even if Goyandka could never wash off the stigma.

The irony was that, a few months before news of the Hiralal sex scandal broke,
Kalyan
had severely criticized
Hindu Panch
for carrying an article eulogizing Lord Krishna’s uncle Kamsa, who had killed the earlier children of his sister Devaki and had tried to kill Krishna as well. In his editorial comment, Poddar said it was heart-wrenching to read such an article by a Hindu denigrating Lord Krishna whose name ‘is uttered by every Hindu child’, and further that ‘it is a misfortune of Hinduism that such writers gain in stature’.
⁵³
He also referred to a little-known book
Hindustan Na Devo
(Gods of Hindustan) by a European lady, translated by an Indian, which ‘heaped abuse on Lord Krishna’. Poddar lamented the new genre of book review and literary criticism that gave credence to such writings. However, he gave the benefit of the doubt to his friend Ramlal Varma, editor of
Hindu Panch
, for having made a mistake out of ignorance. Poddar said Varma had already regretted the article, calling it worse than death, and had printed two supplementary pages that had been dispatched to subscribers with a request that they burn the earlier article. While Poddar wrote that ‘Varma has done the right thing’, he also suggested that the editor make special amends by reciting God’s name.

 

Popularizing the Gita
Even at the height of the storm created by the Hiralal episode, Gita Press did not lose sight of its ‘save the sanatan dharma’ mission.
Kalyan
, of course, was the main vehicle but it was not sufficient—there was need for its readers to be actively involved in the mission. Two important initiatives were taken with this in mind: in 1929, Gita Examination Committees were set up to spread knowledge of the text throughout the country, followed by the Gita Society in 1934 for further propagation of the text.

No Indian publishing house so far had donned the mantle of moral, religious and spiritual activist and pedagogue. Both Goyandka and Poddar considered the Gita an impartial, meaningful religious text without parallel in the world. As Monika Freier states, they wanted the Gita to be ‘made accessible to a broad audience who could read the translations in their own mother tongue, but also rely on the interpretation offered simultaneously’.
⁵⁴
Goyandka’s translation of the Gita helped it become a ‘central religious text for a Hindi-speaking audience’. Freier observes that the duo were against ‘the metaphorical reading’ of the Gita; for them the text was ‘a faithful reproduction of the dialogue between Lord Krishna and the epic hero Arjuna right before the great battle of Mahabharata’—not an ‘allegory but the ultimate gospel’. She further describes how, in order to deal with passages of the Gita that needed further interpretation after translation, Poddar and Goyandka brought out pamphlets on ‘religious and social questions’ that ‘translated the scriptures into guidelines for everyday practices’.

While hard-selling the concept of Gita examinations, Poddar vehemently argued that it was through the study of the Gita and imbibing its values that a person could achieve salvation even while engaged in worldly pursuits.
⁵⁵
He believed that the Gita alone had the solution to the social, political and religious degradation of India caught in colonial rule. He traced the nation’s inertia to it having strayed from the path of the Gita. ‘What does one say of the Gita? It is the personification of God. Therefore, it should be popularized in each household and taught in each school. By simply relying on Gita one can learn to be responsible.’

The idea of Gita Examination Committees was conceived on 1 July 1927 in Barhaj. Situated on the banks of the River Sarayu, in Uttar Pradesh’s Deoria district, Barhaj is the birthplace of Deoraha Baba, considered by his devotees as an avatar of Hanuman.
⁵⁶
Politician- sadhu Baba Raghav Das also built his ashram in Barhaj. Both Deoraha Baba and Raghav Das were among the large number of religious personalities who wrote for
Kalyan
and supported Gita Press. Touted as the Gandhi of the eastern districts, Baba Raghav Das, a Maharashtrian brahmin who had come to Deoria in spiritual quest after his entire family died of cholera,
⁵⁷
was the convenor of the Gita examinations. (Post-Independence, the Congress successfully pitted him against Acharya Narendra Dev of the Congress Socialist Party in the assembly election from the Faizabad constituency.)

In the Barhaj meeting, the syllabus for the Gita tests was prepared and sent all over the country. It was also decided to conduct the tests on 5 November and declare the result a month later. Despite the paucity of time, examination centres were established in Rajasthan’s Churu and Ratangarh; Bada Rajpur and Ara (Bihar); Barhaj, Ghusi, Basantpur, Mahuadabar, Pakardiha, Kubernath, Padrauna and Tamkuhi (all in Gorakhpur district); Banaras and Ghazipur. Outside the Hindi heartland, the Gita Dharma Mandal of Poona approved the syllabus and examination system and even set up two test centres at Poona and Miraj and translated the course material into Marathi. Only seventeen students took the Marathi test but G.V. Kelkar, head of the Gita Dharma Mandal, promised more students would appear from the next year.