Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India (49 page)

Noted Hindi journalist and an RSS insider Ram Bahadur Rai recently provided a new and shocking revelation about the sudden appearance of the idol in Ayodhya. Rai wrote that he had been told by RSS leader Nanaji Deshmukh that the idol had been introduced into the Ayodhya complex after holy immersion in the Sarayu river under the leadership of Poddar.
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When Rai expressed a wish to record this fact, Deshmukh did not agree, though he maintained it was the truth. Deshmukh’s claim has not found any mention in scores of published works on Ayodhya, but points at a web of conspiracy whose threads are yet to be untangled.

Poddar, who throughout the 1940s had been involved in Hindu nationalist propaganda, received the news of the appearance of the idol of Lord Rama with great joy. Irrespective of his involvement or otherwise, the news must have meant a lot to him as he was already working on a plan to restore places related to Hindu deities—Ayodhya (Rama), Mathura (Krishna) and Salasar (Hanuman).

Within days of the appearance of the idol, fondly called Ramlalla by the devout and the Sangh Parivar, Poddar reached Ayodhya for confabulations about the future course of action.
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For a man whose own life was full of claims of direct communion with the gods, the emergence of the idol of Rama was not to be questioned at all. Instead, he was interested in planning the future of the idol that needed a magnificent abode in the shape of an imposing temple.

When he heard government might remove the idol, Poddar wrote to prominent people: ‘Ayodhya has the ancient site of Ram Janmabhoomi. Muslims came and built a masjid there. It is said that an idol of Rama has appeared there. Akhand recitation of Ramayana and kirtans is taking place there. I have heard government wants to remove the idol and efforts are being made in that direction. The birthplace of Lord Rama is related to the Hindus of India. If the idol is removed, it would become impossible to wrest control of places of worship that were occupied by Muslims.’
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During his stay in Ayodhya, Poddar found that the local Hindu groups did not have the financial means to bear the cost of performing daily puja at the disputed site. Another big burden was going to be the cost of fighting the legal battle that promised to be protracted and messy. Poddar made a promise of Rs 1,500 each month for akhand kirtan (uninterrupted religious recitation) and daily worship of the idol, and additionally, promised to take care of the legal costs and other major or minor expenditure that might have to be incurred from time to time.
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As the court case dragged on and the Hindu–Muslim communal fault lines further deepened in Ayodhya, Poddar got involved in the task of finding a permanent solution to the dispute. However, his solution was majoritarian in nature—he wanted to convince the leading Muslims of Ayodhya and outside that the existence of a mosque inside a temple was unnatural and un-Islamic. A few liberal Muslims were sent to Ayodhya with the message of Poddar’s solution that basically meant Muslims relinquishing their right over the Babri Masjid. Poddar claimed some of these liberal Muslims were even willing to go on a fast in Delhi against the Muslim agitation for restoring the site to them. He did not live to see the tragic outcome of the dispute.

 

Krishna Janmabhoomi Movement
The battle to restore the Shri Krishna Janmabhoomi temple in Mathura was less acrimonious but more interesting as it brought Gita Press and the Congress on a common platform. After the initial efforts of Madan Mohan Malaviya, with support from Jugal Kishore Birla, the two main dramatis personae were Hanuman Prasad Poddar and Seth Govind Das who was a member of the Congress Working Committee, the party’s highest decision-making body.

Poddar’s tryst with Krishna Janmabhoomi began simply as a pilgrim in the early 1950s. He was soon turned into the main driving force behind the restoration plan. Addressing a meeting held in his honour during one of his trips to Mathura, Poddar rued the irony that while Mathura received thousands of pilgrims every year, the Krishna Janmabhoomi was in a state of total neglect. He asked who would not be troubled with the state of this site of Lord Krishna’s birth, and announced that he would personally give Rs 10,000 towards its restoration.
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It was first decided to have a massive yagna or ritual fire offering at Shri Krishna Janmabhoomi.

Aware that such a project at Mathura would involve huge costs, Poddar collaborated with Seth Govind Das, a fellow Marwari, writer and a conservative Congress politician. Das and Poddar had similar views on many issues, and agreed on the need to restore Lord Krishna’s birthplace to its pristine glory. Being a Congressman, Das also knew that if he was to be involved with the Shri Krishna Janmabhoomi movement, it had to be conducted within the parameters of his party’s ideology of secularism.

By July 1955, Das had a plan that he felt Nehru’s government would agree to be involved with. Das wrote to Poddar: ‘In this letter I am sending you the complete plan of Sri Krishna Dham in Hindi and English. In English, the plan is called Govardhan. This has been done because we are a secular state and in case we want any help from the government then the name should be secular. It took a lot of discussion and hard work to finalize the plan.’
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Das requested Poddar to read the plan carefully as it was an ‘unparalleled’ attempt. He said if ‘Bharat has to remain Bharat’, it was ‘the duty of devotees of Indian culture to give shape to this plan’
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Das said that he himself would be writing to the Central and state governments, and had already consulted President Rajendra Prasad who had willingly agreed to provide all help. Das felt that government help would come if Rs 500,000 to 1,000,000 could be collected, some land bought near the site of Govardhan/Krishna Janmabhoomi and the foundation of a new building laid by the president. He asked Poddar to do whatever was possible in the matter. Das suggested to Poddar, ‘
Kalya
n
has 1.25 lakh subscribers. If you appeal, at least a lakh of subscribers can easily contribute between five to ten rupees and the sum would be easily organized.’ Das also asked Poddar and Jaydayal Goyandka to reach out to their wide circle of devout-minded contacts—mainly Vaishnavites in Bombay and Ahmedabad—for resources. The money collected by them could be retained by Gita Press till the trust deed for Govardhan was ready.

By 1958, Keshavdev Mandir had come up as the first building in the complex. Poddar’s speech at the inauguration of the mandir shows his important position in the nationwide movement to liberate Hindu places of worship from alleged past desecrations by Muslim rulers. Thanking Madan Mohan Malaviya and Jugal Kishore Birla for initiating the Krishna Janmabhoomi movement, Poddar said: ‘Forcible occupation of a place of religious worship or laying right on the birthplace of a great man is a sin. While such forcible right exists it reminds people of that sin and causes enmity. Removal of that blot from here has brightened the face of the nation. Till recently we were under foreign rule and now we have swarajya. Now no such blots should exist. Sommath Temple has been rebuilt due to the efforts of Sardar Patel. Similarly, the holy temple in Kashi, Ayodhya, temple at Sidhpur and various other religious places should be liberated.’
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For Poddar, a nation retained its splendour and pride if people of different religious faiths—Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs—worshipped their gods in their respective religious places. Liberation after so many years had restored some glory to the nation, Poddar said. But he expressed his disgust with Christian missionaries for luring poor Indians to convert. The speech also included a long story about the life of Krishna and his popularity among Muslim poets like Ras Khan, Hazrat Nafis Khalili, Hindu poet-writers like Bihari and Bharatendu Harishchandra, saint-poets like Jaidev and Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, politicians like Tilak, Gandhi and Aurobindo.

Seth Govind Das too was taking no rest. Even during his tour of Uttar Pradesh as a Congress Working Committee member, Das asked Poddar to organize a meeting of prominent religious-minded individuals on Sri Krishna Dham and Braj. Das said the meeting should be held at Poddar’s house in Gorakhpur and organized in consultation with the city Congress office so that it would not be disturbed.
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Over the next few years, slowly and steadily more structures came up in the Shri Krishna complex. In 1962 the foundation of the Shri Krishna Chabutra (platform) was laid, and construction was completed in 1965. Speaking at the inauguration of the final structure, Poddar said that in the more than 350 years since Aurangzeb had demolished the temple in Mathura, the inauguration of the new complex and recitation of the Gita there were the most significant events in the life of the holy city.
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Jhavarmal Sharma, former editor of
Calcutta Samachar
and Poddar’s friend from his Calcutta days, was present at the inauguration. Sharma penned a poem on Poddar, singing his praises for his efforts in securing the Krishna Janmabhoomi.

 

Religion in Electoral Politics
Much as Poddar claimed to keep a safe distance from politics, he acknowledged the power politics had over religion as well as religion’s role in stirring up politics. In India’s first general election of 1951–52, a reader of
Kalyan
asked Poddar whom to vote for. In an attempt to maintain his public persona of aloofness and disdain for politics, Poddar quoted Shaw Desmond’s
World Birth
: ‘Like horse-racing, there is something in politics which degrades. It turns good men into bad men and bad into worse.’
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Poddar stated that the ablest candidate should win, irrespective of the party, and told the reader not to nurse any feeling of ill will or preconceived notion about a candidate or party, whether Congress or Hindu Mahasabha. He pointed out that in pre- Independence elections, ‘The feeling was to vote for even a dog of the Congress but not for a god outside the Congress.’ Now, he said, ‘we should not say we will support even a dog opposed to the Congress and not gods inside the Congress’
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A voter should make his choice impartially, on the basis of his conscience and a sense of justice.

In an article on voters’ responsibilities in the Indian republic, Poddar claimed that as a spiritual person he was least equipped to offer advice on political matter.
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Yet, he could not resist the temptation to dispense political wisdom, having been so involved in the protests against the Hindu Code Bill. He was opposed to the idea of India as a secular republic as he felt this undermined the superiority of the Hindu majority. He was also against the electoral process and its emphasis on numbers at the cost of intelligence, knowledge, experience, wisdom, character and other positive qualities in an individual: ‘In this system only people above a certain age can vote and everything depends on such votes. One extra vote could make an unintelligent and unworthy candidate defeat an experienced, intelligent and righteous opponent.’

Poddar also resented the dominance of money, particularly of the illegal variety, in the elections. A rough estimate by Poddar put the use of black money at one billion rupees. He said leaders of big political parties had been collecting election funds for a long time by resorting to various methods: deceit, force, allurement and forgery. ‘In many states people are facing a huge crisis of food and clothes, and here crores of rupees are being spent on petrol, paper, printing and campaigning.’ Poddar was also critical of the false claims made by the candidates and their tendency to show opponents in poor light. ‘This system is such that even intelligent people lose their minds and attack their opponents as a matter of routine.’

Poddar, who had faced arrest for his alleged role in the conspiracy to assassinate Mahatma Gandhi, felt that Nehru was wrong in making it an election issue. Without mentioning the Hindu Mahasabha and the RSS, Poddar wrote: ‘In order to prove the supremacy of his own organization and run down others the Congress president and our prime minister, our country’s priceless treasure, someone who has given his entire life in the service of the nation, is calling other organizations killers of Mahatma Gandhi. He is talking of exercising his powers as prime minister and threatening to crush so-and-so organizations. Newspaper readers can read the last few speeches of respected Nehru to understand the problems of this system.’

Finally, Poddar settled for the safe option. Instead of asking readers of
Kalyan
to support any specific political party he exhorted them to vote for those candidates who met four conditions. The ideal candidate was the one who ‘opposed the anti-religious Hindu Code Bill or any legislation that encroached on any religion’; one who was genuinely interested in working for a Central legislation to ban cow slaughter; one who promised to make efforts to provide food, clothing, education and medical facilities at affordable rates; and finally, one who did not seek pecuniary benefits for himself or for his party. It was not difficult to see that only members of the Hindu Mahasabha and the newly formed Bharatiya Jana Sangh would pass the Poddar test.

In another article in the same issue of
Kalyan
, Poddar added two more conditions: a candidate should uphold the ancient Indian culture and system of education; and he should publicly state that Partition had been a mistake and promise to work for the reunification of India.
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In this article, Poddar made more categorical statements against Nehru and the Congress, and asked votaries of the anti-cow-slaughter law, opponents of the Hindu Code Bill and supporters of akhand Bharat (undivided India) to vote for the candidates of Swami Karpatri Maharaj’s Ram Rajya Parishad. Further, ‘In constituencies where there is no Ram Rajya Parishad candidate, the vote should be in favour of either Hindu Mahasabha or Jana Sangh candidates . . . But it should be remembered opposition to the Congress is based on principles not individuals or the institution itself.’