Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India (13 page)

Held in the Diwan-e-Khas of Red Fort, the conference consisted of freewheeling discussions amongst writers, artists, musicians, dancers and philosophers on strengthening the foundations of Indian culture. Poddar was invited for his contribution to the Indian culture.
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This invitation, within three years of Gandhi’s assassination, by a body dominated by Congress leaders, demonstrated their acceptance of Poddar despite his bitter, often brutal, criticism of Gandhi in the years before Partition and his vocal prescription for turning India into a Hindu Rashtra.

Poddar found similar acceptance when the Bharatiya Chaturdham Veda Bhawan Nyasa (BCVBN) was set up in the early 1960s. The principal objective of BCVBN was to build four Veda Bhawans at the four dhams (pilgrim centres): Badrinath, Jagannath Puri, Rameshwaram and Dwarka. The BCVBN also proposed to propagate vedic culture; conduct research on the Vedas; publish vedic literature; arrange recitation of Veda mantras and rituals; arrange the teaching of the Vedas and allied literature; start a printing press; publish newspapers, periodicals, pamphlets, books, articles, leaflets, booklets, etc., and ‘do all such other things as are incidental or conducive to the attainment’ of its objectives and ‘as are considered necessary for the welfare and happiness of the people’.
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The BCVBN brought together leaders of the Congress and Hindu Mahasabha, industrialists and religious figures. Its list of trustees was a reminder of the clout the conservative section within the Congress still wielded. Not only were they ready to collaborate with those whom they opposed politically and electorally, but some of them even did not find it improper or unconstitutional to become a part of a religious cause even while occupying a constitutional post such as the governor of a state. The trust consisted of people like Biswanath Das, governor of Uttar Pradesh; M. Ananthasayanam Ayyangar, governor of Bihar; Sampurnanand, governor of Rajasthan; Sri Prakasa of Seva Ashram, Banaras; K.M. Munshi of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Bombay; Mahant Digvijaynath of Gorakhnath temple, Gorakhpur and also a Hindu Mahasabha leader; Sir Surendra Singh Majithia, a businessman; Jugal Kishore Birla, elder brother of G.D. Birla; Ramnath Goenka, industrialist and owner-publisher of
The Indian Express
; Mungturam Jaipuria, industrialist; Hanuman Prasad Poddar, editor of
Kalyan
and many others.
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Culture and religion alone would not engage Poddar. A few months after the famous Naxalbari incident in Bengai Jote village in Siliguri subdivision, in which nine people died in police firing over their demand for fair price for crops, West Bengal witnessed statewide incidents of leftist violence—the start of the Naxalite movement. It had the business community and votaries of Indian culture worried about what they claimed to be the impending danger of rising communism. Poddar was roped in by an organization called the Indian Culture Defence Council run by Purshottam Dass Halwasiya. Realizing that communists were propagating their ideology through cheap literature, Halwasiya would tell Poddar about his plan to counter them by the collective and coordinated effort of outfits like the Jana Sangh, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), Swastik Prakashan and other bodies closely associated with the RSS.

Poddar wrote for an Indian Culture Defence Council pamphlet, calling communism a devilish ideology that was spreading due to Western views and education, and pleasure-seeking literature. ‘What is happening in West Bengal portends a bleak future. This kind of lawlessness, indiscipline, cycle of violence and counter-violence has never been witnessed before. This is not confined to politics alone but has spread to education, industry, trading and women. Everyone is scared. In the name of poor people, only poor are being exploited . . . It should not be allowed to spread. There is a need to come together, form defence committees, provide financial help and desire to give life at the right time.’
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Tributes and Tribulations
In the 1960s, as Poddar’s mood fluctuated between total withdrawal from, and reluctant participation in, the affairs of Gita Press, his friends and admirers were planning a big celebration on the occasion of his hirak jayanti
.
Though hirak jayanti, or diamond jubilee, celebrates a person’s sixtieth birthday and Poddar had turned sixty in 1952, earlier attempts to felicitate him had been unsuccessful.

In 1953, a committee consisting of leading Hindi writer Hazari Prasad Dwivedi, Rajbali Pandey who was principal of the College of Indology, Banaras Hindu University, littérateur Sitaram Chaturvedi and many others had planned a commemorative volume in Poddar’s honour. This volume was to have contributions from 101 front-ranking writers, politicians and intellectuals—from the Shankaracharyas (the custodians of orthodox Hinduism) to President Rajendra Prasad. Surprisingly, even Mahadevi Varma, a rebel who challenged sanatan Hindu dharma, was approached and agreed to be one of the contributors.
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But Poddar killed the elaborate venture. When the felicitation committee convenor Nageshwar Dixit approached him to write a message for the commemorative volume, Poddar flatly refused: ‘The principles that I adhere to and advocate never sanction any such undertaking aiming at self-praise whatsoever. May God bless me to be true to them to my last breath, and if so—I am afraid I may hurt your feelings—I must wholeheartedly discourage all such efforts.’
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The committee was shocked. Vishwanath Kumar Varma, another convenor, tried his best to convince Poddar. He said the ‘contents’ for the volume had been received from many people and ‘letters have already been issued to many personalities in the field of education and learning, religion and philosophy, politics and culture, etc’.
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This renewed appeal cut no ice with Poddar. He firmly told Varma to give up the project since it would ‘sadden and harm me’. Poddar said any attempt to honour him would be a sign of a decline in his principles. ‘I can neither support this venture nor cooperate or ask anyone else to cooperate,’ he explained. To ensure that the venture did not take off at any cost, Poddar issued a threat: ‘If you do not listen to me I will have to publicly oppose it.’
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So, in the last quarter of 1967, when Poddar was seventy-five years old, his friends and admirers got together again to commemorate his ‘diamond jubilee’. The group included film-maker S.N. Mangal who was close to Morarji Desai of the Congress, along with a section of Hindu nationalists, and old friends like Omkarmal Saraf, Jaidayal Dalmia and Ramnivas Dhandaria. Mangal conceived the proposal for a commemoration volume running into 300 to 350 pages. Writing to Jaidayal Dalmia, Mangal said that earlier the plan was for a volume of 1,000 pages, but it was decided that such a book would only adorn bookshelves.
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Mangal had spoken to Desai and elicited his support for the venture.

Mangal considered Poddar’s life to be a ‘civilisation in itself’ and proposed a building in his name. He also wanted a literary and religious week to be celebrated throughout the country in honour of Poddar. However, all the plans were soon scuttled, as Krishna Chandra, who must have consulted Poddar, wrote against holding any event or bringing out any book. Mangal wrote to Dalmia for support. He argued that the idea behind the programme was to highlight Poddar’s contribution to inspire the youth. ‘It is important to highlight his contributions in his lifetime. There is no point doing it after his death. If it does not happen now it will never happen. We will not have the presence and help of a daring personality like Saraf.’
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In the midst of all this, fissures within the organizing committee began to come out in the open. Meanwhile, Krishna Chandra continued to faithfully report Poddar’s disapproval of the event.

As uncertainty loomed over the commemoration volume, Mangal and Dalmia began discussing the possibility of a documentary on Poddar that could be distributed through the Films Division, an offshoot of the government’s information and broadcasting ministry.
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Mangal wanted the idea for the documentary to be approved in Swargashram, Rishikesh (run by Gobind Bhawan) where a major meeting of the trustees of Gobind Bhawan was planned for the end of April 1968. Meanwhile, Shanti Prasad Jain, Ramnath Goenka and Omkarmal Saraf made a public appeal for cooperation to celebrate the contribution Poddar had made.
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Poddar, ignoring the appeal, wrote to them not to persist with the idea of bringing out a book. Finally, when the meeting in Rishikesh took place, Saraf could not attend it due to ill health.
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Dalmia too was absent because of some family commitment.
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At the meeting it was decided to bring out a book tracing Gita Press’s contribution rather than Poddar’s.
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The idea was to celebrate the institution rather than an individual, and thus overcome Poddar’s opposition. The meeting also decided that a documentary on Poddar would be made after the volume on Gita Press and, thereafter, a separate volume on Poddar could be planned. Dalmia wrote to say he would accept whatever was decided in Rishikesh.
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So, yet again, Poddar had his way.

Between 1968 and 1970, Poddar would resign from many trusts like Krishnajanam Sthan Trust, Mathura, and Swargashram, Rishikesh. In his resignation letter from Swargashram, Poddar would refer to mutual distrust among the members of Gita Bhavan and unnecessary litigation with other religious trusts on matters of construction.

By 1970 Poddar’s health had deteriorated sharply. A diabetic, he refused to take insulin on the grounds that it contained substances derived from animal parts. In addition, multiple ailments of heart and stomach cancer rendered him almost permanently bedridden. While the plans of Poddar’s admirers to celebrate his diamond jubilee had not materialized, newspapers and magazines would not forget him, and neither would old friends.

From Los Angeles, Swami Prabhupada wrote wishing him good health.
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An effusive Teji Bachchan, wife of noted Hindi writer Harivansh Rai Bachchan, would send a telegram to Poddar citing a couplet from the Ramayana.
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She called him the fountainhead of knowledge and wished him immortality and life at the feet of God. Poddar was Teji Bachchan’s rakhi brother; she not only called him brother but also considered him to be God incarnate.

Controversy would not leave Poddar even at this stage. In 1970, Prabhudatt Brahmachari, Poddar’s comrade-in-arms during the cow- protection movement, warned him about the impending investigation into his alleged role in the theft and illegal transfer of ancient idols to foreign countries. Brahmachari wrote to Poddar on the basis of a tip-off received from a police officer in Patna. Aware of deterioration in the affairs of Gobind Bhawan, Brahmachari told Poddar it could be the handiwork of some businessman who had close links with the Bhawan. Poddar thanked Brahmachari for the information and termed the allegations as ‘fictional’ and without basis, daring the CID officers to go to court.
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He also said the issue had been brought to the notice of the Gobind Bhawan authorities who had denied the allegations.

While the allegations of theft of idols remained unsubstantiated, it is a fact that Poddar, Jaidayal Dalmia and the latter’s associate Hitsharan Sharma were persistently requested by the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) to arrange for idols of Krishna from Gorakhpur and Vrindavan to be sent to the UK and USA. In 1968, when Sharma had refused to return Rs 2,000 he had taken from ISKCON to organize paper for printing a book by its founder Swami Prabhupada, Prabhupada, then in Seattle, asked two of his disciples, Achyutananda and Jaya Govinda, to realize the money through the influence of Ram Krishna Dalmia and Poddar and use it to ‘purchase deities’. He said ISKCON needed ‘100s of pairs of Deities of different sizes’.
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Prabhupada had requested Poddar to ‘recommend some of your Vaisnava (sic) friends to contribute such murtis’
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and the Dalmia– Jain Trust and Birla Trust had donated five pairs of Radha–Krishna murtis (idols) for installation in different ISCKON centres. The job of dispatching the murtis was left to Hitsharan Sharma; Sumati Morarji of the Scindia Steam Navigation Co. had agreed to carry them.

 

Poddar’s Legacy
Hanuman Prasad Poddar breathed his last in Gita Vatika on 22 March 1971 amidst his family members and admirers who had started trooping in on hearing about his deteriorating state.

His will, finalized in January 1970, contained a large dose of confession about his attitude towards minorities—Muslims in particular. Admitting that for a long time he had been against Muslims in general, he said, ‘It was not against any individual.’ Poddar listed Muslims like Mohammad Syed Hafiz of Allahabad University and Christians like C.F. Andrews and Arthur Massey as his friends. He also talked of his involvement with extremist politics in his youth and hatred for certain British officials, saying, ‘This feeling disappeared as I came closer to Gandhiji.’ But Poddar did not discuss the various hues of his relationship with Gandhi, from deep reverence to visceral hatred.

More incisive than Poddar’s will was his long article for
Satsang
Sudha
, a monthly publication of Gita Vatika, written the previous year. Titled ‘Clarification of My Position’, it played down his achievements and the myths associated with him. ‘I am neither a Yogi nor a Mahatma. I do not have divine or magical power. Those who see such power in me do so out of mistake . . . I have also not started any new religious sect nor do I boast of having given birth to new tenets of spiritualism.’ While denying all the qualities that his admirers never tired of talking about, Poddar was liberal in his praise of the Radha Madhav Seva Sansthan and its various activities. However, he clarified that he was not directly involved with the organization.
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