Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India (17 page)

As for the cow-protection movement, like other towns in the United Provinces, Gorakhpur took part by setting up gaurakshini sabhas. In Gorakhpur the most notable intervention was the meeting of gaurakshini sabha in 1893 where ‘sixteen rules were drawn up’ including the ‘explicit message that chamars and others buy cows and sell them to butchers; and Musalmans and others are the very cause of the slaughter of cows. Cows shall not be sold into the hands of any such persons, and if any kind of cow dies the owner shall sell its skin to a proper person, and apply the money to cow-protection.’
²⁰

In purely religious terms, as spelt out in Francis Buchanan’s account of his travels across Patna, Gaya, Shahabad and Gorakhpur, ‘higher percentages of Brahmin gurus in Shahabad and, more especially, Gorakhpur districts were vaishnava in their religious outlook’. The rising influence of vaishnavas, as pointed out by Buchanan in the nineteenth century, would be ratified by ‘Jogendra Nath Bhattacharya, president of the college of Pandits in Nadia (Bengal)’ when he said, ‘Vaishnavas are very fast extending the sphere of their influence, and many of the
tantriks
are now espousing vaishnava tenets in order to have the advantage of enlisting among their followers the low classes that are becoming rich under British rule.’
²¹

This was the political and religious setting when
Kalyan
shifted to the sugar-cane town where Gita Press was located. In existence since 29 April 1923, Goyandka’s brainchild Gita Press had been set up at the insistence of his friend Ghanshyamdas Jalan.
²²
Before the press started, copies of the Gita would be brought from Gobind Bhawan, Calcutta, for distribution in the United Provinces. Sabhapati Mishra was appointed to take the text to villages and schools. This was when the system of rewarding any student who could recite a chapter of the Gita began. Mahavir Prasad Poddar, a business partner of Jalan’s who had some experience of publishing, joined the venture and took care of its accounts. One of the earliest associates of Goyandka, Mahavir Prasad was slowly marginalized as Hanuman Prasad took over the affairs of Gita Press.

One of the first changes that the Gita Press witnessed after
Kalyan
’s move to Gorakhpur was the inculcation of missionary feeling among the editorial staff. They were mandated to live as a family and follow the strict regimen of devout sanatanis. The remuneration and perks were not attractive, a fact Goyandka would make bluntly clear to Nandlal Joshi, a prospective employee, telling him that his salary could not be more than Rs 40 or Rs 50 per month. ‘It is impossible to imagine a life without debt working for
Kalyan
and Gita Press. If you want a debtless life think of starting a business,’ he advised Joshi.
²³

The idea of working for spiritual gratification at Gita Press was not without attraction. Even in 1968, an appeal to join
Kalyan
drew a number of applications from a wide range of people; some like V.K. Roy, a retired store purchase and supplies officer of Indian Airlines, offered his services gratis but with the rider that he and his wife be given a furnished flat and free supply of tea and milk. Nemani Kameswara Rao, retired from the Cooperative Land Mortgage Bank in Yellamanchili, Andhra Pradesh, also demanded a ‘simple and heartfelt cottage and simple food twice a day, fit for a recluse’. Both were old subscribers of
Kalyan
and in the autumn of their life wanted to do something good for religion.

The relatively younger Upendra Nath Jha from Bihar was also vying for the same job, hard-selling his qualifications, the foremost of which, he claimed, was his brahmin origin and full knowledge of the working of Gita Press. Two men in their twenties, Madan Gopal, a postgraduate in English from Delhi, and Bhagwandhar Diwan, a history lecturer from Raigarh, Madhya Pradesh, were willing to give up their well-paid jobs to work for Gita Press.

Those who came to work for
Kalyan
and Gita Press in Gorakhpur lived as a family; even those who left kept the relationship alive either by writing for
Kalyan
or through a continuing friendship with Poddar.
²⁴
The editorial staff of
Kalyan
and Gita Press were not only ill-paid but were also required to lead an austere life, following the rituals and regimen of ideal sanatanis. In the early days, the editorial office was situated in a building that had a large garden to the west of the famous Gorakhnath temple. The day would start at six with the editorial staff participating in a kirtan followed by Chimmanlal Gosvami, Poddar’s second-in-command, reading from religious texts. Work would begin after a short discourse from Poddar. The staff was expected to spend their time, even working hours, in practising the principles of the Gita and Ramayana, reciting the name of God in their mind, talking less and always speaking the truth.

A community kitchen with a variety of food was set up to cater to the taste buds of the editorial staff drawn from all over the country. The first group consisted of Shantanu Bihari Dwivedi, Nand Dulare Vajpayee, Bhuvaneshwar Nath Mishra ‘Madhav’, Chimmanlal Gosvami, Dulichand Dujari, Deodhar Sharma, Rajbali Pandey, N. Ramachandran Brahmachari, Gopal, Krishna Das Dada, Munilal Gupt (later Swami Sanatan Dev), Hajari Lal Maheshwari and Chandrasekhar Pandey.

Gopal’s job was to edit and rewrite long articles. Vajpayee assisted with edits and with replying to letters to the
Kalyan
editor, and edited the Ramayana, one of Gita Press’s best-sellers. A postgraduate from Banaras Hindu University, Vajpayee was a favourite of Shyamsundar Das, a founding member of the Nagari Pracharini Sabha. Vajpayee retired as head of the Hindi Department, Sagar University and was made vice chancellor of Vikram University, Ujjain (Madhya Pradesh).
²⁵
He was considered a worthy successor to noted Hindi critic Acharya Ramchandra Shukla. Ramachandran was an itinerant spiritual seeker. He had spent time with Swami Sivananda in Rishikesh and been a part of the Ramakrishna Mission. He was in Gorakhpur to be in the company of Poddar. Ramachandran’s typing skills were put to good use by Gita Press for which he was paid a small amount.
²⁶

 

A Proposal to Shift to Banaras
In 1936, less than a decade after
Kalyan
’s move to Gorakhpur, Jiwanshankar Yagik of Banaras Hindu University, a close friend of Poddar and a regular contributor to
Kalyan
, began to push for shifting the entire Gita Press operation to Banaras. Yagik was so consumed with the idea that in early 1937, when news of a meeting of the Gobind Bhawan Trust in Bankura reached him, he wrote to Poddar spelling out seventeen reasons why the shift should take place and requesting him to lobby with the trustees for the relocation of Gita Press. Besides mentioning that Poddar’s own family was desirous of moving to Banaras and that those loyal to Gita Press and
Kalyan
in Banaras would do everything to help it in the new place, Yagik gave more substantial reasons. He believed that as the work of Gita Press and
Kalyan
expanded, being in Banaras would help it wield greater influence. ‘It would add to the prestige of Banaras as well as Gita Press. Sadhus and mahatmas are easily available in Banaras and need not be invited the way it is done in Gorakhpur.’ Banaras, he said, was also ideal for research on the Gita and Ramayana. Yagik said that if the views of
Kalyan
readers were taken, a majority would be in favour of the shift and would even offer monetary help.
²⁷

Poddar did not inform Yagik about the outcome of the trustees’ meeting, neither did he reply to two of the letters sent to him. An upset Yagik alleged that Poddar was suffering from a trait common among ‘big modern men’, namely, not answering mail. Yagik said he had expected Poddar to come to Banaras from Bankura, instead news came that the press building in Gorakhpur was being expanded. ‘Why cannot you put it on hold until a decision is taken on the shift?’ he asked Poddar.
²⁸

Poddar’s reply to Yagik is not available, but going by Yagik’s next letter it seems that Poddar had expressed reluctance, saying, ‘God is not willing,’ which further infuriated Yagik.
²⁹
Apart from the financial burden that a shift would have placed on Gita Press, Poddar’s total lack of enthusiasm could have stemmed from disinterest; by 1930 he had wished to leave Gita Press.

Although the move to Banaras did not happen in his lifetime, Yagik’s dream would come partially true—it would take another six decades, but Gita Press would shift the editorial office of
Kalyan
to Banaras in 1999–2000.

 

Criticism and Controversy
As editor of
Kalyan
, Poddar would select and edit the main articles, being occasionally helped by Gosvami and later by Radheshyam Banka, another trusted aide. Poddar and Gosvami did the proofreading themselves, and would cross-check each reference with the original text and even delay publication till everything was cleared. But even such a regimen was no guarantee against mistakes.
Kalyan
learnt this the hard way with its annual number of 1935,
Yoga Ank
. An article devoted to the lives of ‘famous yogis and swamis’ described ‘Ramanand as a follower of Ramanuja who had been excommunicated for a careless commensal behaviour while on pilgrimage’.
³⁰

Avadh Kishor Das, a scholar of the Ramanandi sect, took on
Kalyan
for getting its facts wrong: ‘We have nothing whatsoever in common with the Ramanuji sampraday (cult). We disagree with them on every point . . . The editor and author of
Kalyan
should realize that jagat- guru (lord of the world) Shri Ramanandacharyaji was never a follower of the Ramanuji sampraday . . .’
³¹
Kalyan
had to accept its mistake.

Every now and then, there would be objections to claims made by contributors. Viyogi Hari, a founding member of the Hindi Vidyapith, Hindi Sahitya Sammelan activist and close confidant of freedom fighter Purushottam Das Tandon, objected to Bhakt Ramsharan Das’s style of reiterating that his article told a true story. Viyogi Hari, who had himself taken sanyas in 1921 and given up his real name Hariprasad Dwivedi (he later became an active member of the Bhoodan movement),
³²
wrote to Poddar: ‘What does it prove by writing repeatedly that it is a true story?’
³³
Viyogi Hari was a regular contributor to
Kalya
n
in its early days, having contributed thirteen articles between 1927 and 1933. Poddar would, however, regret the transformation in Viyogi Hari: ‘Don’t know if he has become an atheist. But he has definitely changed.’
³⁴

The 1935
Yoga Ank
also had an article on Dharam Das as the spiritual leader of Kabirpanthis (followers of Kabir). It was pointed out by the Kabirpanthis of the United Provinces that Dharam Das was a resident of Bandho village near Jabalpur and had two sons, Narayan Das and Chudamani Das, who were the leading disciples of the Kabir sampraday but were grihastas (householders or family men). The Kabirpanthis of the United Provinces said a disciple of the two brothers, Gopal Das, was the head of Kabir’s seat in Kashi (now Banaras). Poddar published this information and apologized for having hurt the sentiments of the Kabirpanthis.
³⁵

Kalyan
also could not escape allegations of plagiarism. An article on alchemy in the 1940
Sadhana Ank
(Issue on Meditation) by Narayan Damodar Shastri was alleged to ‘be a verbatim translation’ of certain sentences and paragraphs from a Gujarati book
Yoginikumari
, Part I, by the late Chhotalal Jivanlal, editor of
Mahakal
. The complainant wanted to know how the writer of the article and editor of
Kalyan
‘propose to rectify the said trespass of our rights at an early date’.
³⁶
In 1960, an article on Lord Krishna by Mangal Dev Shastri Aryopadesh was challenged by one Jagdish Chaturvedi as having been plagiarized from his article that had appeared in the journal
Ved Prakash
. In its defence,
Kalyan
said it had not seen the article in
Ved Prakash
, but it apologized to Chaturvedi: ‘No editor is omniscient to know if an article is original or lifted. Anyway we apologize to the original writer. It is a shameful act. We request Mangal Dev not to repeat such acts in future. He should also apologize to the writer of the original article.’
³⁷

In 1960,
Kalyan
was thirty-four years old, firmly established and immensely popular across the Hindi heartland. Writing for the journal was considered prestigious. A devious mind even exploited this success to his advantage. Gita Press started receiving letters from Delhi, Chhindwara and other places that one Balram Sharma of Indore who claimed to be an astrologer and a contributor to
Kalyan
was duping people.
Kalyan
had to clarify that their writer Balram Sharma was not Indore-based but from Rae Bareli, and appealed to its readers not to fall prey to such tricksters.
³⁸

While instances of plagiarism and misrepresentation are not uncommon in the life of a journal or publishing house, the ignominy of a sex scandal was a different matter. In late 1927, when
Kalyan
was only a year old, its father organization Gobind Bhawan would witness one of the seamiest sex scandals of the first half of the twentieth century, shaking the Marwari community across India.

A section of the fast-growing space of Hindi journals led the campaign, not only exposing the scandal but raising questions about the private world of Marwaris, of men engrossed in business and profit, and women left to the care of servants, attendants and god-men like Hiralal Goyanka (to whom Goyandka had handed over the reins of Gobind Bhawan in the early 1920s), resulting in them becoming victims of sexual predators.

The weekly
Hindu Panch
was relentless in its coverage of the issue. For weeks it raised questions about the silence of Marwari-run newspapers and journals, and the community’s attempt to put a lid on the scandal and let Goyanka go unpunished. While Poddar came out unscathed, Goyandka could not deny his association either with Gobind Bhawan or his handpicked man, Hiralal Goyanka, who had even written for
Kalyan
in the first two years in a moralistic and high-sounding tone.
Hindu Panch
equated Goyandka and Goyanka as ‘brothers’ with a ‘strange past’. Goyandka had started out as a cloth merchant in Bankura and had become an expert on the Gita, claiming divine powers as ‘god had entered him’.
³⁹
This bolstered his image among the Marwaris of Calcutta who helped in the establishment of Gobind Bhawan.
Hindu
Panch
stated that even while Goyandka was at the helm of Gobind Bhawan, rumours had begun about the place being a den of decadence, and the daily
Swatantra
had even carried some cartoons depicting this, but to no avail. When Hiralal took command and proclaimed himself an impersonation of God, more Marwari women began flocking to Gobind Bhawan, attending his lectures and showering him with the love reserved for gods. This included eating food left over by Hiralal, and drinking the water in which they had washed his feet.