Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India (37 page)

Malaviya exhorted the ‘majority Hindus’ to adopt a militant outlook: ‘Those who do not let Hindus live in peace do not deserve any compassion. If this is the call of religion it should be evident. Hindus should help each other. Hindus do not want their religion to die nor do they want their culture to fade away. If Hindus do not protect themselves they will die.’

Malaviya blamed scores of Muslim leaders for their inflammatory speeches and writings. Many Muslim League leaders like Ghazanfar Ali Khan and others, he said, had challenged Hindus through their wild and irresponsible articles. He pointed out how not a single Muslim League leader had criticized the incidents in Bengal. Malaviya’s ultimate message was for Hindus to unite not only for their religion and culture but also in the name of India, their motherland. The message to Muslims was: ‘As in the past, Muslims can live peacefully together with Hindus only if they respect Hindu religion and promise not to attack their places of worship, ensure religious freedom, purity of life and chastity of women.’

Malaviya’s statement paled beside that of Swami Karpatri Maharaj, who would in 1948 found the Ram Rajya Parishad, one of India’s most obscurantist
³⁶
political parties that finally merged with the Jana Sangh. Karpatri’s piece in
Malaviya Ank
was a diatribe against the political class for turning the masses away from traditional solutions. He more forcefully condemned Hindu inaction: ‘It seems our blood has stopped boiling. How come the descendents of Aryans are tolerating torture and injustice? Our religion, civilization and culture are under attack. Attempts are being made to turn us irreligious and foreigners in our own country.’
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Poddar contributed further to these calls for action. Though a firm believer that sanatan Hindu dharma would never die, Poddar felt it had to undergo many agni parikshas (trials by fire) for survival. He contrasted the lack of unity among Hindus with the single-minded force of Islam. He wondered why the Congress with 99 per cent Hindu membership chose to call itself a nationalist rather than a Hindu organization. What further infuriated him was the Congress attempt to undercut the Hindu Mahasabha, with its public promises to abolish the zamindari system, nationalize private enterprises and end all forms of caste discrimination including untouchability, rules of marriage and inter-dining. Such promises, according to Poddar, had fractured Hindu unity. English education was also to blame for fostering the spirit of individualism.

According to Poddar, the creation of the Adi Hindu Mahasabha in 1927 had been the handiwork of politicians interested in highlighting tensions within the Hindu world.
³⁸
What must have particularly irked him was the Adi Hindu Mahasabha’s open defiance of the sanatan Hindu dharma model of social evolution—it claimed ‘achhuts (untouchables) were the original inhabitants of India’, ‘rejected Hindu social reforms’ and ‘demanded separate electorates for dalits’.
³⁹
Jinnah, Poddar argued, preyed on such divisions; Jogendra Nath Mandal, a Dalit leader from Bengal, had joined the Muslim League (he later became the first law and labour minister of Pakistan). Such instances of the ‘lure of money and power’ were creating bitterness and divisions among the Hindus.

Before Malaviya’s death, Bihar had seen unprecedented violence against Muslims. In the first riot in Muzaffarpur, fourteen Muslims were killed and there were reports that ‘roving Hindu mobs have sought to exterminate the Muslim population’
.
⁴⁰
The
Malaviya Ank
justified the violence as an act of reprisal for what Hindus had undergone in Bengal.
⁴¹
Though admitting that the Hindus of Bihar had ‘gone mad’, Poddar discovered virtues in the violence perpetrated by them. ‘In Bihar there were no instances of rape, forcible marriage, kidnapping of women and conversion. What took place were murders, loot and arson. It was nothing compared to the atrocities in East Bengal, yet it was a sign of moral decay.’ Poddar descended into his signature ambivalence, lamenting the Hindu behaviour at one moment, justifying it at another. He evaluated the reaction of politicians that he claimed differed in the two cases—Governor Burrows and the Muslim League government having meticulously planned the violence in Bengal, while in Bihar the government swung into action immediately to stop the killing and national leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru, Rajendra Prasad, Jayaprakash Narayan and Muslim League leaders visited the sites of violence. ‘Nehru and Rajendra Prasad told the Hindus they would have to attack them first before killing the Muslims. These great leaders cannot be expected to say the same thing to Mian Jinnah. But they should have issued similar warnings in East Bengal.’

To quell the violence in Bihar, Poddar alleged, the government had deployed British and Muslim army personnel who indulged in brutal repression. He cited Hindu Mahasabha leader Jagat Narayan Lal (who incidentally joined the Congress and became a minister in the first Bihar government after Independence) as reported in the newspaper
Sanmarg
, started by Karpatri Maharaj. Lal described the firing in Nausa (now part of Vaishali district) in which allegedly old men, women and even bedridden people were shot. Lal equated the incident to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre of 1919 in Amritsar.

Poddar criticized Gandhi for his decision to visit Noakhali ‘to wipe the Hindu tears’, saying that the same Muslim League leaders who had hatched the conspiracy against the Hindus would accompany him. Saying that the company one keeps colours one’s views, Poddar alleged this was the case with Gandhi: ‘He is not opposing Suhrawardy’s government openly. Instead, he is supporting the proposal for a peace committee that would include Suhrawardy. He (Gandhi) might even promise to get some prominent Hindus in the committee. But would that help Hindus forget the trauma of violence? As for the threat of the army, what will government do if 30 crore Hindus decide to face the army’s bullets?’

Syama Prasad Mookerjee also criticized Gandhi in the
Malaviya
Ank
, saying his idea of fasting could further complicate the situation instead of offering any solution. He said Jinnah should learn a lesson from Bihar: ‘He should know wrong actions by Muslims in one part of the country could lead to retaliation in another part. If he understands this he will be able to free himself from British imperialism and work for cordial relations between the two communities.’
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For Poddar, the larger threat was of pan-Islamism; the demand for Pakistan, he believed, was part of an international movement. He referred to a proposal by Jinnah to hold a meeting in India of representatives from Muslim countries like Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Lebanon. ‘Jinnah says (India’s) Muslims have a lot in common with these countries and they would discuss issues of mutual interest like culture and ideology.’
⁴³
Poddar also cited works of Chaudhary Rahmat Ali, one of the earliest proponents of Pakistan, to illustrate the futility of efforts to create brotherhood between the two communities, contradicting his token call for Hindu–Muslim amity in the same issue.

One of the most burning issues was that of missing Hindu women.
Malaviya Ank
claimed that 10,000 abducted Hindu women of Bengal had been saved while 20,000 were still in Muslim homes. The task of locating these women, Poddar said, was difficult as most of them were clad in burqas; however, educated women in Bengal were working to find them and Syama Prasad Mookerjee was hopeful of success in this endeavour. Women were advised to seek the help of government officials, ‘otherwise it would be difficult to achieve any success in areas that have already become Pakistan’
.
⁴⁴
If given police security,
Malaviya Ank
said, female swayamsevaks (RSS volunteers) could locate Hindu women among those wearing burqas.

The issue also carried letters from two Hindu women, called Hindu Deviyan (Hindu Goddesses) by
Kalyan
for having suffered and come out of the harrowing time in Noakhali.
⁴⁵
A self-righteous and tokenistic editorial comment prefixed to the letters told readers not to get provoked to take revenge, but instead to work towards Hindu–Muslim amity so that the two communities could coexist in peace.

The first letter by Amar Behen (immortal sister) reminded women that they had the responsibility to make men brave and prescribed a sixfold path to serve Hindu samaj (society). First, they must convince the men in their family that Hindu women were in danger. Men should help with ‘tan’ (body, but in this context strength) and ‘dhan’ (wealth), otherwise women would be robbed of their ‘dhan’, i.e., virtue. Women were told to encourage men not to fear riots but be prepared to face them bravely. Besides, a woman should be able to protect her own satitva (virtue). If that was not possible, a woman should not succumb to a mlechchha (non-Aryan/barbarian/Muslim man)—‘In such a situation it is better to take one’s own life or ask men in the family to do it.’ Women were advised not to wear make-up or venture out unaccompanied by a male member of the family. Finally, while accepting gifts from near and dear ones, women should ask for cash instead of valuables, as cash would help in building a corpus for social welfare in times of distress.

The second letter, ‘
Banga Kanya Ki Marmasparshi
Appeal’ (A Touching Appeal from a Bengali Girl) was a first-person account of a woman from Noakhali who had been raped. ‘My virtue has been destroyed by wicked men who could not be controlled. I wanted them to take my life but they took my dharma (religion, but in this context, purpose in life), my izzat (honour), my entire being. My husband and father were killed right in front of me; my children were not spared either. I was raped in front of them, my father, father-in-law and sons.’

Making a fervent appeal to saints like Shankaracharya, she lamented their absence in her hour of distress and asked what had happened to their sense of dharma (duty). Next she berated men of all castes, asking how their blood did not boil on hearing of their sister’s travails. She also called on the Sikhs (known for their bravery yet having failed her), Madan Mohan Malaviya (who, she thought, presumably died on hearing about her state), and then the students of his Banaras Hindu University who did nothing to help a woman like her. She reserved the worst for Gandhi, accusing him of having a heart harder than a flint. ‘I have faced this in your lifetime. You have seen the condition of Bengal. Are you not ashamed of imparting the lesson of peace at a wrong time? Are you not afraid of God to talk of peace and aligning with ruthless people who did the worst things to helpless women? Is it not a cruel ridicule?’ Nehru, Patel, Subhash Chandra Bose, Aurobindo Ghose, followers of Rama and Hanuman were not spared either for their inertia. The beleaguered woman branded Hindu men ‘impotent’ and appealed to Hindu women to come together and forget their dependence on men.

This letter of appeal is a vivid example of collaboration between the Hindu Mahasabha, Gita Press and some other publishing houses that espoused the cause of Hindu nationalism. The United Provinces government was immediately alerted to this appeal in the
Malaviya
Ank
, and the Criminal Investigation Department discovered the same account in a leaflet ‘published and printed at Allahabad by the mantri (secretary), Hindu Mahasabha, Prayag’ that was distributed on 13 December 1946. The CID’s weekly report on political activities said the leaflet ‘appeals to Hindus and especially to Hindu women to counter the Muslim tyranny with the sword’
.
⁴⁶

F.R. Stockwell of the CID, Special Branch, sent a copy of the special issue of
Kalyan
to Rajeshwar Dayal, home secretary of the United Provinces, and recommended that it be proscribed. He specifically told Dayal, ‘
Kalya
n
has a very wide circulation in India and the effect of the article mentioned may be extremely bad.’
⁴⁷

Within a day of receiving Stockwell’s letter, Rajeshwar Dayal issued an order. While agreeing that the effect of the ‘appeal must no doubt have been unfortunate’, he said it would be ‘profitless to take any action in respect of the October number which is already in circulation’, and it would ‘suffice if the DM (district magistrate, Gorakhpur) were to warn the editor against the future publication of incitory matter such as the appeal’
.
⁴⁸
Dayal himself wrote to the district magistrate on this matter.
⁴⁹

In the period between Dayal’s order and its execution, the CID, Special Branch reported that ‘copies of a highly provocative leaflet entitled
Banga Kanya Ki Marmasparshi Appeal
printed at Kailash Press, Allahabad’ were in circulation. The leaflet consisted of extracts from the
Kalyan
letter. The CID said that after a search of Kailash Press 4,000 copies of the leaflet had been taken into police possession. It was discovered that Vishwanath, a local Hindu Mahasabha leader, was responsible for its publication and that similar leaflets had also been printed in the Central Press, Allahabad.
⁵⁰

Stockwell wrote again to Dayal suggesting that the particular issue of
Kalyan
‘be now proscribed and that the printer and publisher be either prosecuted, or called upon to deposit security as a guarantee that they will not publish any further such communally objectionable article’
.
Stockwell was of the opinion that the ban would ‘have a good effect in preventing further publications of this type, as printers and publishers would know that they cannot turn out with impunity communally objectionable matter’
.
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Even as the United Provinces’ home department was deliberating, Dayal received a letter from his counterpart G.C. Drewe of the Bombay government saying that the ‘Appeal’ had been published in the 13 December 1946 issue of the
Mahratta
of Poona. Drewe informed Dayal that the Bombay government proposed to take action against the
Mahratt
a
under the Indian Press (Emergency Powers) Act, 1931, and wanted to know whether the UP government had taken, or was considering, any action against
Kalyan
.
⁵²