Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India (43 page)

Gita Press had hoped that Madhya Pradesh chief minister Ravi Shankar Shukla would take action, but his untimely death led the press to take up cudgels on behalf of orthodox Hindus to work in tribal regions and check conversions to Christianity. Brahmachari highlighted the work done by Kalyan Ashram, run by Gita Press, especially its efforts to convince those who had already converted to return to their original faith. Gita Press provided 100 copies of the Ramayana with commentary to be distributed among adivasis.

Brahmachari, who travelled more than 1,000 kilometres within tribal India, reported how thousands of adivasis thronged to his discourses.
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According to him, ‘. . . vanvasi bandhu (forest-dwelling brothers) might have become Christian due to their greed but they have the same love for their country’
.
He was confident that dedicated work among them would lead to their returning to Hinduism in droves. He gave instances of adivasis having taken to the Ramayana in a big way—at one place he found night-long recitations of the text taking place along with the construction of a temple, meeting hall and a room for religious discourse.

Ramayana mandalis were formed in tribal regions. Bhimsen, an RSS swayamsevak working in Jashpur, wrote that the inspiration for mandalis came from Golwalkar, who attended a meeting of these mandalis held in 1963 by Kalyan Ashram. But the initiative had major backing from Gita Press that ensured free supplies of Ramayana and other religious texts to these groups.

 

Special Issue on Hindu Culture
The publication of good-quality religious texts at low prices was set out as the primary task of Gita Press, but it was not enough. It was backed by an extraordinary zeal to provide for the masses, especially women and children, lessons on sanatan Hindu dharma—bhakti, rituals, morality, conduct in public as well as private, and necessary self-defence and retaliation against threats from the Muslims on the one hand and from the secular government on the other. Gita Press articulated these lessons in
Kalyan
and other publications from time to time but a comprehensive ready reckoner on Hinduism was missing. This was published in 1950 in the
Hindu Sanskriti Ank
of
Kalyan
, an 800-page issue on Hindu culture, leaving no aspect out of its purview. Still in print, the
Hindu Sanskriti Ank
has gone through seven print runs and sold 147,200 copies so far.

The striking feature of the
Hindu Sanskriti Ank
, henceforth
HSA
, was its sweep in terms of contributors as well as themes. From the Shankaracharyas, right-wing political leaders of the Hindu Mahasabha like sadhu-politician Mahant Digvijaynath and Chandkaran Sharda, RSS chief M.S. Golwalkar and politician-sadhus like Swami Karpatri Maharaj, to Gandhians like Vinoba Bhave and Hindi writers like Ayodhya Singh Upadhyay ‘Harioudh’ and Sumitranandan Pant, the pages of
HSA
had an eclectic mix of voices. However, all the writings, even if notionally different, had the twin purpose of establishing the supremacy of sanatan Hindu dharma and shedding light on its glorious history. This was sought to be achieved through emphasis on the comprehensive nature of Hindu culture with its long tradition of education, philosophy, medicine, architecture, science, music, language and literature, besides its numerous religious texts and ritual practices. Many of these articles had political and communal overtones.

Settling the foremost question of Hindu identity, Swami Brahmananda Saraswati stated that anyone who believed in religious texts like the Vedas and followed the principles of varnashram dharma would be considered a Hindu.
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The fourfold varna system and the four stages of Hindu life—brahmacharya (student life), garhasthya (householding), vanaprastha (retirement to forest) and sanyasa (renunciation)—were the foundation on which Hindu identity was constructed. The Swami, unfazed by the establishment of the new secular republic, called on the rulers of independent India to follow Hindu culture in their administration of the country since Hindustan was the nation of Hindus. Non-Hindu citizens were welcome as long as they chose to ‘live like guests’. The government was warned not to interfere in religious and social matters, to desist from making laws that would blur caste lines and allow untouchables to enter temples. ‘Attempts to forge equality are destined to fail. In the past Buddhist rulers like Ashoka and Kanishka tried to force equality but it had an adverse impact on the society.’ However, a law banning slaughter of cows was demanded immediately.

Rabble-rouser Swami Karpatri was impatient with the new narrative of composite ‘Hindustani’ culture that talked of peaceful coexistence of Hindus and Muslims.
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For Karpatri this was a khichri culture. ‘Whenever any aspect of Indian culture came under foreign influence it became inactive. This can be seen in the case of Indian philosophy, art and literature . . . I can understand Hindu castes, culture, religion, Vedas, temples and Rama-Krishna; I can also understand Quran, Masjid, Islam, Arabic-Urdu . . . it is impossible to believe in such an artificial culture and its artificial basis.’

Sri Bharat Dharma Mahamandal, the all-India representative association of orthodox Hindus,
¹³⁴
expanded on the definition of Hindu by specifying elaborate rules and rituals a Hindu ought to follow. It also listed sixteen basic principles of Hindu religion, calling them sixteen art forms.
¹³⁵

Mahant Digvijaynath, head of the Nathpanthis headquartered in Gorakhpur and a prominent leader of the Hindu Mahasabha, negated the view of Hindutva as communalism. ‘This has become a popular slogan of our times. But I can say with total force there can be no slogan more incoherent and misleading than this. Hindutva and communalism are as far apart as heaven and earth.’
¹³⁶
Citing the Hindu Mahasabha’s definition of a Hindu—one who lives in the region from the Sindhu river to Kanyakumari—Digvijaynath said there could not be a more non-communal definition. In the next breath the militant Hindu in him emerged: ‘A Hindu is one who considers India his pitribhumi (fatherland) and punyabhumi (holy land). Anyone who considers this land his pitribhumi and punyabhumi will never become a traitor.’ Digvijaynath explained punyabhumi as a place where an individual went on pilgrimage and where holy men of his faith were born. Discarding any semblance of tolerance he had displayed so far, Digvijaynath contended that the heart of an Indian citizen should always be filled with a prayer to be born here again and again, and not with a prayer for a call to Medina. ‘A British or a Muslim might consider Bharatbhumi as his pitribhumi but he would not be called Hindu until he considers Indian places of pilgrimage as his own. He would have to forget the memory of Mecca or Palestine and become pure Indian.’ Digvijaynath asked readers to imagine a war between India and Mecca, when Muslims who did not consider India their punyabhumi would side with Mecca. In his vision of Hindutva, the implied meaning was clear: ‘The minorities must accept the leadership and protection of the majority.’

There was also an attempt to expand the Hindu base by bringing under its umbrella religions like Buddhism and Jainism, despite the fact that the two religions openly opposed sanatan Hindu dharma, its caste system and elaborate rituals. It was often argued that Buddhism and Jainism were ‘Hindu’ because they ‘originated in India out of debates and critiques that are internal to Hinduism’
.
¹³⁷
Digvijaynath designated various sects holding opposing views as Hindu: the Veda-baiter Charvak was Hindu as was Vyasa, the supreme believer in Vedas; Shaktas who believed in violence were Hindus and so were the Buddhists and Jains who followed the ideology of non-violence.
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In the ultimate analysis, Hinduism for Digvijaynath was like an ocean in which many rivers merged. ‘Hinduism is the name of a big nation and not some communal ideology. Hinduism is an ideal Indian national socialism. Hinduism is not communalism but nationalism of a kind that has no parallel in the world. Bharat will cease to exist if Hindutva is threatened.’

Kunwar Chandkaran Sharda, another prominent Hindu Mahasabha leader, filled the gap that Digvijaynath had left in his narrative of Hinduism-communalism. Sharda focused on the definition of Hindu culture, a culture in which ‘all citizens believe in God, treat each other as brothers, practise non-discrimination and where Ram rajya, i.e., a state of peace, love, simplicity and understanding, exists’
.
¹³⁹
But that definition was not good enough until it was counterposed with Muslim culture. A comparison had to be drawn between Rama’s sacrifice of power and his younger brother Bharata’s reluctance to rule in his place, and the Muslim emperor Aurangzeb who killed his brothers and imprisoned his father for the throne. ‘We do not want a culture whose fundamental principle is to kill people of other faiths, destroy their places of worship, burn their holy texts and keep men and women as captives.’

Sharda glorified the Hindu tradition of sacrifice demonstrated by ‘14,000 Rajasthani women who leapt into fire in Chittor fort to save their honour from infidels’, by Guru Gobind Singh’s sacrifice of his children, and the hard times faced by Shivaji, Rana Pratap, Durga Das Rathore and others in defence of Hindu culture. In his endeavour to establish the supremacy of Hindu culture, Sharda argued that the Muslims, despite conquering major parts of Asia, Africa and southern Europe, could not truly conquer India. Mughal power reached its zenith under Akbar because he decided to rule according to Hindu principles and in cooperation with Hindu rulers. In Sharda’s tale, the decline of the Mughal Empire set in when the successors of Akbar adopted a hostile attitude towards their erstwhile Hindu allies. Sharda’s account highlighted the triumph of Hindu culture and civilization despite going through ‘1,100 years of lawlessness, aggression, massacres and loot’
.

In contrast to these flawed narratives, Golwalkar wrote a cogently argued and complex article on what constitutes Hindu sanskriti (Hindu culture).
¹⁴⁰
He emphasized the impossibility of fulfilling all human needs, and the importance of transforming oneself from ‘I’ to ‘We’ so that societal needs replaced individual ambitions. Golwalkar pointed out the limitations of state power and how uncontrolled power instead of providing the joy of independence could result in slavery and sorrow. ‘In Hindu culture there is a concept of selfless great men who were above power. Such individuals had the freedom to point out injustice and the courage to bring about change.’

Expounding on the dialectics of power, Golwalkar argued that Hindu culture made a distinction between political power and creation of wealth. ‘Wealth is power, so is control of state. The two can be intoxicating and give rise to injustice. One can imagine what control of state power and means of production can do. But if control of the two gets into one hand, society will suffer. It would be natural that such a society would refuse to suffer in silence and would revolt. In Hindu culture, society is constituted after considering factors that would give birth to mutual cooperation, mutual dependence and fraternity.’

An attempt was also made to explain the Hindu concept of independence not merely as freedom from foreign rule, but also in terms of independence of mind, body and spirit. Contributing his bit to the history project of Hindu nationalists, Justice Jivji traced Hinduism to Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa.
¹⁴¹
Questioning the new wave of modernity brought by science, he said discarding one’s own culture to accept the Western-influenced Hindu Code Bill and depending on the West for technology and food grains was not the Hindu idea of independence. ‘Independence is constituted by individual freedom and national freedom. Hindu culture retained its freedom even when it was colonized.’ This freedom faced its first threat when Lord Macaulay brought English education to India; modern education, Jivji maintained, spawned a new culture of consumption, giving rise to massive imports of tea, cigar, biscuits, condensed milk and a whole host of products at a crippling cost. For Jivji, independence essentially meant protection of Hindu culture. Muslim culture, he argued, did not have much to offer to the world. Jivji feared that the British would rejoice in the destruction of Hindu culture that was taking place after Independence.

In a similar vein, noted Hindi writer Kishori Das Vajpayee wrote on Hindu culture and nationalism being one. Though his formulation was less strident than Digvijaynath’s, Vajpayee agreed that Hindu culture meant Indian culture and subsumed other religious groups. He argued that secularism should not mean the country became neutral to culture.
¹⁴²

Jugal Kishore Birla, the eldest of the Birla brothers, wrote about the threat to Hindu culture in independent India. Presenting a grand sweep of his version of history, Birla concluded that Europe, Iran, Afghanistan and Baluchistan were all part of the Aryan culture but people considered themselves different since they practised different religions. ‘Culture can survive only if religion is defended. Only then the nation will prosper.’
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What was worrying Birla was the resistance to sanatan Hindu dharma by organizations demanding equality. He criticized reformist women who attended public meetings, calling them kulta (promiscuous) and patit (fallen), saying they had harmed the great tradition of Sita, Savitri and Padmini. Co-education and lack of moral education to children, he wrote, had resulted in students suffering from physical and mental illnesses. ‘The campaign for social equality is giving rise to differences. The demand for equality has reached a stage where the categorization of male and female is also being questioned. If the situation does not improve Indian society and culture is on the verge of total destruction.’

One of the conservatives within the Congress, Sampurnanand was education minister of the United Provinces when he wrote for
HSA
.
¹⁴⁴
Limited by the fact that he was a full-time politician and could not afford to strike a strident Hindu nationalist note, Sampurnanand moderated his views to the extent of saying Indian culture was a composite one. But at the same time, he said, ‘The threads of this tapestry have come from various places but the design is of Hindu culture.’ He glorified Hindu tolerance, unlike other religions that, he said, believed in the destruction of religious places. ‘The tolerance shown by Hindus towards other religions is unprecedented.’