Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India (9 page)

Poddar—who had consciously distanced himself from the Congress party since the Ahmedabad Congress of 1921—was now openly working with the Hindu Mahasabha. He was among the key organizers of the Mahasabha’s annual convention in Gorakhpur in 1946.
⁶²
This, coupled with
Kalya
n
’s virulent attack on Gandhi, was to cause Poddar considerable trouble five months after Independence. Gandhi’s assassination on 30 January 1948 in Delhi’s Birla House by Nathuram Godse and others associated with the Hindu Mahasabha and RSS, resulted in the arrest of more than 25,000 people throughout the country—among them Poddar and his mentor Jaydayal Goyandka. G.D. Birla refused to help the two, and even protested when Sir Badridas Goenka took up their case. For Birla, the two were not propagating sanatan dharma but shaitan (evil) dharma.
⁶³

Strangely, the rich private archives in Gorakhpur contain no reference to Gandhi’s assassination. Even the series of monographs and laudatory biographies of Poddar ignore the event completely. The only reference to Gandhi’s assassination comes in an unpublished manuscript of Poddar’s biography. It says Poddar was in Delhi on 30 January 1948 when the assassination took place. The manuscript squarely blames Mahavir Prasad Poddar, a former manager of Gita Press and close aide of Hanuman Prasad and Goyandka, for spreading suspicion against the two for alleged involvement in Gandhi’s killing. ‘Due to various reasons Mahavir Prasad is spreading the malicious rumour that Bhaiji (Hanuman Prasad Poddar), Gita Press and
Kalyan
are responsible for (the) assassination. For the past few months he has been writing to many Congress leaders.’
⁶⁴
According to the manuscript, Hanuman Prasad was troubled for a few months but travelled fearlessly to Lucknow, Allahabad, Calcutta, Delhi, Ratangarh and other places. The district magistrate of Gorakhpur alerted Poddar not to return to the city for some time as an arrest warrant might be issued against him. The revealing aspect of the manuscript is its muted tone in reference to ‘the unfortunate incident’. Since Gambhirchand Dujari, the chronicler of Hanuman Prasad’s life, was not in Gorakhpur in 1948, his biography does not provide any illumination either.

Gita Press maintained a studied silence on the Mahatma’s assassination. The man whose blessing and writings were once so important for
Kalyan
did not find a single mention in its pages until April 1948 when Poddar wrote about his various encounters with Gandhi. Excerpts from his writings would later return to the pages of the journal, but the significant question remains unanswered: Why was there no mention of Gandhi in the February and March 1948 issues of
Kalyan
?

The CID Archives partly answer this question. Poddar was actively involved in defending the RSS that had been banned on 4 February 1948 for its alleged role in Gandhi’s assassination. On 15 July 1949—four days after the Nehru government lifted the ban on the RSS—Poddar attended a public meeting at Gorakhpur with Atal Bihari Vajpayee, then editor of RSS weekly
Panchjanya
. Vajpayee criticized the ‘government and Congressmen for having allegedly blundered in banning the RSS, the only organization which could really do something for Hindus’.
⁶⁵
He added that the government ‘did not deserve thanks for having lifted the ban as it had taken them one and half years to correct their mistake’. Poddar, the CID report said, also ‘delivered a short speech on similar lines’.

Poddar’s association with the RSS was not limited to attending this public meeting with Vajpayee. After Golwalkar was released from jail in 1949 and toured important towns of the United Provinces, Poddar presided over a function to welcome him at Banaras. In his speech delivered in fluent Hindi—the CID claimed 30,000 people came to hear the RSS chief at the Town Hall—Golwalkar emphasized the revival of ancient Hindu culture, consolidation of India and the adoption of Hindi as the state language. Golwalkar’s speech went on even as ‘processions sponsored by Socialists and supported by Communists were taken out with slogans such as
Golwalkar laut jao
and
Bapu Ke
Hattiara Sangh
(Golwalkar, go back; RSS, the killer of Bapu). Golwalkar was shown black flags and some hundred protestors were arrested.’
⁶⁶

 

Advisor to the Rich and Powerful
Even after moving to Gorakhpur, Poddar remained connected to the politics of the Marwari Aggarwal Mahasabha, though he did not play any direct role. In 1928 he was invited to preside over its tenth annual meeting in Bombay. The battle between the reformists and revivalists that Poddar had witnessed in the 1926 session of the Mahasabha had now turned intense and ugly. Poddar agreed to preside over the proceedings only if the two groups came to some understanding. However, even as he was about to reach Bombay, there was a tussle between them. Finally, he refused to preside over the meeting and passed the baton to his friend Ranglal Jajodia. To quell speculation, Poddar issued a statement clarifying his reasons, which was carried by
Aggarwa
l Samachar
and other newspapers.
⁶⁷

Poddar did, however, address the gathering. In an exhaustive speech he made it clear that he himself was on the side of the revivalists or sanatanis. The speech is remarkable as it encapsulates his sanatani vision for Hindu society and is a ready reckoner of the moral universe that Gita Press was proposing to create. From culture, society, Western influence and education, to women and the domestic sphere, rituals and clothing—Poddar left no aspect untouched.
⁶⁸

Close as he was to most leading Marwari business families of the time, Poddar’s relationship with the Dalmias transcended all. Originally from Rohtak, Ram Krishna Dalmia, the enfant terrible of Marwari business world, was the ultimate success story in the early decades of the twentieth century. Starting as a trader, Dalmia’s first flush of wealth came from his speculative trade that was later invested in an industrial conglomerate with interests in sugar and cement. Poddar and Dalmia, who was seven months younger, met in Calcutta, became intimate friends in Bombay and remained so throughout their lives. Poddar would often say he was connected with Dalmia from a previous birth. Dalmia had also introduced his younger brother Jaidayal to Poddar in Bombay, where the three lived together. When Jaidayal woke up in the middle of the night, he would find Poddar absorbed in some religious text.
⁶⁹
As Ram Krishna Dalmia later wrote, Poddar was like a third brother who even confided in him that there had been an educated Bengali girl who had grown fond of him when he was in confinement after the Rodda Conspiracy. According to R.K. Dalmia, the girl even waited for the already married Poddar for a few years, but could not be traced later.
⁷⁰
And while the Poddar Papers and hagiographies on him only talk of Poddar’s benevolent nature, Dalmia’s account indicates that it was he who often helped Poddar. When the latter left Bombay for Gorakhpur to edit
Kalyan
, Dalmia set up a trust with a corpus of Rs 10,000 to take care of the expenditure Poddar and his family would have to incur. On a later occasion, Poddar would ask the Dalmia brothers to settle his debts in Bombay and Calcutta.
⁷¹

According to Jaidayal Dalmia, Poddar was the ‘guardian of the Dalmia family’ whose opinion carried immense weight even in mundane matters. Be it Ram Krishna Dalmia’s insatiable sexual appetite, his eldest daughter Rama’s education or the appointment of a private secretary, Poddar advised the family in all matters.
⁷²

Rama was given modern education and was well versed in Hindi, Sanskrit and English. At a time when even girls of affluent families rarely stepped out without an escort, Rama could cycle, swim, drive a car and ride a horse. This became a problem when in the 1930s Dalmia tried to find a suitable match for her. Poddar wrote to inquire about the matter, and advised: ‘Rama is yet to get married. What happened to family from Ferozepur? I think it is not proper to keep the girl unmarried till now. If you come down a bit, marriage will be possible.’
⁷³
An advertisement was placed in the newspaper, seeking marriage proposals to be sent to a particular box number. Many proposals came but none was from a good Marwari family. Eventually, a proposal from Shanti Prasad Jain of Najibabad in the United Provinces was accepted.
⁷⁴
In later years, the Jain family became owners of
The Times of India
, incidentally one of the earliest newspapers to understand the potential of matrimonial advertisements as a huge source of revenue.

So close was Poddar to the Dalmias, when a man came to their Danapur factory (near Patna) for help after having killed a senior British police officer in Calcutta, he was promptly sent to Poddar in Gorakhpur. The man was given refuge alternately in Gita Press and Gita Vatika.
⁷⁵

In 1939, Dalmia Cement, part of R.K. Dalmia’s Rohtas group of industries, was caught in a bitter price war with Associated Cement Companies (ACC), a single-product company.
⁷⁶
Dalmia Cement could sell at below production cost, a business ploy that ACC could not afford. Poddar, who would often spend time in Dalmia’s Dadri unit (in present-day Haryana), was in favour of his coming to terms with ACC as the price war would force the government to intervene. Realizing that the individualistic Dalmia could not be easily convinced, Poddar wrote to an ailing Jamnalal Bajaj requesting him to intervene, saying that if the ‘two come together it would be beneficial to both’.
⁷⁷
Less than a month later, once again Poddar requested Bajaj to intervene, reiterating his earlier ‘mutually beneficial’ argument but also emphasizing that Dalmia Cement was a ‘Marwari enterprise’ so ‘you should see it from this perspective so that it grows well’.
⁷⁸
Bajaj’s refusal resulted, as expected, in government intervention in 1941, when Dalmia Cement and ACC had to sign an agreement that the two would sell cement through the Cement Marketing Company of India on the ‘basis of fixed quota and fixed price’.
⁷⁹

Ram Krishna Dalmia’s life was eventful. He would marry six times, fathering eighteen children, at times almost simultaneously, from five of his wives. A regular at Poddar’s spiritual discourses in Bombay, Dalmia had once nearly given up everything to take up the life of a mendicant, only to be overcome by lust again. After 1947, a failing business empire—for which Dalmia blamed Nehru
⁸⁰
—and increasing family burdens would see the maverick industrialist turn to Poddar for solace and guidance. He, in turn, considered it a personal misfortune that Dalmia led a life that
Kalyan
would have called debauched and a diversion from the tenets of sanatan Hindu dharma. The partially published manuscript of his life shows that while he regretted Dalmia’s path of lust, he saw it as divinely ordained. ‘It is due to God’s wish that his hidden lust is on open display. It will get reversed and he will soon be back at the feet of God. He still has qualities that could impress any neutral person,’ Poddar would tell his biographer Gambhirchand Dujari. Poddar was not willing to give up on Dalmia who had in the past provided financial help to whomsoever he had recommended. His younger brother Jaidayal Dalmia too was totally involved with Gita Press.

Grappling with internecine jealousies and intrigues among his various wives, Dalmia would tell Poddar how in the midst of the financial crisis his youngest wife Dineshnandini was ‘troubling me so much not even an enemy would dare’. Dalmia alleged Dineshnandini had stolen Rs 8,000–10,000 that she was refusing to return. ‘I am tolerating her in silence and atoning for my sins.’
⁸¹
A few months later he would repeat the charge against Dineshnandini: ‘If she is criticizing me in front of others, she is accumulating sin.’
⁸²
This was the same Dineshnandini Choradiya who, as a liberal feminist poet known for her long verse, used to adorn the pages of prestigious literary journal
Chand
. Her
Shabnam
, published with a foreword by critic-poet Ramkumar Varma, received rave reviews and the prestigious Sekhsaria Award in 1937. But literature would take a back seat after her entry into the Dalmia household, where mutual suspicion, intrigue and one-upmanship reigned.

At times even trivial personal issues would be put before Poddar for intervention. Jaidayal Dalmia, who was involved in the family business as well as the running of Gita Press, would ask Poddar to counsel his son Vishnu Hari against hiring women ‘steno-secretaries’ in the offices of Dalmia companies. Vishnu Hari would later become head of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and a front-line leader in the Ayodhya movement that resulted in the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992.
⁸³

Nothing revealed Poddar’s importance as the ‘guardian’ of the Dalmia family more than the Report of the Commission of Inquiry (Inquiry on the Administration of Dalmia–Jain Companies) that came out in 1963. The commission had been set up on 11 December 1956, headed by Vivian Bose, to ‘inquire into and report on the administration of nine companies,
⁸⁴
the nature and extent of the control direct and indirect exercised over such companies and firms or any of them by Ram Krishna Dalmia, Jaidayal Dalmia, Shanti Prasad Jain, Shriyans Prasad Jain, their relatives, employees and persons concerned with them’.
⁸⁵
The delay in finalization of the report was due to court cases filed by the Dalmia–Jain group.
⁸⁶

The commission found that the ‘funds of public limited companies, banks and insurance companies were improperly used for buying shares of other companies with large accumulated resources and substantial liquid resources in order to obtain control over them’. The commission also found that it was always the public companies that suffered, and the investing public along with them. Companies in which the public had bought shares ‘were made to give loans and advances without security and at low rates of interest to companies in which the Group, or Ram Krishna Dalmia, were interested to the advantage of the latter and detriment of the former’. Large advances were even made to Dalmia personally.