It is a wonder that no one really noticed Gita Press, which was everywhere in the Hindi heartland, until journalist Akshaya Mukul decided to join the dots.
For a press which has sold 200 million copies of Upanishads, Puranas, Bhagvat Gita, and other texts, and which still runs the journal ‘Kalyan’ with a circulation of 2 lakhs, their profile has been low, almost invisible. Mukul’s book ‘Gita Press and the making of Hindu India’ brings out the larger agenda behind the Gorakhpur-based press.
“If you are growing up in northern India, you will definitely grow up seeing their work. Their books were cheap, but well-produced. But it was not talked about anywhere. I was interested in knowing how a publishing house survived 90 years,” says Mukul, in an interview to The Hindu ahead of the Kovalam Literary Festival. He pored over papers, communications and the early issues of Kalyan and realised that it was more than just aimed at disseminating religious texts. “From the early days itself, they were working closely with all the right-wing organisations including the Hindu Mahasabha, RSS, Jan Sangh, and later the BJP. When you read through those issues, you realise that it is a political project. In 1926, they wrote about the Hindu-Muslim question. By 1940s, they became really rabid and started attacking Muslims. In an issue in 1947, they produced a problematic template of independent India, where they talk about a Hindu India without any Muslims. The annual resolution of the Hindu Mahasbha that year had the same ideas,” says Mukul.
The shrill conversations around beef eating that we hear now had found its place in Gita Press publications as early as 1926.
“Cow protection has been all along a big thing for them. They have brought out special issues against beef eating. Poddar, the publishers, were also supporting the anti cow-slaughter agitation of the sadhus in 1966 in Parliament. When the Constituent Assembly was debating the Hindu Code Bill, they were the first ones to oppose too. All the fears that you see from the right, about inter-caste marriage and Western education, are all seen in their pages. Even the idea of Love Jihad, though not called the same name, was discussed in their books,” he says.
They have always maintained their position against Dalits and famously wrote against Gandhi for his support to the temple entry movement. But at the same time, they were not against their books being distributed among the Dalits. He says that all their ideological work of 90 years is paying off now, with the BJP government coming to power.
“This has been their dream, to come to power on their own. So they are restless to push through their agenda.”
