Why Is Gita Press Targeted by Breaking India Forces?

About six months ago, I read an article on Gita Press on the BBC. In the article, the sophistry was concocted that this printing press named Gita Press is working on a mission to forge a "Hindu India". Following that, I read another article titled "Taliban Mindset of Gita Press on Women". Reading both articles set alarm bells ringing in my mind. Why, after all, was the BBC opposing a purely dharmic press like Gita Press? Surely, there must be some mystery hidden behind this. Because the BBC has consistently opposed in India whoever was an adversary of British rule. Just then my mind told me, "Surely Gita Press too must have stood against British rule."

From then on, I continued my research; yesterday my search concluded, and today I am countering that old BBC article. Before proceeding further, let me state that a separate conspiracy against Gita Press is being run by the communists. A leftist journalist has also written a book on Gita Press titled *Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India*.

Now, Gita Press was founded in 1924, but prior to that, the "Govind Bhawan Karyalaya" was established in Calcutta in 1920. And even before that, the magazine *Kalyan* was launched. Very few people might know that the founder of Gita Press, Shri Hanuman Prasad Poddar, was a revolutionary. And the name of his revolutionary outfit was the 'Anushilan Samiti'. There was an arms firm in Calcutta dealing in guns, pistols, and cartridges named "Roda R.B. & Company". This company imported crates of arms through sea ports from countries like Germany, England, and elsewhere.

The patriotic revolutionaries needed pistols and cartridges to fight the British. But they lacked the funds to buy them. Then the revolutionaries of the 'Anushilan Samiti' hatched a plan to steal the weapons. And this assignment was entrusted to Hanuman Prasad Poddar Ji. Hanuman Prasad Ji accepted it gladly. In this Roda company, there was a Bengali clerk named Shirish Chandra Mitra, who was of a spiritual disposition. He held Hanuman Prasad Poddar Ji in high regard. Taking advantage of this, Poddar Ji won the clerk over to his side.

One day, the company instructed Shirish Chandra Mitra to go to customs and clear the consignments against the delivery bills. He conveyed this information immediately to Hanuman Prasad Poddar Ji. Upon receiving the tip-off, Poddar Ji reached the Calcutta port. This occurred on Wednesday, 26 August 1914. A consignment of 202 arms crates belonging to Roda & Company had arrived at the port. These contained 80 Mauser pistols and 46,000 cartridges, which the company clerk Shirish Chandra Mitra cleared after paying the port customs duty.

Meanwhile, outside the port, Hanuman Prasad Poddar Ji was waiting for Shirish Chandra. Out of these, 192 crates of arms were delivered to the company, and the remaining 10 crates reached the residence of Hanuman Prasad Poddar Ji. Without delay, Poddar Ji summoned the revolutionary comrades of his outfit and handed over all the weapons. Those crates contained 300 large-sized pistols. Out of these, 41 pistols were distributed among the revolutionaries of Bengal. The remaining 39 pistols were dispatched outside Bengal to other provinces. They went to Kashi, to Allahabad, and also reached Bihar, Punjab, and Rajasthan.

Subsequently, after August 1914, the revolutionaries executed as many as 45 operations—such as assassinating government officials, British authorities, and others—using these very Mauser pistols. In the dacoity that the revolutionaries conducted in Mamurabad, Bengal, the police likewise discovered that it had been carried out using a Mauser pistol missing from Roda & Company. We have run slightly ahead of ourselves; well, let us return to the narrative.

Pandit Vishnu Paradkar (later the editor of *Kalyan*) and a sanitation worker named Sukhlal had also assisted Hanuman Prasad Poddar Ji in transporting and concealing the crates in safe locations. Later, once the affair was uncovered, arrest warrants were issued against Hanuman Prasad Poddar, clerk Shirish Chandra Mitra, Prabhudayal, Himmat Singh, Kanhaiyalal Chitlangia, Phoolchand Choudhary, Jwalaprasad, and Onkarmal Saraf. On 16 July 1914, a raid was conducted and Hanuman Prasad Poddar Ji was arrested from Birla Craft & Company on Clive Street, Calcutta. The remaining persons were also captured. All were held at Durand House jail in Calcutta. For 15 days, the police threatened them with execution, Kala Pani, and the like, trying to force them to reveal the names of their associates and details of where the goods had been delivered, but no one spilled the truth. As soon as Poddar Ji was arrested, fear gripped the Marwari community. Terrified of being apprehended, people burned the literature he had penned.

Hanuman Prasad Poddar Ji was released for want of sufficient evidence. There were two reasons for this: first, the arms company clerk Shirish Chandra Mitra had already fled Bengal, and thus could not be arrested. The second reason was that despite all the torture, no one disclosed any secret.

Six years prior to this incident, in 1908, in the bomb case that occurred in Manicktala and Alipore in Bengal, Hanuman Prasad Poddar, the editor of Gita Press Gorakhpur, was also indirectly involved. He organized legal representation for the revolutionaries accused in the bomb conspiracy. Poddar Ji maintained close ties with revolutionaries such as Bhupendranath Datta, Shyam Sundar Chakravarty, Brahmabandhab Upadhyay, Pulin Behari Das (head of the Anushilan Samiti), Rash Behari Bose, Bipin Chandra Ganguly, and Amit Chakravarty by virtue of his membership. He financed the defense of revolutionaries by selling his dharmic magazine *Kalyan*. Later, when the Govind Bhawan Karyalaya was established in Calcutta, weapons belonging to the revolutionaries were concealed beneath bundles of books and copies of *Kalyan*.

Not only this, in the trials of Khudiram Bose, Kanailal, Barindra Ghosh, Aurobindo Ghose, and Prafulla Chakravarty, it was Hanuman Prasad Poddar Ji who managed the defense on behalf of the 'Anushilan Samiti'. In those days, organizing legal aid for revolutionaries was no ordinary feat.

On the demand for the partition of India, Congress leaders remained mute before Jinnah, but Gita Press's magazine *Kalyan* declared in a resounding voice: "Though Jinnah may give his life, Pakistan shall not be granted." *Kalyan* issued this open defiance. This line was printed on the cover page of *Kalyan*. For months on end, *Kalyan* wrote relentlessly against the creation of Pakistan.

Gita Press's *Kalyan* was such a fearless journal that in one of its issues, Kalyan even branded Prime Minister Nehru anti-Hindu. It also once minced no words with Mahatma Gandhi, stating: "I have held reverence for Mahatma Gandhi for a very long time, but what he is doing of late, and the arbitrary interpretations of violence and non-violence he is making by citing the Gita, is causing definite harm to Hindus, and the Gita is also being misused."

When Malaviya Ji, grief-stricken by the harrowing tales of inhuman atrocities against Hindus, passed away in 1946, Gita Press brought out a commemorative memorial issue of *Kalyan* in Malaviya Ji's memory. In this issue, Malaviya Ji’s heart-rending observations regarding the atrocities unfolding in Noakhali, Khulna, Punjab, and Sindh were published. For this reason, the Congress governments of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar declared this memorial issue of Kalyan objectionable and confiscated it.

When riots broke out during the Partition of India and reports of atrocities against Hindus poured in from Pakistan, Gita Press took the Congress leaders sharply to task. It was then that *Kalyan*, in its September–October 1947 issue, began publishing a series titled, "What Should Hindus Do?" In these issues, Hindus were instructed on measures for self-defense. The resentment harbored by the BBC and the communists toward such a Gita Press and Shri Hanuman Prasad Poddar Ji is therefore only natural.

 - Sanjeet Singh, the author writes on Indian culture, history, contemporary affairs, and issues concerning the public.

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