GITA PRESS AND THE MAKING OF HINDU INDIA (H25)

In the early 1920s Jaydayal Goyandka and Hanuman Prasad Poddar two Marwari businessmen-turned-spiritualists set up the Gita Press and Kalyan magazine. As of early 2014 Gita Press had sold close to 72 million copies of the Gita 70 million copies of Tulsidas's works and 19 million copies of scriptures like the Puranas and Upanishads. And while most other journals of the period whether religious literary or political survive only in press archives Kalyan now has a circulation of over 200000 and its English counterpart Kalyana-Kalpataru of over 100000. Gita Press created an empire that spoke in a militant Hindu nationalist voice and imagined a quantifiable reward-based piety. Almost every notable leader and prominent voice including Mahatma Gandhi was roped in to speak for the cause. Cow slaughter Hindi as national language and the rejection of Hindustani the Hindu Code Bill the creation of Pakistan India's secular Constitution: Kalyan and Kalyana-Kalpataru were the spokespersons of the Hindu position on these and other matters. Featuring an extraordinary cast of characters - buccaneering entrepreneurs and hustling editors nationalist ideologues and religious fanatics - this is essential (and exciting) reading for our times.