The recently published research work of Akshaya Mukul, a veteran Times of India Journalist, titled "Gitapress and the Making of Hindu India" would pass the test of intellectual rigor with its 1251 references scattered across 293 sources.
This 430 pager work, undertaken over an year sponsored by New India Foundation funded by Nandan Nilekani, managed by Ram Chandra Guha and inspired by Wendy Doniger - the doyenne of Hindu Studies expert in demonizing the same, by author's own admission is "not to sing paeans of Gitapress".
Pursuing the very spirit of her mentor's footsteps who grew to infamy by authoring a crude, lewd and very rude commentary on Hindus, which had to be pulped down by its publisher; this work fares no better.
Well researched on facts, but intellectually dishonest & haywire on conclusions, the author however does a good job of sufficing his central quest of placing Gitapress within the larger canvas of the much 'haunted' Hindu Nationalism in the colonial as well as post-colonial India.
The epithets of "A rare treasure trove" by the likes of Arundhati Roys and "A powerful and original work" by Ramchandra Guha, somewhere alerts about the mischievous intent of this colossal work.
The author couldn't resist his innate affection and reverence to his parents Manorama & Madhusudan, by dedicating this work to them. By his own admittance, he differed on the ideological plane with his father who originally seeded the idea for a book on Gitapress, unraveling its success mantra. He however seem to have pursued the ideological framework of Mr. Nilekani, whose IT dollars funded this research work and who too had had his curiosity on the economics of Gitapress in due furtherance of his personal quest of Re-Imagining India & Rebooting India.
What's noteworthy about this work is the sheer exposition of a global inter-connected network of scholars & academics treading a particular line of thought which is averse to the ideal & reality of India.
It's interesting to note that Malavika Kasturi and Kajri Jain of University of Toronto have much say and influence in the affairs concerning Gitapress.
The deeper academic interest of Shahid Amin & Ulrike Stark in Gitapress is quite illumining.
A Siddharth Varadarajan provides access to The Hindu Archives and a Mushirul Hasan gives a cue on the politics around cow to the author. The novelist & writer Ajaz Ashraf patronizes & prods the author and Jyotirmaya Sharma of University of Hyderabad fine-tuning the key arguments. A Nandini Sundar adds on to the narrative around Hindu Nationalist Fascination around adivasis.
A Monika Freier comes mid-way in the research, who leads the author to Paul Arney who happens to be the first scholar to work on Gita Press. A Medha M. Kudaisya of NUS Singapore, opened up the sources on the world of Kolkata Marwaris.
Such a multi-layered academic interest around the central protagonist of Gitapress, would have existed, is a cause of celebration as well as concern equally as the author investigates Gitapress from a perspective of Commissioner's Record Room; CID Records and UP State Archives as well.
This gets all the more intriguing as by author's very own factual admission Gitapress parallels its success with the Bible Society.
It would take a while to undergo a detailed semantic analysis of this 1.3 lakh word long treatise to unravel its ideological universe. Guha's erudite cutting of 60,000 odd words would make this task a bit simpler.
However, the titles of the chapters suggest it all. From starting with the title of "A Twentieth-Century Hindu Missionary and His Mentor", the author unravels "The World of Gita Press", enumerating its Local, National, Transnational Contributors.
After laying the content foundation with elaborate facts and figures, he starts converging his work by invoking the well established labeling strategy, terming Gita Press as "Foot Soldier of the Sangh Parivar". The theme then hovers through the narrative of "Religion as Politics, Politics of Religion" and conclude by challenging "The Moral Universe of Gitapress".
The contextual universe of these Well Oiled Research Networks is somewhere limited to the twin tactics of baiting & denigrating a tolerant and all absorbing & assimilating Indian Civilization. What better than entrapping & attacking some of its foundational & prominent institutions masquerading geo-political agenda as academic research.
These academic Sleeper cells create the baseline breeding ground for the unleashing of intellectual terrorism, of whose power & potential we have witnessed on the domestic political turf.
While, the Dalmatian Bella of Mr. Mukul would have been continuing his loyalty to his master, he couldn't resist his temptation to elude the New India Foundation fellowship, to unleash an intellectual treachery with his own parents and motherland. Such is the nature and character of modern day progressive liberality which just perpetrates self-indulgent hollow intellectualism to further deepen the societal fault-lines.
This 430 pager work, undertaken over an year sponsored by New India Foundation funded by Nandan Nilekani, managed by Ram Chandra Guha and inspired by Wendy Doniger - the doyenne of Hindu Studies expert in demonizing the same, by author's own admission is "not to sing paeans of Gitapress".
Pursuing the very spirit of her mentor's footsteps who grew to infamy by authoring a crude, lewd and very rude commentary on Hindus, which had to be pulped down by its publisher; this work fares no better.
Well researched on facts, but intellectually dishonest & haywire on conclusions, the author however does a good job of sufficing his central quest of placing Gitapress within the larger canvas of the much 'haunted' Hindu Nationalism in the colonial as well as post-colonial India.
The epithets of "A rare treasure trove" by the likes of Arundhati Roys and "A powerful and original work" by Ramchandra Guha, somewhere alerts about the mischievous intent of this colossal work.
The author couldn't resist his innate affection and reverence to his parents Manorama & Madhusudan, by dedicating this work to them. By his own admittance, he differed on the ideological plane with his father who originally seeded the idea for a book on Gitapress, unraveling its success mantra. He however seem to have pursued the ideological framework of Mr. Nilekani, whose IT dollars funded this research work and who too had had his curiosity on the economics of Gitapress in due furtherance of his personal quest of Re-Imagining India & Rebooting India.
What's noteworthy about this work is the sheer exposition of a global inter-connected network of scholars & academics treading a particular line of thought which is averse to the ideal & reality of India.
It's interesting to note that Malavika Kasturi and Kajri Jain of University of Toronto have much say and influence in the affairs concerning Gitapress.
The deeper academic interest of Shahid Amin & Ulrike Stark in Gitapress is quite illumining.
A Siddharth Varadarajan provides access to The Hindu Archives and a Mushirul Hasan gives a cue on the politics around cow to the author. The novelist & writer Ajaz Ashraf patronizes & prods the author and Jyotirmaya Sharma of University of Hyderabad fine-tuning the key arguments. A Nandini Sundar adds on to the narrative around Hindu Nationalist Fascination around adivasis.
A Monika Freier comes mid-way in the research, who leads the author to Paul Arney who happens to be the first scholar to work on Gita Press. A Medha M. Kudaisya of NUS Singapore, opened up the sources on the world of Kolkata Marwaris.
Such a multi-layered academic interest around the central protagonist of Gitapress, would have existed, is a cause of celebration as well as concern equally as the author investigates Gitapress from a perspective of Commissioner's Record Room; CID Records and UP State Archives as well.
This gets all the more intriguing as by author's very own factual admission Gitapress parallels its success with the Bible Society.
It would take a while to undergo a detailed semantic analysis of this 1.3 lakh word long treatise to unravel its ideological universe. Guha's erudite cutting of 60,000 odd words would make this task a bit simpler.
However, the titles of the chapters suggest it all. From starting with the title of "A Twentieth-Century Hindu Missionary and His Mentor", the author unravels "The World of Gita Press", enumerating its Local, National, Transnational Contributors.
After laying the content foundation with elaborate facts and figures, he starts converging his work by invoking the well established labeling strategy, terming Gita Press as "Foot Soldier of the Sangh Parivar". The theme then hovers through the narrative of "Religion as Politics, Politics of Religion" and conclude by challenging "The Moral Universe of Gitapress".
The contextual universe of these Well Oiled Research Networks is somewhere limited to the twin tactics of baiting & denigrating a tolerant and all absorbing & assimilating Indian Civilization. What better than entrapping & attacking some of its foundational & prominent institutions masquerading geo-political agenda as academic research.
These academic Sleeper cells create the baseline breeding ground for the unleashing of intellectual terrorism, of whose power & potential we have witnessed on the domestic political turf.
While, the Dalmatian Bella of Mr. Mukul would have been continuing his loyalty to his master, he couldn't resist his temptation to elude the New India Foundation fellowship, to unleash an intellectual treachery with his own parents and motherland. Such is the nature and character of modern day progressive liberality which just perpetrates self-indulgent hollow intellectualism to further deepen the societal fault-lines.
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