BC GITAPRESS
Saved by @chamakta_choora

Today is the founding day of Gita Press.

This thread tells the story of Gita Press. Their mission, their founding members and their unrelenting resistance against left-liberal & Congress Govt censorship of their organization.

Gita Press was established in 1923 by JD Goyanka.

 Hanuman Prasad Poddar was the founding editor of Gita Press.

Its first journal Kalyan was published in 1927. While most journals of this period are confined to libraries and archives, Gita Press and Kalyan still exist with millions of copies
Unlike other publications, Gita Press publishes its books at a very reasonable price.

For example, a Bhagavad Gita can be procured at Rs.30. A copy of Hanuman Chalisa costs just Rs. 2 (50 lakh copies printed every year). Yet, the printing, cover and content quality is FANTASTIC
But why? Why does Gita Press publish excellent books at such a minimum token price which inevitably equals or exceeds the creation cost?

The answer to this question is that Gita Press was not founded to be a profit making enterprise.

Its goals were something very different
Gita Press was founded at a time when Christian Missionaries were making rapid progress in converting Hindus.

They were making all out attacks on Hinduism.

Missionaries distributed copies of Bible to anyone who showed slightest inclination to accept it. Bibles were flowing in
By contrast, except for a few Pandits who were specialists in the field, an ordinary Hindu did not have any printed copy of any of his books.

Ordinary Hindu did not have any good knowledge of his own Dharma's books.

Gita Press was founded only to propagate and defend Dharma.
In addition, a majority of Hindus in this period was not literate. They simply could not read.

Hence, in addition to printing books, Gita Press also used to organise several Kathas(Oral narration). Their Kathavachaks would read & narrate the great Epics Ramayana and Mahabharata
The head Kathavachak of Gita Press was Kripashankar Ramayani.

He used to tour village to village. Gather people around in the evening after work and recite the Ramcaritmanas (there was no night shift in those days)

His salary: 0 (food and travel was organised by Gitapress)
And what was the success of Gita Press: It was ASTOUNDING.

As on 2014, they SOLD more than 72 million copies of Gita,70 million copies of Ramcaritmanas and 19 million copies of Puranas.

Gita press is easily the BIGGEST publisher of India. It DWARFS others by its sheer numbers
It was ONLY due to Gita Press that an ordinary Hindu could have a copy of Ramcaritmanas or Bhagavad Gita in his home.
It was due to Gita Press that an ordinary Hindu could read & know about his religion.
It was Gita Press which challenged the missionary proliferation of Bibles.
What do we except from a highly successful publishing house? A luxurious and posh building as its headquarters?

But NO!

The Gita Press House is a very small building. It looks like a very small temple.This is certainly not what one would expect from "India's biggest publisher"
Anybody who has visited Gita Press House at Gorakhpur would simply be awestruck at its simplicity.

There is no centralized air conditioning even.Why? Because Gita Press never accumulated profits. Any profit was spent on publishing and circulating books & recruiting Kathavachaks
The founding editor of Gita Press was Hanuman Prasad Poddar.

At the age of 22, Hanuman Prasad Poddar was arrested and held guilty of supplying arms to revolutionary Indian Freedom fighters of Anushilan Samihiti who wanted to liberate India by waging direct war against British
After Hanuman prasad was arrested & released, he was shunned by his own community.

NOBODY wanted to associate with a person who supplied arms to Indian revolutionary freedom fighters. Poddar's community engaged in business. They did not want to ruffle feathers with the British.
Boycotted and shunned, Poddar then left his native Kolkata and migrated to Mumbai.

He migrated in search of a Job! The great man who built India's greatest publishing house from scratch was once unemployed!
How many of you knew the founding editor of Gita Press was a great freedom fighter?

How many of you knew that he waged a direct war with British?

In contrast to million of copies of Ramcaritmanas, there are hardly any Gita Press publications on their own founding editor. Why?
Why? Why did Gita Press not publish anything about their editorial founder?

The answer lies in the Motto of Gita Press.

Hanuman prasad Poddar used to say- "I never sanction self praise" Gita Press shuns self praise and worship of Individuals"
As a result of this, while millions peruse the Gita Press publications, we hardly know anything about them
.
All the information available ABOUT Gita Press, whether online or otherwise, is mostly its evaluation by parties and individuals extremely inimical to it
The modesty is striking.

Did you know that the founding editor of Gita Press, Hanuman Prasad Poddar was recommended for Bharat Ratna by then home minister Govind Ballabh Pant?

But to the surprise of Pant, Poddar flatly refused it. All his life, Poddar refused any felicitation
Yet, Nehru hated Gita Press and did everything in his power to shut down Gita Press.

He even arrested Hanuman Prasad Poddar alleging involvement in assassination of Gandhi.

Poddar was jailed. Birla refused to help Poddar and accused Gita press of propagating "Shaitan Dharma"
Poddar was ordered by the court to be released in the very next hearing, because, according to the court, "there was not a shred of evidence of his involvement in the assassination of Gandhi"
From 1949,Poddar played a very active part in the Ram Lalla movement to worship Ram Lalla idols inside Babri. He was also lathicharged by the administration.

He donated his entire life savings to establish/enable Ram Janmabhumi trust to fund Pujaris & court case until his death

More from Bharadwaj

Bharadwaj
Bharadwaj
@BharadwajSpeaks
A pernicious attempt to connect Hinduism with Nazism.

Audrey (@audreyTruschke) claims Indic philosophy inspired Nazism & Nazism inspired Hindu revivalism.

She comes from a long line of protestant Indologists making such connections

But is it really so?

[Myth breaking THREAD]


Audrey insists Nazi "Hakenkreuz" is nothing but "German translation" of Swastika.

She even goes on to say the Nazi translation did not erase "the basic meaning and history" of swastika.

Is this really so?

This thread EXPOSES closely guarded academic secrets about this topic


As I have mentioned elsewhere, Hitler never used the word Swastika himself. He used the word Hakenkreuz.

This claim is FALSE.

Germans did not use "Hakenkreuz" for Swastika. They used it for Christian hooked cross.

Hakenkreuz is literal German translation of "hooked cross"


But what is Hakenkreuz/ Hooked cross? What did Nazis understand by it?

What were they so enamored by this symbol? Did they see the symbol as mere translation of Indic symbol Swastika?

Did they see the Hakenkreuz as an ancient Indian symbol? Did they borrow this Indian symbol?

Only the contemporary Nazi literature can tell us what the Nazis actually thought about Swastika.

I begin by considering the views of Erich Koch. Koch was a top officer of Nazi Germany. He organised Nazi concentration camps. He was sentenced to life imprisonment after the war.
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Bharadwaj
Bharadwaj
@BharadwajSpeaks
Did you know?

The Bamiyan Buddhas are famous throughout the world.

Did you know that the Bamiyan Buddhas had a gold covering until 9th century? They were adorned with precious gems.

Did you know that the Bamiyan Buddhas were built by a HINDU king?

[Thread]


Who built Bamiyan Buddha?

There lies a painting of the king who sponsored the construction of Bamiyan Buddhas inside Bamiyan caves.

The name of the king who built Bamiyan Buddhas was Narendraditya Khingila(6th-7th century CE).

He was the same king who worshiped Gardez Ganesha


Khingila consecrated a temple for Ganesha in Gardez, Afghanistan.

The temple has not survived.

However, the Ganesha image has been moved out of Gardez and is now at Pir Rattan temple, Kabul (the same temple whose priest is Pandit Rajesh Kumar, the last Hindu of Afghanistan)


When Xuanzang visited Bamiyan (c. 629 CE) , the Buddhas were standing in full glory.

Xuanzang describes the larger standing Buddha as follows
-
"It is 140-150 meters high. It is of a dazzling gold color. It is resplendent with ornamentations of precious substances"


During this period, the clothes of Buddha were very brightly colored. The larger buddha was clothed in red and the smaller Buddha in white.

And this coloring survived until recently.

This is why Muslims named larger Buddha as "Surkh But"(red idol) and the smaller as "Khing But"
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Bharadwaj
Bharadwaj
@BharadwajSpeaks
On women's day, remember our queen Ahilyabai Holkar.

A widow who became Malwa's queen. Defended our country & personally led armies into battle.Never plundered anyone. Developed Malwa into a prosperous kingdom. Rebuilt temples destroyed by Mughals. Built Dharmashalas at Tirthas


This map shows temples built by Ahilyabai Holkar.

Excepting territories ruled by Afghans, Nawabs & British, she built temples everywhere. Without her, almost ALL Tirthas would have been in ruins & there wouldn't be any standing temple. Built numerous tanks for people's welfare


Ahilyabai who built temples, orphanages, residences and irrigation tanks all over India led a modest personal life. She used to live in this small residence in Maheshwar. Never built anything for herself. The Saint Queen used to sleep on floor. Her lips always uttered "Shiva"


Ahilyabai never issued capital punishment. Took personal oath from prisoners & released them. Many adopted honest life. She Introduced 7/12 scheme. Farmers prospered. No trader tax beyond custom. Her subjects weren't afraid to display wealth. She rebuilt Kashi Vishvanath!


Ahilyabai built temples from inherited property and not state fund. She used State funds to provide capital to traders & artisans. She believed she had no right over wealth earned by her subjects. Thanks to her, Indore became one of world's most prosperous cities in 18th century
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Bharadwaj
Bharadwaj
@BharadwajSpeaks
This is THEFT!

Indians had Algebra BEFORE Mμslim prophet & religion was even born.

Here is Bakhshali Manuscript dating back to 3rd century CE. It is an Algebraic treatise. Have you anything like this from the Arabian desert? No, you simply plagiarized Algebra from Indians! https://t.co/cWXRNYMgDt


The Bakhshali manuscript, which has been carbon dated to 3rd century CE, is an ancient Hindu treatise on Arithmetic and Algebra.

The Algebraic problems deal with simultaneous equations, quadratic equations, arithmetic
geometric progressions & quadratic indeterminate equations.


Bakhshali isn't earliest Indian Algebraic treatise. Early Algebra is found in Shulba Sutras dating back to at least 800 BC. Traditional Algebra reached its pinnacle in the works of Aryabhata & Bhaskara.

What makes Bakhshali special is it offers mathematical proof to its theories


It is surprising to see that even after the ancient Indian algebraic treatise has been carbon dated to 3rd century CE by Oxford, they persist with "oh we invented Algebra. It is Halal".

A brief examination of the origins of "Halal Algebra" follows

https://t.co/eFIZ98FDrI


The earliest work of "Arabic Algebra" is the "Al-Kitāb Al-Jabr wal-muqābala" by Al Khwarizmi. The term "Algebra" comes from this book ("Al Jabr").

Before writing his treatise, Al Khwarizmi visited India. His book is a plagiarism from Indian Mathematics and an obvious one at that
HISTORY
Bharadwaj
Bharadwaj
@BharadwajSpeaks
Nehru was officially classified as "Class A Prisoner".

He had newspapers, books, servants & coolies. He was allowed to walk out & meet others.

He was also allowed Switzerland trips "while technically imprisoned".

Savarkar was locked up in Kalapani & beaten up for 10 years


It was only once in his life that Nehru was treated just like any ordinary prisoner.

This was in Nabha Jail for 12 days.

Within 12 days, Nehru's father begged British viceroy.

He wrote an apology & assured that his son Nehru will never enter Nabha.

12 Days v/s 10 Years!

Nehru's jail in Ahmedabad had a badminton court specially built for Nehru and other top Congress leaders.

On his insistence, a library was made accessible to him during prison terms . That is how he could write books while "imprisoned".

A fitness instructor also attended to him

Nehru's jail terms were essential political stunts in building up his image as a great freedom fighter.

However, they seemed more like exotic getaways than real prisons

The 12 day imprisonment of Nehru in Nabha jail was harsh.

When Motilal came to know that his Nehru was locked up in a real jail, he rushed to meet Nehru but was forbidden by the administrator of Nabha.

Then, British viceroy came to the rescue of Nehrus and overruled this order
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