Amid Gandhi Peace Prize row, Gita Press declines award of Rs 1 crore

Publisher Gita Press on Monday said it was a matter of great honour to receive the Gandhi Peace Prize, but that it would not accept the cash component of the award, keeping with its tradition of not receiving any kind of donations.
The publisher was named the recipient of the award in recognition of its “outstanding contribution towards social, economic and political transformation through non-violent and other Gandhian methods”, the Ministry of Culture announced on Sunday. The jury headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi unanimously decided to select Gita Press as the recipient of the prize, the Ministry said in a statement. “Gandhi Peace Prize 2021 recognises the important and unparalleled contribution of Gita Press, in contributing to collective upliftment of humanity, which personifies Gandhian living in the true sense,” the statement said.
The Gandhi Peace Prize is an annual award instituted by the government in 1995, on the occasion of 125th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi as a tribute to the ideals espoused by the Mahatma.
The press’ trustee board met late on Sunday following the award announcement and decided not to accept the cash award of Rs 1 crore. The publisher thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Union Culture Ministry for conferring the prestigious award on it. “It is a matter of great honour for us. It is our principle not to accept any kind of donations, so the trustee board has decided not to take the award in any monetary form. However, we will certainly accept the award for the honour of it,” Gita Press manager Lalmani Tripathi said in a statement on Monday. The Gita Press is a renowned publishing house that specialises in publishing and distributing Hindu religious texts, especially the Bhagavad Gita. The press was established in 1923 in Gorakhpur in eastern Uttar Pradesh by Jaydayal Goyandka and Hanuman Prasad Poddar. Over the years, the publisher- which celebrates its centenary this year- has played a key role in promoting Hindu literature and philosophy.
An atmosphere of celebration prevailed in Gorakhpur, where the press is located, as soon as the news came that it will be conferred the prize for 2021. Gita Press is the world’s largest publisher of Hindu religious texts and has published more than 93 crore books so far and all the publishing work of the press is done in Gorakhpur. Tripathi said they publish 1,800 types of books in 15 languages. “In the financial year 2022-23, we provided 2.40 crore books to our readers and despite its low cost, the monetary value of the books is Rs 111 crore.
The demand for our books is very high and despite all efforts, we are not able to meet the demand,” Tripathi said. Prime Minister Modi congratulated the publishing house for the prize and commended their contribution to the field while Union Home Minister Amit Shah took to Twitter on Monday to compliment Gita Press and said it has been doing a wonderful job of “selflessly” taking several holy books to the masses.
The Gandhi Peace Prize for 2021 will be conferred on the Gita Press, Gorakhpur in recognition of its “outstanding contribution towards social, economic and political transformation through non-violent and other Gandhian methods”, according to an official statement issued on Sunday. “If India’s glorious ancient Sanatan culture and base texts can be read easily today, the Gita Press has an incomparable contribution to this. For more than 100 years, the Gita Press has been doing a wonderful job of selflessly taking many holy books from Ramcharit Manas to Shrimad Bhagwad Gita to the masses.” The Home Minister also said the Gita Press getting the Gandhi Peace Prize is an honour for these “Bhagirath” works that it has carried out.
However, the announcement of the award has not been without criticism. Congress general secretary-in-charge of communications Jairam Ramesh on Sunday alleged that the decision to honour Gita Press with the Gandhi Peace Prize was a “travesty” and claimed that it was “like awarding Savarkar and Godse.”
Union Minister Jitendra Singh hit out at the Congress for its remarks, saying nobody else had any objection to the prize. “Geeta Press is associated with India’s culture, our ethos and Hindu belief, and it produces affordable literature which reaches every household,” Singh said at a press conference. “And, who are those levelling allegations? They are those who say that Muslim League was secular,” the leader continued. He was referring to Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s remarks during the US tour that the Muslim League is a completely secular party and there is nothing non-secular about it. Rahul Gandhi was answering a question about his party’s alliance with the regional party.
The Gandhi Peace Prize is open to all persons regardless of nationality, race, language, caste, creed or gender. The award carries an amount of Rs 1 crore, a citation, a plaque and an exquisite traditional handicraft/handloom item, the Culture Ministry said in a statement. Recent awardees include Sultan Qaboos Bin Said Al Said, Oman (2019) and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (2020), Bangladesh.