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Sita Ram Goel, one of the prominent Hindu writers and thinkers passed away, Dec.3, following a long illness. He was responsible for hundreds of books, article and pamphlets advancing the Hindu renaissance over half a century. Goel worked with another noted activist, Ram Swarup, and their ‘Voice of India’ churned out reading material for both Hindus, and those interested in Hinduism. Goel was 82 years of age.
Sita Ram Goel was not afraid to call himself a Hindu; actually he would not even mind being called a “Hindu communalist” as he knew that Hindus were never communalist in the sense the word is taken these days of “secularism.” He knew, and advocated that Hindus are, and had always been, true secularists who would tolerate all dissent in thinking, writing and action. He opposed the creation of Pakistan and almost got killed in the riots the Muslim League started in Calcutta in 1946.
Goel was born in 1921 in what is now the State of Haryana. As a schoolboy, he got acquainted with the traditional Vaishnavism practised by his family, with the Mahabharat and the lore of the Bhakti saints, and with the major trends in contemporary Hinduism, especially the Arya Samaj and Gandhism. He took an M.A. in History from Delhi University, winning prizes and scholarships along the way. In his school and early university days he was a Gandhian activist, helping a Harijan Ashram in his village and organizing a study circle in Delhi.
In the 1930s and 40s, the Gandhians themselves came in the shadow of the new ideological vogue: socialism. When they started drifting to the Left and adopting socialist rhetoric, Goel decided to opt for the original rather than the imitation. In 1941 he accepted Marxism as his framework for political analysis.
At first, he did not join the Communist Party of India, and had differences with it over such issues as the creation of the religion-based state of Pakistan, which was actively supported by the CPI but could hardly earn the enthusiasm of a progressive and atheist intellectual. He and his wife and first son narrowly escaped with their lives in the Great Calcutta Killing of 16 August 1946, organized by the Muslim League to give more force to the demand of Pakistan.
In 1948, just when he had made up his mind to formally join the Communist Party of India, in fact on the very day when he had an appointment at the party office in Calcutta to be registered as a candidate-member, the Government of West Bengal banned the CPI because of its hand in an ongoing armed rebellion. A few months later, Ram Swarup came to stay with him in Calcutta and converted him as well as his employer, Hari Prasad Lohia, out of Communism. Goel’s career as a combative and prolific writer on controversial matters can only be understood in conjunction with Ram Swarup’s sparser, more reflective writings on fundamental doctrinal issues.
Much later, in a speech before the Yogakshema society, Calcutta 1983, he explained his relation with Ram Swarup as follows: “In fact, it would have been in the fitness of things if the speaker today had been Ram Swarup, because whatever I have written, and whatever I have to say today really comes from him. He gives me the seed-ideas which sprout into my articles. He gives me the framework of my thought, only the language is mine. The language also would have been much better if it was his own. My language becomes sharp at times; it annoys people.
Goel's first important publications were written as part of the work of the Society for the Defence of Freedom in Asia and included, “China is Red with Peasants’ Blood (1953)” and “Red Brother or Yellow Slave?”
In May 1957, Goel moved to Delhi to work for the Indian Cooperative Union, for which he did research and prospection concerning cottage industries.
During the Chinese invasion in 1962, some government officials including P.N. Haksar, Nurul Hasan and I.K. Gujral (later Prime Minister of India), demanded Goel’s arrest. Ironically, at the same time, the Home Ministry invited him to take a leadership role in the plans for a guerrilla war against the then widely-expected Chinese occupation of eastern India. He made his cooperation conditional on Nehru’s abdication as Prime Minister. Nothing ever came of it.
In 1964, RSS General Secretary Eknath Ranade invited Goel to lead the soon-to-be-set up Vishva Hindu Parishad, which was founded later that year, but Goel’s condition was that he should be free to speak his own mind. That matter ended there.
In 1981 Goel retired from his business, handed it over to his son and nephew. He started the non-profit publishing house Voice of India with donations from friends, and accepted Organiser-editor K.R. Malkani’s offer to contribute articles again. Those articles were later collected into the first Voice of India booklets.
Goel’s declared aim was to defend Hinduism by placing before the public correct information on Hindu culture and society, and about the nature, motives and strategies of its enemies. In his book “Hindu Society under Siege,” Goel claimed that Hindu society has been suffering a sustained attack from Islam since the 7th century, from Christianity since the 15th century, this century also from Marxism, and all three have carved out a place for themselves in Indian society from which they attack Hinduism. The avowed objective of these three world-conquering movements, with their massive resources, is diagnosed as the replacement of Hinduism by their own ideology, or in effect: the destruction of Hinduism.
Apart from numerous articles, letters, contributions to other books (e.g. Devendra Swarup, ed.: Politics of Conversion, DRI, Delhi 1986) and translations (e.g. the Hindi version of Taslima Nasrin's Bengali book Lajja, published in instalments in Panchjanya, summer 1994), Goel contributed many books to the inter-religious debate, including “Hindu Society under Siege” and “Defence of Hindu Society.”
One of the greatest misconceptions about the Hindu movement is that it is a creation of political parties like the BJP and the Shiv Sena. In reality, there is a substratum of Hindu activist tendencies in many corners of Hindu society, since long before these organizations were born. These are often in unorganized form and almost invariably lacking in intellectual articulation. To this widespread Hindu unrest about the uncertain future of Hindu culture, Voice of India provides an intellectual focus.
Goel and Ram Swarup’s writing had the long-term intellectual importance in that they have contributed immensely to breaking the spell of all kinds of Christian, Muslim and Marxist prejudices and misrepresentations of Hinduism and the Hindu Revivalist movement. Noted Indologist Koenraad Elst of Belgium wrote about Goel extensively and praised him for his forthright character and writings.
Perhaps, Goel’s best known book was, “How I became a Hindu.” This book gives a glimpse into the mind-set of an uncertain young man with strong “progressive” ideas and totally non-conformist in his acceptance of the spiritual heritage of India.
Excerpts:
“ I was born a Hindu. But I had ceased to be one by the time I came out of college at the age of 22. I had become a Marxist and a militant atheist. I had come to believe that Hindu scriptures should be burnt in a bonfire if India was to be saved. It was 15 years later that I could see this culmination as the explosion of an inflated ego.
“As my moral and intellectual life was preparing to settle down in a universe of firm faith provided by Mahatma Gandhi, my emotional life was heading towards an upheaval. I started doubting if there was a moral order in the universe and in the human society in which I lived. The sages, saints and thinkers whom I had honored so far were sure that the world was made and governed by a God who was Satyam (Truth), Sivam (Good), Sundaram (Beauty). But all around me I saw much that was untrue, unwholesome and ugly. God and His creation could not be reconciled.
“This problem of evil arose and gripped my mind, partly because of my personal situation in life. I was a good student who had won distinctions and scholarships at every stage. I had read a lot of books, which made me feel learned and wise. I was trying to lead a life of moral endeavor, which I thought made me better than most of my fellow men. Standing at the confluence of these several streams of self-esteem, I came to believe that I was somebody in particular and that the society in which I lived owed me some special and privileged treatment.
“Now I was in a desperate hurry to get a good knowledge of the doctrine of socialism. A desire to read Karl Marx now became irresistible. First, I read the Communist Manifesto. It was simply breathtaking in the breadth and depth of its sweep over vast vistas of human history. It was also a great call to action, to change the world and end exploitation and social injustice for all time to come.
“At the same time I concluded that God as a creator of this world could be conceived only in three ways -- either as a rogue who sanctioned and shared in the roguery prevalent in his world, or as an imbecile who could no more control what he had created, or as a sannyasin, who no more cared for what was happening to his creatures. If God was a rogue, we had to rise in revolt against his rule. If he was an imbecile, we could forget him and take charge of the world ourselves. And if he was a sannyasin, he could mind his business while we minded our own.
“The scriptures, however, held out a different version of God and his role, one that was supported neither by experience nor by logic. The scriptures should, therefore, be burned in a bonfire, preferably during winter when they could provide some warmth.
“One day I meditated on ahimsa, which had remained an abstract concept for me so far. After a while, I found myself begging forgiveness from all those whom I had hurt by word or deed, or towards whom I had harbored any ill will. It was not an exercise in generalities. One day I told my friend and mentor, Ram Swarup, how I had never been able to accept the Devi, either as Sarasvati or as Lakshmi or as Durga or as Kali.
“He smiled and asked me to meditate on the Devi that day. I did not see any concrete image. No words were whispered in my ears. Yet the rigidity of a lifetime broke down and disappeared. The Great Mother was beckoning her lost child to come and sit in her lap and feel safe from all fears. We had a record of Dr. Govind Gopal Mukhopadhyaya’s sonorous stuti to the Devi. As I played it, I prayed to Her.
“My progress was not fast; nor did I go far. But it was surely the end of my wandering in search of a shore where I could safely anchor my soul and take stock of my situation. The soul’ hunger for absolute Truth, absolute Good, absolute Beauty and absolute Power, I was told, was like the body’s hunger for wholesome food and drink. And that which satisfied this hunger of the human soul, fully and finally, was Sanatana Dharma, true for all times and climes.
“I had come back at last, come back to my spiritual home from which I had wandered away in self-forgetfulness. It was a reawakening to my ancestral heritage, which was waiting for me all along to lay my claim on its largesse. It was also the heritage of all mankind, as proved by the seers, sages and mystics of many a time and clime. It spoke in different languages to different people. To me it spoke in the language of Hindu spirituality and Hindu culture at their highest. I could not resist its call. I became a Hindu.”
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[Based on the article on Hinduism Today (Hindu Press International) dispatch about Sita Ram Goel. Hindu Jagat is grateful for it.]
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