Gita Press Gets Gandhi Peace Award

GORAKHPUR, (IANS) – The Gita Press in Gorakhpur has turned down the cash prize of Rs one crore for the Gandhi Peace Award that it has won. It said that it would only accept the citation.

The jury headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi had unanimously selected Gita Press as the recipient of the award. The announcement of the Gandhi Peace Award was made on June 18.

Gita Press in a statement suggested the government should spend the money elsewhere.

The decision to award the Gita Press did not go down well with the opposition parties in India. Congress Party leader Jairam Ramesh said that giving the Gandhi Peace Prize 2021 to Gita Press, would be like “awarding Savarkar and Godse.” He argued that Akshaya Mukul, an author, had written a biography titled ‘Gita Press and the Making of Hindu India’. Ramesh said the book talks about Mukul’s “stormy” relations with Mahatma Gandhi.

Gita Press, based in Uttar Pradesh’s Gorakhpur, is one of the world’s largest publishers, having published 41.7 crore books in 14 languages, including 16.21 crore Shrimad Bhagavad Gita, an official statement said. The statement said the recognition was for “its outstanding contribution towards social, economic, and political transformation through non-violent and other Gandhian methods.”

Established in 1923, Gita Press has never relied on advertisement in its publications, for revenue generation.

Gandhi Peace Prize is an annual award instituted by Government of India in 1995, on the 125th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi as a tribute to the ideals espoused by Mahatma Gandhi.

Past awardees include organizations such as ISRO, Ramakrishna Mission, Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, Vivekananda Kendra, Kanyakumari, Akshaya Patra, Bengaluru, Ekal Abhiyan Trust, India and Sulabh International, New Delhi among others. The prestigious award has also been awarded to luminaries like Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa and Julius Nyerere, former president of Tanzania among many other personalities.