Gujarat Vidyapeeth, an educational institution and Navjivan Trust, a well-known publishing house, have raised the eyebrows of Gandhians as the prominent organisations established by non other than the Father of Nation are at loggerheads over the issue of reprints of Mahatma Gandhi related books.
Generally these two institutions based in Ahmedabad remain in public eye for some or other reasons. But this time the institutions came into limelight for wrong reason as the Gujarat Vidyapeeth is accusing the publishing organ Navjivan Trust of saffronising Gandhi’s ideology.
Cold war between the two organisations has already going on for nearly one month. The Vidyapeeth authority had already objected images of Sudarshan Chakra and conch on the cover of the reprints. The academic institution was strongly against reprint of a book - Bhagavad Gita: According to Gandhi. Interestingly, during his recent visit to USA, Prime Minister Narendra Modi gifted a copy of this book to President Barack Obama.
The controversy surfaced when Managing Director of Navjivan Trust Vivek Desai came out in open saying that instead of raising objection on book publishing, the Vidyapeeth (being an academic institute) should focus on its primary function - Teaching.
According to Desai, publishing is the function of his trust and teaching is Vidyapeeth. They have nothing to do with Navjivan Trust.
The controversy erupted after a letter of Gujarat Vidyapeeth Vice-Chancellor Sudarshan Iyenger to Navjivan Trust objecting cover images of reprinted books. The another book objected by Vidyapeeth was discourses on the Gita and Bhagvad Gita: According to Gandhi. According to the letter images of Sudarshan Chakra is violence (Hinsa), which is against Gandhian ideology. The letter also objected images of other books.
“Vidyapeeth would stop keeping these revised books that went against the original Gandhian thought. The original books did not have colourful pictures of Hindu symbols such as ‘Sudarshan Chakra’, ‘Conch shell’ or pictures depicting characters of Mahabharata such as Arjun and lord Krishna," said the letter.
Iyenger in his letter said that these kinds of symbols are completely against Gandhi's ideology of non-violence and depicting "Violence". However, Desai not only denounce the accusation and counter the VC of Vidyapeeth by saying that terming mere publishing images of Sudarshan Chakra as violence is itself a low-level thought.
Navjivan Trust MD didn't stop there, he in fact launched counter attack on Vidyapeeth and said that Navjivan Trust donated Rs 85 lakh to the academic institute way back in early nineties, but the management of Vidyapeeth spent it all on unproductive administrative expenses.