The RSS had planned a book blitz at the Delhi Book Fair that started from January 6.
The recently concluded New Delhi World Book Fair was used by Christian and Muslim missionaries for goading religious conversion, says RSS, while the organisation itself sold over 50,000 copies of a book specially authored over 'Love Jihad', apart from orders been placed for almost the same number of copies.
The RSS had planned a book blitz at the Delhi Book Fair that started from January 6. The rightwing fountainhead of cultural nationalism had assembled a spectrum of 12 "nationalist" publishers that had come together under one stall to showcase literature pertaining to Indian nationalism. This fair-within-fair was called 'Rashtriya Sahitya Sangam' or the 'National Literature Confluence'.
RSS claimed that the book on 'love Jihad' titled 'Ek Mukhauta Aisa Bhi' (A mask like this) and authored by Bhopal-based teacher Vandana Gandhi remained one of the bestsellers among all the publishers that had come under the aegis of the Sahitya Sangam. The book has been published by Archana Prakashan, Bhopal, and was released by senior RSS functionary Nand Kumar.
However, the RSS questioned the provenance and the funding of the "lakhs" of copies of the Quran and Bible "that were ostensibly distributed free of cost at the book fair and to what end".
"Lakhs of copies of Quran and Bible were distributed free at the book festival from at least 20 stalls spread across the entire area. Question is that though we did not sell our books at any margin, and sold them at their original cost, who is paying for these religious books to be distributed for free? Who is funding these distributions, after all? A 800-page Quran is not printed and published without a cost," said RSS' Delhi Prachar Pramukh Rajiv Tuli.
Meanwhile, the show of books and right-leaning publishers was described as a "joint literary endeavour of nationalist publishers and promoters of Hinduism and Bharatiya Culture from across the country" by one of the better-known publishers, Suruchi Prakashan, which participated in the books show.
"Given the magnitude of books that were showcased at the confluence, we had rented 10 stalls at Pragati Maidan in the Book Fair. In recent times, there has been a big spurt in the number of people, especially youth, who are curious to read about RSS and know it more closely. Therefore, this was a place where most of that literature in diverse languages such as Telugu, Malyalam and Odiya was found under one roof without having to search for them," Tuli added.
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