NEW DELHI: Congress leader Jairam Ramesh has slammed the Centre over its decision to award the Gandhi Peace Award for 2021 to Gita Press and said “it is really a travesty and is like awarding Savarkar and Godse”.
“The Gandhi Peace Prize for 2021 has been conferred on the Gita Press at Gorakhpur which is celebrating its centenary this year. There is a very fine biography from 2015 of this organisation by Akshaya Mukul in which he unearths the stormy relations it had with the Mahatma and the running battles it carried on with him on his political, religious & social agenda. The decision is really a travesty and is like awarding Savarkar and Godse,” Jairam Ramesh, a Congress general secretary, aid in a tweet.
The Culture Ministry said on Sunday that Gandhi Peace Prize for the year 2021 is being conferred on Gita Press, Gorakhpur.
Gandhi Peace Prize is an annual award instituted by the Government of India in 1995, on the occasion of 125th Birth Anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi as a tribute to the ideals espoused by Mahatma Gandhi.
The award carries an amount of Rs 1 crore, a citation, a plaque and an exquisite traditional handicraft/handloom item.
Recent awardees include Sultan Qaboos Bin Said Al Said, Oman (2019) and Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (2020), Bangladesh.
The release said that the jury headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, after due deliberations on 18th June, 2023 unanimously decided to select Gita Press, Gorakhpur as the recipient of the Gandhi Peace Prize for the year 2021, in recognition of it’s outstanding contribution towards social, economic and political transformation through non-violent and other Gandhian methods.
The release said that Gita Press, established in 1923, is one of the world’s largest publishers, having published 41.7 crore books in 14 languages, including 16.21 crore Shrimad Bhagvad Gita.
“The institution has never relied on advertisement in its publications, for revenue generation. Gita Press along with its affiliated organizations, strives for the betterment of life and the well being of all,” the release said. (ANI)