Sita Ram Goel (सीता राम गोयल) (1921 - 2003), author and publisher, is an important figure amongst late 20th century Hindu thinkers.

Sita Ram Goel was born in 1921 in Haryana. He studied history in Delhi university. As a student, he was a social activist, and did work for a Harijan Ashram in his village.

During the Great Calcutta Killing of 16 August 1946 that was organized by the Muslim League shortly before Partition of India, Goel and his wife and first son narrowly escaped with their lives.

Sita Ram Goel had strong marxist leanings during his student days and was on the verge of joining the Communist Party of India in 1948. He later came under Ram Swarup's influence who converted him out of communism, and was strongly influenced by him and his writings.

A poet and a novelist, in his later career he emerged as a commentator and critic on Christianity, Islam,

He published books in English and Hindi. He also translated George Orwell's 1984, three Dialogues of Plato, Denis Kincaid's book "The Great Rebel" about Shivaji and other books into Hindi.

In 1981 he started the non-profit publishing house Voice of India.

Legacy

The Belgian writer Koenraad Elst met Sita Ram Goel in India and wrote about his work: "The importance of Ram Swarup's and Sita Ram Goel's work can hardly be over-estimated. I for one have no doubt that future textbooks on comparative religion as well as those on Indian political and intellectual history will devote crucial chapters to their analysis. They are the first to give a first-hand "Pagan" reply to the versions of history and "comparative religion" imposed by the monotheist world-conquerors, both at the level of historical fact and of fundamental doctrine, both in terms of the

K. Elst also stated: "Come to mention him, I found that in moral stature and depth of scholarship, he completely dwarfed the Stalinist "eminent historians" and other icons of "secularism". Which is why I cannot help frowning when I see Meera Nanda forget her limitations and berate a towering personality like Goel."

David Frawley said about Goel that he was “modern India’s greatest intellectual kshatriya, “ and “one of India’s most important thinkers in the post-independence era”. According to Frawley, "Sitaram followed a strong rationalistic point of view that did not compromise the truth even for politeness sake. His intellectual rigor is quite unparalleled in Hindu circles.."

Works

• Hindu Society under Siege (1981, revised 1992)
• The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India (1982; second revised edition 1994)
• How I Became a Hindu (1982, enlarged 1993)
• Defence of Hindu Society (1983, revised 1987)
• The Emerging National Vision (1983)
• History of Heroic Hindu Resistance to Early Muslim Invaders (1984; 2001)
• Perversion of India's Political Parlance (1984)
• Saikyularizm, Râshtradroha kâ Dûsrâ Nâm (Hindi: "Secularism, another name for treason", 1985)
• Papacy, Its Doctrine and History (1986)
• The Calcutta Quran Petition by Chandmal Chopra and Sita Ram Goel (1986, enlarged 1987 and again 1999)
• Muslim Separatism, Causes and Consequences (1987)
• Foreword to Catholic Ashrams, Adapting and Adopting Hindu Dharma (1988, enlarged 1994 with new subtitle: Sannyasins or Swindlers?)
• History of Hindu-Christian Encounters (1989, enlarged 1996)
• Hindu Temples - What Happened to Them (1990 vol.1; 1991 vol.2, enlarged 1993)
• Genesis and Growth of Nehruism (1993)
• Jesus Christ: An Artifice for Agrression (1994)
• Time for Stock-Taking (1997), (critical of the RSS and BJP)
• Preface to the reprint of Mathilda Joslyn Gage: Woman, Church and State (1997, ca. 1880), (feminist critique of Christianity)
• Preface to Vindicated by Time: The Niyogi Committee Report (1998), a reprint of the official report on the missionaries' methods of subversion and conversion (1955)

Further Reading

• India’s only communalist: In commemoration of Sita Ram Goel; Edited by Koenraad Elst; Voice of India, New Delhi. (2005)

See also

• Koenraad Elst
• Ram Swarup

References

• Koenraad Elst