DELHI--Baldeo Bhai Sharma, who took charge as chairman of National Book Trust (NBT) on Tuesday, was editor of RSS mouthpiece Panchjanya between 2008 and 2013, and had earlier worked for several Hindi newspapers including Swadesh, Dainik Bhaskar and Amar Ujala.
The second-generation RSS pracharak told The Indian Express that he wanted to “inculcate the habit of reading in children, which has been eroding rapidly in the age of TV and the Internet”.
Sharma, 59, a native of village Baldeo (Dauji), some 20 km from Mathura, had his higher education interrupted by his political activism. “I could not complete my MA in English because I was struggling against the Emergency,” he said. Subsequently, while working for Swadesh in Gwalior, Sharma was able to obtain an LLB degree.
Before becoming a journalist, Sharma was an RSS pracharak in Aligarh and Bijnore in the late seventies. His father, Mangilal Sharma, had been an RSS pracharak in the fifties and sixties in Aligarh, and had been instrumental in drawing Rajasthan Governor Kalyan Singh, the former chief minister of UP, to the RSS.
“I worked as an RSS pracharak for eight years,” Sharma said.
Incidentally, the RSS’s incharge of BJP affairs, Dr Krishnagopal, is a native of same area, and is good friends with Sharma. “We worked together in the RSS, and we are friends since childhood,” Sharma said.
NBT, established in 1959, publishes books in 31 languages including English and Hindi, and has around 275 employees in Delhi. Between 2009-10 and 2013-14, NBT published 4.52 crore copies of 8,424 titles in 31 languages.
Sharma, who was informed of his appointment by an HRD Ministry official three days ago, declined to make a specific comment on how he proposed to run NBT, saying he would have to first understand its working.
“I understand that our responsibility is not only to publish knowledge in the form of books, but also to generate interest towards reading in the society,” Sharma said. “I will try to translate several books in Indian languages into Hindi and English, so that a larger number of people can benefit.”
The new chairman clarified that he would ensure politics and controversy were kept away from NBT. “I do not want to bring any controversy and politics into NBT’s work,” he said.
To create awareness about reading, he said, “We will involve schools, colleges, universities and several other forums. Special focus will be on children, whose interest in reading is eroding. I will take the culture of reading books from the metros and big cities to the small towns and villages.”
The Indian Express
