Retrieving Patriot Savarkar From Left Narrative: Book Throws New Light on Hindutva Icon

AMONG the entire freedom leadership none is painted in a greater negative light than Vinayak Damodar ‘Veer’ Savarkar. From being shown a suspect in Gandhi’s assassination to being mocked for seeking clemency from the British crown; from being called a divider of society to even projected as the main cause behind Muslim fears and subsequent formation of Pakistan, Savarkar’s image has been hostage to the vice-like grip of left world view on India’s history writing. Hence, it is no surprise that an entire generation has come up with hardly any awareness of Savarkar’s true contributions to the freedom struggle and modern India’s nation-building thoughts. 

Against this backdrop, a new book has come up with the avowed objective of retrieving Savarkar’s life and times from this negative portrayal and present a true picture of the scale of his achievements for the present generation. Authored by right-wing scholar and veteran journalist Uday Mahurkar, along with Savarkarite scholar Chirayu Pandit, the book – Veer Savarkar: The Man Who Could Have Prevented Partition – puts the portrayal on its head. The authors seek to correct the wrongs of Savarkar’s portrayal, pushing the thesis that a broad acceptance of Savarkar’s world view during the freedom struggle could have prevented partition, and post-independence his doctrines would have made India a hard power and not the soft state it has remained for much of the time. Savarkar believed in Hindu-Muslim unity within a broad framework of civilizational Hindu ethos that equally applied to Muslim citizens of India with Hindu ancestry. The authors see in the Uri and Balakot surgical strikes, as also an abrogation of article 370 Savarkar’s national security doctrine in action. The building of this counter-narrative is based on marshaling facts and bringing to light stories and events that have been deliberately hidden from the mass readership. It has been a sort of shadow banning of Savarkar in India’s history writing that the authors seek to correct. 

An earlier attempt at salvaging Savarkar in the biography by Padma Vibhushan Dhananjay Keer had achieved some success, but it was felt that the book ended up pulling the other way, romanticizing the leader by positing him as a revolutionary who could do no wrong. That aspect is also sought to be corrected by presenting some hard facts and scrutinizing Savarkar’s frailties as well. 

Savarkar and Gandhi 

It is a commonly held belief that Savarkar was a suspect in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, acquitted only for want of evidence. The book by Mahurkar and Pandit presents a provocative thought that Savarkar was a sad and broken man for this charge to have come on him. The two leaders had only met twice, both encounters being amicable, even appreciative of each other. There was no personal prejudice despite ideological differences. When talking about Gandhi, Savarkar would always address him as ‘Mahatmaji’. In 1943, when Gandhi went on a 21-day fast, Savarkar sent a telegram to Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru saying, ‘Mahatma Gandhi’s life is not so much his own as it is a national asset. Nuggets like this go against the grain of Congress history that implicated him as conspirer of Gandhi's assassination. The Mahatma, on a visit to Ratnagiri in 1927, where Savarkar was working on social causes like untouchability under British restrictions, even praised the efforts. 

Savarkar and Ambedkar 

The book pushes the envelope even further and claims that Ambedkar met Savarkar, and strongly sympathized with the Hindutva leader when he was implicated falsely in Gandhi's assassination. How many people know, for example, that to underscore his support to Savarkar, Ambedkar went and sat through the court proceedings with his wife on the front row, when the trial was on! There were other subjects on which the two leaders had a meeting of minds, most notably on untouchability and the question of Pakistan. Ambedkar, like Savarkar, believed that Pakistan sentiment was a product of appeasement. Perhaps it was the influence of Savarkar that made Ambedkar convert to Buddhism within the Indic stream of faiths, and not choose Christianity or Islam. 

Savarkar and Bhagat Singh 

It is received wisdom that Bhagat Singh was a died in the wool communist revolutionary. Now imagine if the revolutionary drew his inspiration in good measure from the Hindutva icon and even met him once! This is what Mahurkar and Pandit tell us in the book, again based on proper historical research and honest interpretation of events. The authors go on to debunk the left’s ownership of Bhagat Singh, suggesting that it’s an intellectual sleight committed by Marxists to whom the Congress party outsourced history writing in independent India. No manuscript is available of the essay ‘Why I Am An Atheist’ attributed to the revolutionary. When Bhagat Singh went to the gallows, he had a book on Lenin with him making leftists claim his ownership. They ignore four other books that were in possession of the young freedom fighter which included one each on Guru Gobind Singh and Maharana Pratap, apart from a Heer-Ranjha romance! For that matter, even Savarkar taught Lenin to his followers as the revolutionaries saw in him an inspiration against imperialism. 

But the most unimpeachable evidence of the fact that Bhagat Singh drew inspiration from Savarkar and understood his spirit of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (the world is a large family) is found in Bhagat’s own writings. In his article titled ‘Vishwa Prem’, which appeared in a magazine called Matwala on 22 November 1924, Bhagat Singh says, ‘We describe Savarkar as an arch anarchist and vitriolic revolutionary but ultimately he was a brave believer in world brotherhood,” the book informs. Bhagat Singh quoted Savarkar six times from his book Hindu Pad-Padshahi in his jail diaries! 

The calumny of Clemency petition 

Mani Shankar Aiyar was the latest Congress leader to indulge in the calumny of calling Savarkar a coward for seeking clemency from the British crown to end his incarceration in Cellular Jail. This the authors say is a selective interpretation of the clemency petitions. For one, Savarkar sought clemency for all revolutionaries who were with him in the jail in Andaman Island. Two, in doing so Savarkar was borrowing from the guerrilla book of his inspiration Chatrapati Shivaji. The Maratha strongman had used a similar ruse to get out of the clutches of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb so that he could continue his struggle against the foreign rule. Savarkar clearly saw his clemency petitions from the prism of guerrilla war, a sort of deceiving tactic to achieve the larger objectives. As soon as he was out, he continued with his behind-the-scenes revolutionary activities, this time educating and training other revolutionaries. He was suspected of being involved as a conspirator in many assassinations, most famously of a British sergeant by Vaman Rao Chavan. 

The dividing Hindu supremacist or unifying solver of Hindu-Muslim problem 

Savarkar did not eat Muslims for breakfast. He saw a great mass of the Muslim population with Hindu ancestors as an integral part to Indian citizenry. For him, Hindutva was not about Hindu supremacy, but Hindu protection, and equality of all faiths. His Hindutva was compatible with the ‘one man, one vote’ principle which even the secular Congress party sacrificed in accepting the separatist communal award, and earlier with the Lucknow pact conceding separate Muslim electorates. Savarkar had his list of true Muslim heroes such as the Telugu Muslim general of the Marathas, Ibrahim Khan Gardi, the great medieval Muslim ruler of Kashmir, Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin, Emperor Akbar, his great-grandson and the great Muslim symbol of syncretic culture, Dara Shukoh, Bahadur Shah Zafar and Emperor Shah Alam II. Authors believe this medieval model can be found in modern history as well in the names of great revolutionary Ashfaqullah Khan, Brigadier Mohammed Usman, Havaldar Abdul Hamid and Indian army soldier Aurangzeb, who was killed by terrorists last year in Kashmir.  

For Savarkar, Hindutva was a lived history, a civilizational memory of the life of the land with a collective of Indic faiths. Thus, bringing in the strongly held RSS belief according to which all peoples of the land of Bharat, including Muslims, who trace their ancestry to this land, are Hindus. The authors want this debated whether this is divisive or an attempt at finding a golden mean, a way out of the Hindu-Muslim problematique. 

Savarkar: The National Security Icon 

From predicting the China war in 1954, eight years before it happened to the warning in 1941 on demographics of Assam’s Brahmaputra valley, to prognosticating the Kashmir conflict, Savarkar was prophetic and could be called the father of India’s national security, according to the authors. They back these claims with copious quotes from Savarkar’s writings, statements, and comments he made during his lifetime. The book has insights like Savarkar played a role in convincing Netaji Bose to travel to Japan and join the axis powers against the British to make India independent. Savarkar reprimanded Nehru for his soft approach and could see the imperatives of a hard state in India’s geostrategic neighbourhood. He wanted hard power to replace Nehru’s soft approach on both China and Pakistan, something that is being done under Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah. From the Uri and Balakot surgical strikes to abrogation of article 370, the authors see Savarkar’s national security doctrine in action. 

Savarkar: The Thinker 

Hindi words such as ‘Doordarshan’ for ‘television’, ‘Mahapour’ for ‘mayor’, and ‘Paarshad’ for ‘municipal councilor’ were coined by Savarkar. It is a pity and a measure of the intellectual bankruptcy in the country that so little is known about the true contribution of such a multifaceted personality and patriot as Savarkar. Mahurkar and Pandit have taken a deep dive to retrieve Savarkar from the image trap of both a reactionary revolutionary and a pusillanimous divider of society. It is hoped that the book would not only correct a historical wrong but would also make Savarkar attractive to a modern generation of patriots.