Veer Savarkar's demonisation among world's biggest conspiracies: Uday Mahurkar in new book

Uday Mahurkar, veteran journalist, political analyst and Central Information Commissioner, in his upcoming book 'Veer Savarkar - The Man Who Could Have Prevented Partition' pens down the current national security problems and elaborates on how security tensions in the country and matters of concern would not have existed in the presence of freedom fighter Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. A patriot, writer, activist and politician, Savarkar was popularly known as 'Veer Savarkar' and is remembered for his part in the freedom struggle and developing the ideology of Hindutva.

While some know Vinayak Damodar Savarkar as 'Veer', some perceive him as a ‘co-conspirator’ in the assasination of Mahatma Gandhi, others believe he was seeking clemency from the British Raj. But Mahurkar in his book says that Veer Savarkar is the 'father of India’s national security' and that his nationalist ideology was 'sacrificed at the altar of vote bank politics.'

The book on Savarkar is due to be released on October 12, by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, and the author speaks to Republic.

Author Uday Mahurkar's exclusive conversation with Republic Media Network

Q. The title of your book puts received wisdom on Savarkar on its head. Generations have believed he was the Hindu Jinnah... the man who thought only of Hindus and was the ideator of a Hindu nation, just as Jinnag (or Iqbal) were of the Muslim nation. How do you explain this?

This is a false narrative created by the Left intellectuals, Congress’s vote bank politics and those who are opposed to the idea of united whose biggest symbol is Savarkar. Demonising Savarkar was necessary for their political and ideological strategy. Savarkar’s Hindutva is nothing but unalloyed nationalism where religion, caste and regional pride are secondary to national pride. 

Whenever Muslim community members demonstrated a genuine desire for Hindu Muslim unity without raising special demands on Hindus and the nation Savarkar welcomed it. He was against special demands at the cost of equal rights of others. Therefore, Savarkar was a believer in true secularism. The demonisation of Savarkar is one of the biggest conspiracies ever anywhere in the world 

Q. Are you suggesting Savarkar did not believe in the two-nation theory? That he would have accepted Muslims as equal citizens under the Constitution of India?

That is what my answer to the first question says in no uncertain terms. The biggest proof is his Hindu manifesto. It promised equal rights to all religions and caste and even goes a step further and says that the State will step in and provide them protection to religious minorities should anyone try to hinder their prayers. But it also holds out a warning that the nation will not allow the creation of a nation within a nation in the name of religious ‘minoritism’, which is in fact the story of the past 70 years. The special rights given to the religious minorities in India are clearly at the cost of Hindu rights. Reservations are also being given to Muslims in some States through the back door which is a clear violation of secular principles.

The bigger question is after giving Pakistan to Indian Muslims why should Muslim appeasement politics, which led to partition, continue in independent India. This is the question the nation and the saner elements in the Muslim community should address. Certain wrong notions also need to be debunked. If one goes by the 1945-1946 Central and provincial Assembly poll results then a vast majority of Indian Muslims wanted Pakistan. And a huge majority of them stayed back in India while Hindus were driven out from Pakistan with the result that less than 10 per cent are left in today’s Pakistan and around 30 in Bangladesh today as compared to 1947.

Q. The insinuations about his involvement in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi do not stop. Is there evidence in your book that can bring some finality to this issue?

Yes. The complete story of how Savarkar was innocent and how he was implicated despite a majority of Nehru cabinet Ministers being against the decision to implicate him is there in our book. It also throws light as to how Ambedkar helped Savarkar during his trial and proves that he was purposely implicated as against the Left and Congress propaganda that he was acquitted because of the lack of evidence. There is stunning evidence that proves that Godse and Apte had themselves turned against Savarkar and other Hindu Mahasabha leaders because they saw them as being soft on the plight of the Hindu refugees coming from Pakistan.  

Q. From Gandhi to Sardar Patel to Ambedkar we have seen a recent push by India's right-wing including the RSS to appropriate their legacies.. to sort of showing them as separate from the Congress narrative. Your book seems to be another attempt in that direction, including perhaps for the first time to show revolutionary Bhagat Singh as soft on Savarkar and not a death in the wool communist. 

I think that is a wrong interpretation. Our book brings out the true facts about Savarkar that were so far hidden. However, let me put it that it is not a hagiography f Savarkar. It also evaluates him critically and even praises the economic vision of Mahatma Gandhi as against Savarkar’s,

Q. The book seems to suggest that a pacifist, appeasement oriented ideology of the freedom struggle under Congress leadership left India a soft state, and that had Sarvarkar's prescriptions of hard power projection.. some of which seems to be happening now... been heeded to... India would have had a different presence in Kashmir, Ladakh, Assam, and even in the hinterland. 

Yes, the rollback on the national security front has begun. The Modi Government has certainly demonstrated a will to implement the security and diplomatic vision of Savarkar, who is the father of India’s correct national security and diplomacy. But the path is still very long. It is entirely true that the pacifist ideology of the Congress based on appeasement which caused partition continued for decades after even independence and left India a soft State. But the Savarkar era has now arrived.