Vinayak Damodar Savarkar - Definition and Overview

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Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883-1966) was a Hindu nationalist leader whose book, Hindutva, has been inspirational for the modern Hindu Nationalistic Movement. He was also a brave and revolutionary freedom fighter during Indias struggle for freedom because of which he is also known as "Veer Savarkar" (Brave Savarkar). During the post-independence years of India, however, his figure has been extremely controversial. Primarily for his alleged involvement in the assasination of Mahatma Gandhi.

Contents

1 The Freedom Fighter

2 Controversial Political Views

3 Assasination of Gandhi

4 On Hindus & Muslims

5 Literary Works

6 Sarvarkar Icon of the RSS

7 External links

8 Further reading

The Freedom Fighter

After a member of the Free Indian Society killed an official in India Office (London), Savarkar was arrested and transported to the Andamans for life imprisonment. He reached the Andamans in 1910. He appealed for clemency in 1911, and again in 1913 during Sir Reginald Craddock's visit.

According to Prof Bipin Chandra of JNU Savarkar unlike Bhagat Singh when arrested apologised, he begged for clemency from the British government. He told the British if they released him he would tell his comrades that the path he was following was wrong. http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/mar/03inter.htm

In a letter dated November 14, 1913, Savarkar said: "...if the government in their manifold beneficence and mercy release me, I for one cannot but be the staunchest advocate of loyalty to the English government ... Moreover, my conversion to the constitutional line would bring back all those misled young men in India and abroad who were once looking up to me as their guide... The Mighty alone can afford to be merciful and therefore where else can the prodigal son return but to the parental doors of the government?"

Trilokya Nath Chakravarthy, a famous Bengali revolutionary, has written in his autobiography that conditions in the Andamans jail were very bad. He was there along with Savarkar. They were tortured in all sorts of ways. Savarkar, who was older, told them to go on a hunger strike which they did. But Savarkar himself did not join it. Chakravarthy told him, 'How dare you not join us when you have instigated us.' http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/mar/03inter.htm

Savarkar again give a written undertaking to get released from the jail - "I hereby acknowledge that I had a fair trial and just sentence. I heartily abhor methods of violence resorted to in days gone by and I feel myself duty bound to uphold law and constitution (British, added) to the best of my powers and am willing to make the 'reform' a success in so far as I may be allowed to do so in future" (from facsimile of Savarkar's letter to British authorities, Frontline, April 7, 1995. Pg. 94). The reforms he is referring to here are the Montague Chelmsford proposals of 1919, which did not satisfy the nationalist movement's demands.

In response to this, as a trade off, the British Government released him under the condition that he will stay in Ratnagiri district in Bombay province and will seek permission of the government to leave the district. Also that he will not engage in any public or private political activities without the consent of the government.

Vishwanath Mathur, one of the two prisoners in the Andamans who is still alive and who was there with Savarkar, brought out these facts in his book. It was after (Deputy Prime Minister) L K Advani changed the name of the Shaheed Park outside Andamans jail into Savarkar Park that Mathur along with other ex prisoners protested.

A.G. NOORANI is a lawyer, constitutional expert, and political commentator said in the Times of India Bharatiya Janata Party has at last publicly and explicitly owned up Vinayak Damodar Savarkar as its cult figure. The BJP seeks to displace Gandhi from his position as the pre-eminent symbol of Indian nationalism and project, in his stead. Savarkar as a national hero. This is an enterprise, however, that is fraught with risk. The risk of the truth coming out in the open.

Controversial Political Views

In August 1938, he spoke to a crowd of 20,000 in Pune: "Germany has every right to resort to Nazism and Italy to Fascism and events have justified that those isms and forms of governments were imperative and beneficial to them under the conditions that obtained there... But it should be made clear to the German, Italian, or Japanese public that crores of Hindu Sanghatanists in India whom neither Pandit Nehru or nor the Congress represents, cherish no ill-will towards Germany or Italy or Japan or any other country in the world simply because they had chosen a form of government or constitutional policy which they thought suited best and contributed most to their National solidarity and strength."

However it should be noted that the Savarkar spoke these words in 1938 and Germany had yet to embark on the path of Genocide and global destruction.

Assasination of Gandhi

However, many believe that Sarvarkar masterminded the assassination of Gandhi. Recently many newspapers and magazines have released the letters of Nathuram Godse - Mahatma Gandhi's assassin. The Hindu newspaper claims that it has copies of five letters that confirm the relationship between Godse and Savarkar, which was denied previously.

No one contests that Nathuram Godse, Gandhis murderer, was a member of Hindu Mahasabha, and that he went to meet Savarkar days before he killed Gandhi. Digambar Badve, the approver, said that he heard Savarkar tell Godse, Gandhichi shambhar varsha puri zhali (Gandhis century is over) and Yashasvi howun yaa (Come back with success).

What irked Savarkar was that the Hindus overwhelmingly followed Gandhi. The Hindu Mahasabha sometimes won seats in local elections; but in provincial elections it was invariably trounced by the Congress. It could not even win the seat from Bombay, where Savarkar had made his home. The almost-barrister ex-terrorist who in his youth outshone the gentle Gandhi was ignored by everyone, even the British government to which he had become loyal. The reality was bitter; it poisoned Savarkars writings. Anyone who read Savarkar and believed him in the 1930s and 1940s would have wanted to kill Gandhi.

Delivering a lecture on Savarkar at the Asian College of Journalism here today, Mr. Noorani said three key factors contributed to the acquittal of Savarkar. There was no material that could, in legal terms, corroborate the evidence of the approver (Digambar Badge) in the case. None of the major witnesses was "forthcoming" (about the relationship between Savarkar and Gandhi's assassin Nathuram Godse).

Substantiating his statement that Savarkar organised the murder of Gandhi, the constitutional expert who authored "Savarkar and Hindutva: The Godse Connection," said even at the time of the trial, there was evidence about the political and ideological association of Savarkar and Godse. More material on this came to light a few years after Sarvarkar's deathin 1966 when his aides appeared before a Commission of Inquiry, headed by J.L. Kapur, former Supreme Court Judge. Also, the material accessed by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, authors of ``Freedom at Midnight," could also have fulfilled the requirements of corroborative evidence.

The Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Conspiracy to murder Mahatma Gandhi, was headed by Justice Jivanlal Kapur of the Supreme Court and was provided with evidence not produced in the court; especially the testimony of two of Savarkar's close aides - Appa Ramachandra Kasar, his bodyguard, and Gajanan Vishnu Damle, his secretary.

There was none of the ambiguity surrounding Godse and Apte's visits to Savarkar on January 14 and 17, 1948. Kasar told the Kapur Commission that they visited him on or about January 23 or 24, which was when they returned from Delhi after the bomb incident. Damle deposed that Godse and Apte saw Savarkar "in the middle of January and sat with him (Savarkar) in his garden."

Justice Kapur's findings concluded: "All these facts taken together were destructive of any theory other than the conspiracy to murder by Savarkar and his group."

In his crime report No.1, the main police investigating officer, Jimmy Nagarvala, had stated that "Savarkar was at the back of the conspiracy and that he was feigning illness." Nagarvala's letter of January 31, 1948, the day after the assassination, mentioned, on the strength of what Kasar and Damle disclosed to him, that Savarkar, Godse and Apte met for 40 minutes "on the eve of their departure to Delhi" and that these two had access to the house of Savarkar without any restriction." In short, Godse and Apte met Savarkar again, in the absence of Badge, and in addition to their meetings on January 14 and 17.

On Hindus & Muslims

Savarkar has the honor of brewing Brahminical Hinduism with nationalism, and he was the first exponent of the doctrine of Hindutva. Savarkar's initial anti-British struggles were very impressive but after assuming the role of the proponent of Hindutva his major energies were channelised in strengthening the politics of hate, formation of communal Hindu Mahasabha and helping the RSS.

Savarkar's work `Hindutva: Who is Hindu' (1923) became and remains the basic text defining this political concept. With the simultaneous rise of Muslim communalism, . This nationalism consolidated itself on the ground of the 'threatening other', but this threatening other was not the British imperialist colonizers whose rule the country was suffering but was the Indian Muslim'.

Savarkar defines a Hindu as one "who regards this land of Bharatvarsha, from the Indus to the Seas as his Father-Land as well as his Holy-Land that is the cradle land of his religion"11. He said: "So with the Hindus, they being the people, whose past, present and future are most closely bound with the soil of Hindusthan as Pitribhu (fatherland), as Punyabhu (holyland), they constitute the foundation, the bedrock, the reserved forces of the Indian state. Therefore even from the point of Indian nationality, must ye, O Hindus, consolidate and strengthen Hindu nationality; not to give wanton offence to any of our non-Hindu compatriots, in fact to any one in the world but in just and urgent defence of our race and land; to render it impossible for others to betray her to or subject her to unprovoked attack by any of those 'Pan-isms' that are struggling forth from continent to continent." 1. Since Muslims and Hindus do not possess "unity of thought, religion, language and culture", they cannot coexist.

2. Muslims' allegiance to India is weaker than their allegiance to their holyland (which lies outside of India), and so their patriotism is suspect.

3. Being the minority, Muslims need to be at the mercy of Hindus.

Getting rid of Muslims is also justified, for that was what the Germans did to the Jews.

Savarkar's support for the two-nation theory is confirmed by his assertion: "I have no quarrel with Mr Jinnah's two-nation theory. We, Hindus, are a nation by ourselves and it is a historical fact that Hindus and Muslims are two nations. This position is easy to understand for Savarkar maintained that India bereft of Muslims was relatively inert to sabotage from within.

Literary Works

His other literary works in Marathi include "Kamala", "Mazi Janmathep", and most famously "1857 - The First war of Independence" about the Sepoy Mutiny, raising the claim that the Sepoy Mutiny was in fact the first war of Indian independence. He is also the author of poems like "Sagara pran talmalala", and "Jayostute", arguably the most moving, inspiring and patriotic work in Marathi literature. He is credited for several popular neologisms in Hindi like Digdarshak (leader, one who points in the right direction), Shatkar, Saptahik (Weekly, as in weekly periodicals/magazines) and Sansad (Parliament).

Sarvarkar Icon of the RSS

However, Sarvarkar is held as an icon by the BJP. Recently, the BJP also forced the government to unveil a statue at Parliament of India. Mani Shankar Aiyar who is now a union minister ordered removal of plaque of Sarvarkar found at Cellular jail, which found strong opposition from RSS and BJP. However BJP is non-committal about the recent media publications of letters confirming the link between Savarkar and Godse.

External links

Biography (http://www.kamat.com/kalranga/itihas/vds.htm)
Who was Veer Savarkar? (http://in.rediff.com/news/2004/aug/23spec1.htm) - Rediff.com article about Savarkar on Question/Answer style
The mastermind? (http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20040906&fname=Cover+Story&sid=2) - Outlook article that suspect Savarkar as mastermind on Gandhi assasination. (Requires registration, may use BugMeNot)