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VINAYAK DAMODAR SAVARKAR
The Bogeyman
By Swapan Dasgupta

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On February 26, 1966, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar died in Mumbai at the age of 83. Two days later, distinguished CPI parliamentarian Hiren Mukherjee rose in the Lok Sabha after question hour to suggest that the House pay homage to Savarkar in recognition of his services to the nation. The Speaker agreed to write to the family, conveying the feelings of the House. Earlier, the entire political class joined President S. Radhakrishnan in paying homage to Savarkar. Prime minister Indira Gandhi described him as a "byword for daring and patriotism" and CPI leader S.A. Dange called him "one of the great anti-imperialist revolutionaries".

Last week, Congress President Sonia Gandhi boycotted the function in Parliament to unveil Savarkar's portrait. The leftist Delhi Historians Group, dominated by discarded textbook writers, dubbed Savarkar "anti-national" and the pro-CPI(M) Sahmat termed the installation of the Hindu Mahasabha leader's portrait a "disgrace".

What has changed in these 37 years? Politics. When Savarkar died, he was a fringe figure, out of active politics since 1948 when he was implicated but acquitted in the Mahatma Gandhi murder case. He had a reputation as a Marathi litterateur and was also honoured for first describing the upheaval of 1857 as a "war of independence". Even among the charmed circle of Hindu nationalists, he was peripheral. Savarkar had charisma but the Hindu Mahasabha was history.

It is different today. Hindutva, the term Savarkar first popularised from prison in 1923 is, by L.K. Advani's admission, "the ideological mascot" of the ruling BJP. Savarkar's definition of the Hindu as one who regards India as his fatherland and holy land, has moulded those seeking to extricate Indian nationhood from Nehruvian clutches. For the new generation of "political Hindus", impatient with the RSS' over-emphasis on organisation, the agnostic and rationalist Savarkar is a key inspiration.

The extent to which Savarkar's concerns of yesterday shape the discourse of today is remarkable. An extract from his 1937 presidential address to the Hindu Mahasabha in Ahmedabad has been cited by the Congress to suggest that he was the protagonist of the two-nation theory.

The claim doesn't withstand scrutiny. In that speech, Savarkar said, "The solid fact is that the so-called communal questions are a legacy handed down to us by centuries of cultural, religious and national antagonism between the Hindus and the Muslims ... Let us bravely face unpleasant facts as they are. India cannot be assumed today to be a unitarian and homogeneous nation, but on the contrary there are two nations in the main: the Hindus and Muslims in India." Indeed, Savarkar spent much of the 1940s warning of the imminence of Congress capitulating to Muslim separatism. He spoke of the Congress' "pseudo-nationalism" just as four decades later the BJP was to sneer at its "pseudo-secularism".

Savarkar led a chequered life. As a daring revolutionary and prisoner in the Cellular Jail, he enjoyed iconic status between 1911 and 1924 comparable to Bhagat Singh in the 1930s. As leader of the Mahasabha from 1937 to 1948, he earned the respect of many Hindus, but never secured their loyalty. Even this respect turned to notoriety after his close disciple Nathuram Godse killed Gandhi. In life, Savarkar was very famous but never very influential.

Power came posthumously. The attack on his reputation is actually a proxy battle against his ideas.

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comments -  

The British were never worried about Gandhi and Nehru, they were mortally scared of revolutionaries such as Subhas Chandra Bose (who left India incognito to pursue his patriotic activities), Aurobindo Ghose (who settled in Pondicherry, then a French territory), and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (who preferred to stay, suffer, and struggle in India). More than the so-called public image, what matters with great nation-builders and patriots is their dedication, sacrifices, and love for the country. If the Government has decided to honour Savarkar, it has only atoned for the sins committed in the past.

 

 

 

 


 

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