Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - Live
Why Vinayak Damodar Savarkar remains a polarising figure in state
MUMBAI: Rahul Gandhi’s comments on Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s clemency petitions to the British seeking his release from the Cellular jail in the Andamans, have once again stoked debate on one of modern India’s most complex and controversial personalities.
Savarkar is variously perceived as a nationalist, revolutionary, Hindutva demagogue, perhaps the only original intellectual of modern Hindutva, and even as a British collaborator— depending on which side of the ideological fence one is on. In reality, the many facets of his personality could be deeply contradictory.
Savarkar who had launched the secret society, ‘Abhinav Bharat,’ in the early 1900s and shipped pistols and a bombmaking manual for Indian revolutionaries in London where he was studying law, was convicted of sedition and for the murder of A.M.T Jackson, the district collector of Nashik in 1910-1911. He was sentenced to two terms of twenty-five years which were to run one after the other and not concurrently, making it, in effect, a 50-year-long imprisonment. Savarkar’s clemency petitions that Rahul Gandhi referred to, led to him being shifted from Cellular prison in the Andamans to a jail in the Bombay presidency in 1921. He was later discharged in January 1924 on the condition that he would stay within Ratnagiri district and not participate in politics.
This episode is one of the most controversial aspects of Savarkar’s life.
His admirers claim that his mercy petitions were a ploy to come out of jail and continue the anti-British struggle, while others claim this was born out of “cowardice.” A more nuanced view would be to judge Savarkar on his actions after his release from the Andamans.
For, the Savarkar who went into the confines of the Cellular jail was a different man from the one who left it. The earlier Savarkar was a passionate advocate of Hindu-Muslim unity as a tool to rid India of British colonialism. In London, he wrote a book hailing the revolt of 1857 as the first war of independence, calling it an example of Hindu-Muslim unity. The latter-day Savarkar simmered with hatred for Muslims, even advocating sexual violence against Muslim women as an instrument of retribution.
Though British documents from that time refer to how Savarkar continued to be anti-British in his leanings, after his release, Savarkar channelized all his energies in opposing Muslims rather than the colonials, snapping his association with the mainstream freedom movement. The reasons for this epiphanic change of heart remain controversial and also unclear.
This bitterness is attributed to Savarkar’s experiences in the Andamans where Muslim overseers and warders were alleged to have converted non-Muslim prisoners by inducements and force. However, sceptics say there is no record of any other nationalist being converted to communalism or of Muslim warders converting or ill-treating Hindu inmates. But, Savarkar’s works make it evident that this transformation may not have been a mere tactical posturing. Unlike Jinnah, who carved out a constituency among the Muslims while enjoying his whiskey and pork, for Savarkar, the personal was political and vice-versa. In 1921, Savarkar wrote his seminal tract ‘Essentials of Hindutva,’ which laid the foundations of Hindutva as an ideology. It emphasised cultural nationalism as opposed to a territorial one, and said that India was for the Hindus alone, and not for the Muslims or the Christians. Savarkar influenced the launch of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in 1925. His older brother Ganesh was one of its co-founders. Savarkar’s younger brother N.D. Savarkar was its office-bearer and by some accounts, was seen as one of the probable successors of the first RSS chief K.B. Hedgewar.
As the president of the Hindu Mahasabha, Savarkar played a seminal role in the organisational and ideological development of the Sangh. The relationship between the Mahasabha and RSS came apart only after the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi in 1948, which also saw the RSS trying to white-wash its association with its ideological progenitor. At Ratnagiri, Savarkar launched a crusade against Hindu obscurantism by opposing untouchability, upholding the rights of lower castes and promoting inter-dining. This attracted the ire of the orthodox sections, including Brahmins, who petitioned the Governor of Bombay against his “immoral and irreligious preaching” such as seeking temple entry for Dalits. Despite his demagoguery, Savarkar was an atheist and even stressed that the cow was not a holy animal but one with a utility and which could be slaughtered. He however diluted this position to appeal to orthodox Hindus after joining active politics. Apart from Muslims, he also harboured acute dislike for Gandhi. He was not favourably disposed to Gandhi’s agenda of non-violence, satyagraha and HinduMuslim unity. From 1937 onwards when he became president of the Hindu Mahasabha Savarkar’s politics took an intensely anti-Gandhi and antiCongress stance going to the extent of asking Hindus to join the armed forces to fight alongside the British, to oppose the Quit India movement, and to ally with the Muslim League in Sindh. When Gandhi was assassinated by Hindu Mahasabha’s Nathuram Godse, Savarkar was arrested as one of the conspirators. As Morarji Desai, the then home minister of the Bombay province, told the Bombay Legislative Council on 3 April 1948, Savarkar’s “past services are more than offset by the present disservice.” Savarkar was acquitted by the special court and the government did not challenge the acquittal in the High Court. However, the Justice J.L. Kapur commission set up to probe whether some people had prior knowledge of the plot to assassinate Gandhi and whether that knowledge was communicated to the governments of the day, sharply indicted Savarkar saying, “All these facts taken together were destructive of any theory other than the conspiracy to murder by Savarkar and his group.”