Savarkar – A Contested Legacy

Title: Savarkar – A Contested Legacy 1924 – 1966

Author: Vikram Sampath

Publisher: Penguin Viking, 2021 (First)

ISBN: 9780670090310

Pages: 691

 

This is the second and final volume of Vikram Sampath’s definitive book on Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. The first volume, ‘Savarkar – Echoes from a Forgotten Past’ was reviewed earlier in this blog. This volume seamlessly picks up the narrative from where the first book left it with Savarkar’s transfer from Andaman to a jail on Indian mainland. He continued in preventive detention for thirteen more years and was released only in 1937 after serving twenty seven years in detention. Savarkar became a controversial leader after his release from captivity. He strongly objected to the nonviolent gimmicks of Gandhi and also the violent demands of Muslims for Pakistan. Savarkar never minced his words, especially in exposing the religious bigotry beneath the Pakistan demand even though it was couched in seemingly innocuous, westernized jargon of nationhood. After Pakistan was conceded, Gandhi was severely chastised by Hindu leaders. Savarkar was implicated in Gandhi’s murder carried out by two members of the Hindu Mahasabha which he led as its president. Even though the trial and appeal courts honourably acquitted him, Savarkar is still stigmatized by vested interests for the alleged association with the convicts. We read about all these issues in this volume. Savarkar and Gandhi fought for the nation’s freedom but an ocean separated their outlooks. Savarkar stood for modernity and science, separation of ritualistic religion from politics, militarization of Hindu society and dismantling the caste system. Gandhi, meanwhile, spoke of faith, religion and ahimsa, approved of the caste system in principle and had not much time or appetite for science. This volume caps Vikram Sampath’s timely and brilliant effort to examine a renowned freedom fighter such as Savarkar in a light unshaded by Left-Islamist perspective.

 

After completing fourteen years in different jails, Savarkar was transferred to detention in Ratnagiri district for five years under stringent conditions not to involve in political activity. The place was cleverly chosen as it had no rail lines or telephones in 1924. He was subjected to the strictest surveillance on every spoken or written word. The visitors were also trailed. Every sentence or word that came from him was dissected and analysed by several government departments keen to rescind his release. He had to obtain permission from the highest circles even to travel to his home district of Nashik occasionally. The detention was extended four times of two-year duration after the initial five-year period ended and Savarkar was fully released only in 1937 after spending 27 years in captivity. He was 27 years old while going to jail and was 54 while coming out of it, having sacrificed the prime of his youth in incarceration. Finding a means of livelihood in the period of house arrest was a serious task as the government had seized all properties of Savarkar and his father. His degrees – Bachelor of Arts and Law – were revoked. All his books were banned thereby eliminating the chance of getting royalty on its sale.

 

Once he was barred from political activity, he devoted his time to strive for reforms of the Hindu society. It was the aroused Hindu consciousness in the wake of the communal riots after Gandhi’s Khilafat agitation that Savarkar utilized as a crucible for his experiments on social reforms. He hit upon ending untouchability of the lower castes as the start of his grand program. The untouchables were not allowed entry to public places nor permitted to draw water from public wells. Savarkar earnestly instituted the practice of inter-dining and persuaded upper castes to allow children of the lower castes to study along with their own kids. In 1929, the Vitthala temple of Ratnagiri allowed entry of untouchables inside the temple for worship. Still, many Brahmins did not open their temples, claiming it to be private property. Savarkar constructed the Patit Pavan Mandir in Ratnagiri as a fitting reply which was open to all classes and had a Dalit as its chief priest. Progressive upper castes also prayed there. On the third day of its opening, he arranged an inter-dining program. He also operated a café in Ratnagiri which was open to all castes. Savarkar attacked the scriptural underpinnings of untouchability too. He asked that if the four varnas are the bedrock of Hinduism, how is it that we have defied this maxim and created a fifth class of untouchables. Thus, those who have already destroyed the Chaturvarna system are crying foul about the collapse of Sanatan Dharma. The book includes a prescient comparison of the views of Gandhi, Ambedkar and Savarkar on how untouchability should be ended. Gandhi wanted the pace of a snail, Ambedkar desired that of a cheetah and Savarkar’s was in the middle of them!

 

A good part of the criticism of Savarkar in contemporary society derives its origin from the perceived anti-Muslim rhetoric that is seen in his writings and heard in his speeches. However, the virulence of Savarkar’s opposition to the Muslims during his years as the head of the Hindu Mahasabha would need to be seen in the context of the times where the vivisection of the country on communal lines was being vociferously demanded and pushed through by the leaders of that community. His advancement of the ‘Hindu Rashtra’ was another point of contention. But Savarkar’s conception of a Hindu was devoid of the narrow religious underpinnings of the term. A Hindu is one who considers this vast stretch of land called Bharat from the Indus to the sea as the land of one’s ancestors and holy land (pitrbhu and punyabhu). The Hindu Rashtra does not envisage any preferential treatment or prerogative for the majority community. The problem arises when people examine the treatment meted out to religious minorities in all Islamic states and fear that it will be repeated against minorities in a Hindu Rashtra too. Of course, there will be no special favour for the minority and the democratic idea of ‘one man, one vote’ will be put in place. No enhanced weightage will be extended to a citizen’s vote based on his religion. The foreign policy will be set purely based on the nation’s interests and academic-political ideologies like communism, Nazism or fascism would have no place in it.

 

The book narrates in unequivocal terms that though ideological rivalry existed between Gandhi and Savarkar, it never degenerated into personal enmity. Savarkar severely criticized Gandhi’s absolute nonviolence. Adherence to nonviolence is laudable as a principle, but Savarkar always maintained that one is required to take up arms for a just cause. Acting otherwise is impractical monomania and sheer insanity. The Mahasabha encouraged youths to militarize themselves by joining the army and getting trained. As the Second World War loomed, the British abandoned their practice of recruiting only the martial races. Several Hindus joined the army and the percentage of Hindus in the army went up.

 

Savarkar coined the term ‘Hindutva’ and the proponents of Hindutva revere him today. However, the Mahasabha and the RSS were not on very cordial terms for a considerable length of time. Sampath devotes a few sections to explain and analyse this fratricidal animosity. Excessive generalization and formulaic definition of ‘Hindu’ and ‘Hindutva’, however rational and logical it might have been, alienated several sections from accepting Mahasabha’s viewpoint. Savarkar was on very friendly relations with RSS founder Hedgewar, but it was not so with Golwalkar, his successor. Slowly, the Sangh and Mahasabha drifted apart from each other. Mahasabha always took on hero worship while the Sangh was ideology-based. Moreover, Savarkar’s outspoken criticism alienated other leaders too. As a tactic of political expediency, Mahasabha members in the provincial legislative assemblies allied with Muslim League and served in their ministries in Sindh and Bengal. But the reticence of their allies did not detract the League from passing Pakistan resolutions in the assemblies. Mahasabha members were then accused of opportunism in holding on to power even at the cost of honour and patriotism. Syamaprasad Mukherjee became the president of Mahasabha, but he joined the Nehru cabinet. Eventually, the Mahasabha became irrelevant in Indian politics.

 

Savarkar turned notorious the moment he was accused as a conspirator in Gandhi murder. Both Godse and Narayan Apte, those who were sentenced to death for killing Gandhi, were workers of the Mahasabha and personally known to Savarkar. Exploiting this link to the hilt, Savarkar was falsely implicated as the master brain behind the murder. No credible evidence or witnesses were there to convict him and so the police was forced to fabricate them. Savarkar was taken from judicial custody and photographed along with Godse and other accused so as to create an insinuation of guilt. But concocted evidence could not stand judicial scrutiny. Gopal Godse, brother of Nathuram Godse who was Gandhi’s assassin, mentions that not a part of his body was free of bruises of custodial torture to elicit confession. Digambar Badge turned approver and testified against Savarkar. The investigation and trial became an opportunity and excuse for witch-hunt to settle scores with political opponents. Police believed that ‘someone up there’ would be highly gratified if Savarkar could be implicated. This was a veiled reference to none other than the Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. The book covers the trial in some detail at the end of which Savarkar was acquitted. The government went in appeal and Godse made a brilliant speech defending his action. Justice G. D. Khosla of the Punjab High Court who had heard the appeal remarked after Godse’s testimony that ‘had the audience on that day been constituted into a jury, they’d have brought in a verdict of ‘not guilty’ by an overwhelming majority!

 

The book boldly attempts to describe the planned anti-Brahmin riots that took place in the aftermath of Gandhi assassination. Just like the Congress workers who attacked Sikhs in Delhi after Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984, Congress workers chanting ‘Gandhiji ki jai’ attacked the persons and property of Maharashtrian Brahmins just because the killer happened to belong to that community. This episode was put under wraps by the succeeding governments even though hundreds of people were killed in what practically amounted to genocide. In continuation with the first volume, Sampath treats his protagonist with no superhuman attributes nor attempts to whitewash every behavioural trait. It really looks like Savarkar was uncomfortable with spending long prison terms and tried every strategy to get out, including writing humiliating mercy petitions. When Nehru government incarcerated him, the conditions they put forward for his release were strange: Savarkar should abstain from politics for a year, or the 1952 general election should be over, or the start of the Third World War, whichever occurred first. This was adding insult to injury, yet Savarkar agreed. The book provides only a very short account of Savarkar’s rationalism and that too, portraying him as somewhat insensitive at the demise of his much devoted wife. The book serves its purpose well even though the frequent and long quotations from other books affect readability.

 

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 4 Star

 

Communalism and Sexual Violence

Title: Communalism and Sexual Violence – Ahmedabad Since 1969

Author: Megha Kumar

Publisher: Tulika Books, 2017 (First)

ISBN: 9789382381907

Pages: 255

 

Indian society is ruled and regulated by religion. Even though the country avows secularism, the dictates of religion often influence government action. India also allows its citizens to follow their own religious personal codes in matters of marriage, property and inheritance. Consequently, the Muslims still practice polygamy and denial of rights to women on their father’s property with the full support of the state. Till a decade ago, Christian women also had had no equal rights on their parental property if there was a male sibling. In such a powder keg of incompatible religious sentiment, even the slightest provocation has the potential to incite a communal riot in which men would be killed and their womenfolk sexually violated. Former Justice Markandeya Katju once remarked that one could foment communal trouble in Delhi for as little as Rs. 2000. With such a background in mind, we need to look back to the morning of Feb 27, 2002, when the Sabarmati Express carrying – among others – kar-sewaks returning from Ayodhya, stopped at Godhra station in Gujarat which was a Muslim-dominated area. There seemed to be a minor altercation between a few kar-sevaks and platform vendors. As the train started to move a little later, it was stopped and an angry Muslim mob armed with weapons and sticks surrounded the S-6 coach. They quickly doused the compartment with petrol and set it alight. Nobody was allowed to jump out. 58 Hindus, including women and children, were roasted alive in a few minutes. The nation was stunned at the unprecedented level of brutality from the minority community. The retaliation was swift and massive. Hundreds of Muslims were killed in Gujarat, many of them burnt alive and a lot of women paraded naked or gang-raped. Incidents that shocked human sensibility occurred in a few days after Godhra. This book is an analysis of the violence spearheaded by communalism. In addition to 2002, the riots occurred in the years 1969 and 1985 in Ahmedabad are also covered in this book. Megha Kumar is deputy director of analysis at Oxford Analytica, the global analysis and auditing firm. She has also studied in Oxford University.

 

The book blames Hindu nationalists on every page and devotes some care to their alleged propaganda against Muslims. The Muslim male is portrayed as a violent iconoclast, proselytizer and a sexually promiscuous rapist. The Muslim female is stereotyped as immoral, perverse and violent. By contrast, the Hindu male is described as peaceful, sexually abstinent, monogamous and civilized and the Hindu female as a chaste and devout mother and wife. But what the author describes as the cause of the 1969 riot seems to endorse a part of this stereotyping. It also shows how easily the Muslims get provoked and how fast a communal riot could break out in Ahmedabad of the 1960s. In March 1969, a police officer in Kalupur locality moved aside a handcart packed with books which was obstructing the road. In the process, the cart toppled over and a copy of the Quran fell to the ground. The owner alleged sacrilege, an unruly mob of 2000 gathered and pro-Pakistani slogans were raised (p.69). The police promptly issued a public apology on loud speakers on behalf of the commissioner of police. But the mob turned violent and a full-scale communal riot ensued in which 660 people were killed! Hardly four months later, far away in Israel, an Australian Christian who was later identified as mentally unstable, set fire to the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. Muslims in Ahmedabad rioted against this too.

 

While it is true that Muslims were at the receiving end of the majority of the violence, a considerable number of equally heinous acts came from them against their Hindu neighbours. This was true even in 2002 when the Hindu nationalists controlled the government and police. Hence the Muslim belligerence in 1969 and 1985 can only be imagined. However, Kumar takes a highly biased view, completely ignoring the violence on Hindus. The gravity of the situation could be understood from one or two sentences which inadvertently slip out of the strategic narrative. She admits that “it is possible that during some attacks, Muslim men raped Hindu women” (p.82). After the 1985 riot, “both Hindus and Muslims were so anxious about their safety that they sold their houses in mixed neighbourhoods at throw away prices” (p.143). Regarding 2002, the author admits that ‘of the 150-200 women who were sexually brutalized, the majority were Muslims’ (p.1, 9), which means that Muslims indulged in exactly the same kind of violence against Hindu women. But where are their stories, Ms. Kumar? As per official records, of the 1044 people killed in the riots, 790 were Muslims and 254 were Hindus, which clearly shows that the riot was not one-sided or of the scale of genocide as claimed by anti-India groups. Kumar apparently does not seem to be concerned about their stories or perhaps does not find them worthy enough for consideration. In a riot, several rumours and pamphlets demonizing the other community usually circulate. This book collects such vicious propaganda but ensures that only those against Muslims are reproduced. The rhetoric in them is so full of hatred and violence that it is possible that even moderate Muslims would feel embittered against Hindus. Probably that is the author’s intention in producing these anonymous leaflets of only one community in the book.

 

The 2002 riot was ignited by the inferno at Godhra in which 58 Hindus were incinerated alive by a Muslim mob. But the author sidesteps this issue by offering three probable causes for the train fire, each more outrageous than the previous one. The first is that the kar-sevaks harassed Muslim women on the Godhra station platform and the Muslims retaliated. This is highly unlikely as the Sabarmati Express stops here for only five minutes. Then she claims that the fire may have started accidentally! Yes, she wants us to believe that the victims stayed glued to their seats without making any effort to get out of the burning train. And the last is that the Hindus deliberately caused the fire to kill their own people. Believe me; this woman has done her research in Oxford, no less! And then she concludes that ‘even after a decade, no consensus was reached’. Do you need an academic consensus about an incident in which many tens of people were killed by a mob many hundreds strong and watched by a few thousands of mute spectators? This is the touchstone of the level of falsification employed in this book. She always treats the Hindu community separate as upper castes, OBCs and Dalits, but singles out the OBCs and Dalits for carrying out the actual violence. In 1969, most of the violence was done by Dalits and OBCs while in 2002, tribes-people also joined this group. However, the author remains silent about the caste background of those people killed in the Godhra train.

 

This book purposefully attempts to foment trouble between communities by incorporating one-sided, provocative slogans and inserting photographs of such pamphlets. It tries to stoke Muslim anger with sentences like ‘the perpetrators sought to impregnate Muslim women with the seed of the superior Hindu race; evisceration of the Muslim women’s reproductive organs was in order to diminish Muslim population’. In one instance, the boast of a Hindu goon as to the step by step acts by which he raped a Muslim girl is reproduced verbatim. Here, the deplorable crimes committed by a few people are attributed to the entire community. If this false logic is extended to terrorism, the entire Muslim community would have to be held responsible. Kumar frequently asserts that Hindu nationalist propaganda involves ‘imaginary history of Muslim atrocities’. Is it really imaginary? You only have to open your eyes to see signs of the atrocities of Muslim invaders around you – in the form of a broken idol, a fully or partially demolished temple, an area of the town you can’t enter in a procession with music playing or even in place names. The Sabarmati Express itself passes through Muzaffarpur, Hajipur, Muhammedabad, Azamgarh, Shahgunj, Akbarpur, Faizabad, Daryabad, Mahmedavad and finally, Ahmedabad. One unintentional slip of the author is that she claims that the caste system is not so rigid after all and upward or downward movement is possible along the ladder. The Kshatriya Rajputs in Gujarat accepted into the Kshatriya fold the backward-caste Koli community in the 1940s to increase their electoral clout and since then, the Kshatriyas are seen as a backward-caste group in Gujarat (p.103).

 

Kumar admits that many Muslim women were sexually exploited by activists and Muslim religious leaders in the relief camps in which they stayed after the riot. Even well-known Maulanas asked for sexual favours in lieu of much sought-after relief material. The author stoops so low as to differentiate between the unwelcome sexual episodes and claims that in the maulana’s case, ‘despite the coercion and abuse of power, his proposal created a scope for agency and choice for the woman’ (p.194)! Everybody turned a blind eye to this depredation. The head of the women’s wing of the Jamaat e-Islami Hind justified it like this: “if you put so many women in front of a man, of course he will take advantage of it. That is his need” (p.197). Were they running relief camps or harems?

 

The mere fact that a large part of the research for this book is facilitated by Teesta Setalwad proves its partisan subjectivity. Kumar claims that ‘in Mumbai, Teesta and others welcomed me into their homes and lives in a way I thought only family could. Teesta also generously shared with me her boundless knowledge on Gujarat and gave me access to critical sources’. This book accuses patriarchy in many places for all the ills of Indian society and claims that ‘the brutal sexual violence against women is a patriarchal idea of sex’ (p.5). She compares the 2002 rape cases to the 2012 Delhi Nirbhaya case and claims that while Hindu nationalists targeted Muslim women in the former, the Nirbhaya victim and assailants were Hindus. As a matter of fact, this too is wrong like many other claims in this book. The juvenile who inflicted the most brutal violence on the Nirbhaya victim was a Muslim. Clever tricks to fool the readers can be seen in this book with selective disclosure of data. It is stated that “Muslims were badly affected in the 1985 riot: of the 220 estimated fatalities, 100 were Muslim” (p.96). Read this again. This really means that the number of Hindus killed is 120, which is much more than the Muslim toll. If you had read that sentence casually, you might have missed it and bought the author’s false claim. Another ridiculous finding is that the Ramayana is revered only by upper caste Hindus (p.40). This book is based on interviews made by the author in 2007-8 in which people remembered and duly told her about their experiences in 1969 and 1985.

 

The book is full of half-truths and plain lies. Moreover, the communal venom it spreads unsettles readers. It seeks to drive communities forever against each other rather than forgetting the past and reconcile in the future. It nourishes Muslims’ sense of isolation and insecurity by feeding it tales of victimhood. It contains implicit incitement to violence and needs to be tackled accordingly. Regarding Hindus, the author tries to push through three simultaneous wedges between the upper castes, OBCs and Dalits. What is masqueraded as research is in fact just hearsay and urban gossip. In fact, it contained so much filth that I was reminded of an incident in the Sherlock Holmes story ‘The Devil’s Foot’. In the story, Holmes and Watson came across a fumigant toxic powder which was used to kill several members of a family. Holmes decides to test how powerful it is and sprinkles some on an open flame. In no time, the vapours surrounded them causing deadly suffocation and horrific visual experiences. In the nick of time before permanently losing mental balance, Watson regains his senses for a moment, throws away the fuming lamp into a trash bin and took his friend along to dive on to the outside meadow amid clear daylight and pure air.

 

That’s why I threw this junk book into a waste basket.

 

The book is not recommended.

 

Rating: 1 Star