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