https://thewire.in/history/veer-savarkar-the-staunchest-advocate-of-loyalty-to-the-english-governmentHow Did Savarkar, a Staunch Supporter of British Colonialism, Come to Be Known as 'Veer'?
Not
only did Savarkar pledge his allegiance to the British in return for
being released from prison, his propagation of Hindutva hurt the freedom
movement by dividing society along sectarian lines.
Vinayak
Damodar Savarkar (1883-1966) – mythologised in popular imagination as
‘Veer Savarkar’ – not only refrained from participating in the freedom
struggle after the British released him from prison on account of his
relentless pleas for mercy, but also actively collaborated with the
English rulers to whom he had declared his loyalty.
Pavan Kulkarni[Note:
This article was first published on May 28, 2017, and is being
republished on August 15, 2022, after PM Modi mentioned Savarkar in his
Independence Day speech, along with Mahatma Gandhi, Subhas Chandra Bose
and B.R. Ambedkar as those “who spent life on the path of duty.”]
At
the time when Subhas Chandra Bose was raising his Indian National Army
to confront the British in India, Savarkar helped the colonial
government recruit lakhs of Indians into its armed forces. He further
destabilised the freedom movement by pushing his Hindutva ideology,
which deepened the communal divide at a time when a united front against
colonial rule was needed. Post independence, Savarkar was also
implicated in Mahatma Gandhi’s murder.
Such is the man who was
declared by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to be “the true son of Mother
India and inspiration for many people”, in his Twitter salutation to
Savarkar on his birth anniversary on May 28 last year. In 2015,
commemorating Savarkar on his 132nd birth anniversary, the prime
minister bowed before a portrait of the Hindutva icon in remembrance of
“his indomitable spirit and invaluable contribution to India’s history”.
Finance
minister Arun Jaitley was quick to follow up on the act. “Today, on
birth anniversary of Veer Savarkar, let us remember & pay tribute to
this great freedom fighter & social-political philosopher,” he
tweeted. And somewhere in the stream of Twitter accolades from numerous
BJP ministers that followed, the TV anchor Rajdeep Sardesai joined the
chorus, albeit with a caveat. While he disagreed “with his ideology”,
Sardesai said he honoured Savarkar’s “spirit as freedom fighter”.
A
freedom fighter he definitely was, for a certain period in the first
decade of the previous century, long before he’d begun articulating the
notion of Hindutva. Savarkar was then an atheist and a rationalist, who
had started out on a revolutionary road to rid India of her colonial
yoke, asserting:
“whenever the natural process of national
and political evolution is violently suppressed by the force of wrong,
the revolution must step in as a natural reaction and therefore ought to
be welcomed as the only effective instrument to re-throne Truth and
Right.”On sailing to England to study law in 1906, Savarkar
founded the Free India Society to organise Indian students studying in
England to fight for independence. In a famous declaration before the
society, he said:
“We must stop complaining about this
British officer or that officer, this law or that law. There would be no
end to that. Our movement must not be limited to being against any
particular law, but it must be for acquiring the authority to make laws
itself. In other words, we want absolute independence.”However,
when the time came to pay the price for being a revolutionary under an
oppressive colonial government, Savarkar found himself converted and
transformed into “the staunchest advocate of loyalty to the English
government”, to use his own words. This was after he was arrested and
sentenced to serve 50 years in the infamous Cellular Jail on the Andaman
islands after he was found guilty of supplying the pistol that a member
of the Abhinav Bharat Society used to assassinate the then collector of
Nasik, A.M.T. Jackson, in 1909.
‘Veer’ Savarkar pleading with the British for mercyBarely
a month into the hardships of prison, Savarkar wrote his first mercy
petition, which was rejected in 1911. The second mercy petition, which
he wrote in 1913, starts with bitter complaints about other convicts
from his party receiving better treatment than him:
“When I
came here in 1911 June, I was along with the rest of the convicts of my
party taken to the office of the Chief Commissioner. There I was
classed as “D” meaning dangerous prisoner; the rest of the convicts were
not classed as “D”. Then I had to pass full 6 months in solitary
confinement. The other convicts had not… Although my conduct during all
the time was exceptionally good still at the end of these six months I
was not sent out of the jail; though the other convicts who came with me
were.
…For those who are term convicts the thing is
different, but Sir, I have 50 years staring me in the face! How can I
pull up moral energy enough to pass them in close confinement when even
those concessions which the vilest of convicts can claim to smoothen
their life are denied to me?”Then, after confessing that he
was misguided into taking the revolutionary road because of the “excited
and hopeless situation of India in 1906-1907”, he concluded his
November 14, 1913 petition by assuring the British of his conscientious
conversion. “[I]f the government in their manifold beneficence and mercy
release me,” he wrote, “I for one cannot but be
the staunchest advocate of… loyalty to the English government (emphasis added)”.
“Moreover,” he went on to say, making an offer which few freedom fighters could even think of making,
“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. I am ready to serve the Government in any capacity they like, for
as my conversion is conscientious.. The Mighty alone can afford to be
merciful and therefore where else can the prodigal son return but to the
paternal doors of the government?”In his fourth mercy
petition, dated March 30, 1920, Savarkar told the British that under the
threat of an invasion from the north by the “fanatic hordes of Asia”
who were posing as “friends”, he was convinced that
“every
intelligent lover of India would heartily and loyally co-operate with
the British people in the interests of India herself.”After reassuring the colonial government that he was trying his
“humble best to render the hands of the British dominion a bond of love and respect,” Savarkar went on to exalt the English empire:
“Such an Empire as is foreshadowed in the Proclamation, wins my hearty adherence”. “But”, he added:
“if the Government wants a further security from me then I and my
brother are perfectly willing to give a pledge of not participating in
politics for a definite and reasonable period that the Government would
indicate… This or any pledge, e.g., of remaining in a particular
province or reporting our movements to the police for a definite period
after our release – any such reasonable conditions meant genuinely to
ensure the safety of the State would be gladly accepted by me and my
brother.”Finally, after spending ten years in the cellular
jail and writing many mercy petitions, Savarkar, along with his brother,
was shifted to a prison in Ratnagiri in 1921, before his subsequent
release in 1924 on the condition of the confinement of his movements to
the Ratnagiri district and his non-participation in political
activities. These restrictions were lifted only in 1937.
Self-glorification of a defeated manOne
might have argued in 1924 that the promises he made about his love and
loyalty to the British, about his readiness to serve the government in
any capacity required and so on were a part of a tactical ploy – perhaps
one inspired by Shivaji – employed to make his way out of prison so
that he could continue his freedom struggle. However, history has proven
him to be a man of ‘honour’, who stood by the promise he made to the
colonial government. How then, one might wonder, did Savarkar acquire
the title ‘Veer’?
A book titled
Life of Barrister Savarkar authored by Chitragupta was the first biography of Savarkar, published in 1926.
Savarkar was glorified in this book for his courage and deemed a hero.
And two decades after Savarkar’s death, when the second edition of this
book was released in 1987 by the Veer Savarkar Prakashan, the official
publisher of Savarkar’s writings, Ravindra Ramdas revealed in its
preface that
“Chitragupta is none other than Veer Savarkar”.In this autobiography masquerading as a biography written by a different author, Savarkar assures the reader that:
“Savarkar
is born hero, he could almost despise those who shirked duty for fear
of consequences. If once he rightly or wrongly believed that a certain
system of Government was iniquitous, he felt no scruples in devising
means to eradicate the evil.”Without mincing words in the
name of modesty or moderating the use of adjectives in the name of
literary minimalism, Savarkar wrote that Savarkar
“seemed to possess
no few distinctive marks of character, such as an amazing presence of
mind, indomitable courage, unconquerable confidence in his capability to
achieve great things”. “Who,” he asked about himself, “could help
admiring his courage and presence of mind?”Perhaps in polite
society, we ought to quietly look the other way with an embarrassed
smile when an ex-revolutionist, after breaking down in prison, indulges
in self-glorification under the cover of a pen name after his release.
And, indeed, no one who did not suffer the conditions the inmates of
that infamous prison on the Andaman islands had to endure, can claim the
right to castigate Savarkar for refusing to contribute to the freedom
movement after he was released from jail.
But his purporting of
an ideology which destabilised the freedom movement by deepening the
divisions along sectarian lines and his active rendering of support to
the British government – which was determined to subdue the
anti-colonial struggle – was a betrayal that must be hard to forgive,
especially for a ‘patriot’ and a ‘nationalist’.
Derailing the freedom movement with his Hindutva ideologyThe
sectarian mindset, which eventually culminated into the articulation of
Hindutva ideology, was evident – as Jyotirmaya Sharma has demonstrated
in Hindutva: Exploring the Idea of Hindu Nationalism – in the early
Savarkar, that too from a tender age.
Only a boy of 12, Savarkar,
leading a pack of his schoolmates, attacked a mosque in the aftermath of
the Hindu-Muslim riots in Bombay and Pune in 1894-95. Holding back
the Muslim boys of the village using “knives, pins and foot rulers”,
Savarkar and his friends mounted their attack, “showering stones on the
mosque, shattering its windows and tiles”. Recollecting the incident, he
later wrote, “We vandalised the mosque to our heart’s content and
raised the flag of our bravery on it.”
When the news of Hindus
killing Muslims in the riots and its aftermath reached him, little
Savarkar and his friends “would dance with joy”.The
sectarian nature of Savarkar’s social and political thinking not only
bred in him a deep-rooted resentment against Muslims but also clouded
his understanding of historical events, leading him to perceive the 1857
War of Indian Independence as retaliation by Hindus and Muslims against
Christianity, in response to Britain’s efforts to Christianise India.
In his 1909 book, The War of Independence of 1857, published during his
revolutionary days, years before he had declared his loyalty to the
British government, Savarkar wrote, quoting Justin McCarthy, “The
Mahomedan and the Hindu forgot their old religious antipathies to join
against the Christian.”
What was to stop the British government,
which had passed a law against the practice of Sati (widow burning),
from meddling further with Hindu customs by passing a law against
idolatry, he asked. After all, “[t]he English hated idolatry as much as
they did suttee.” Describing a process he perceived to be the
destruction of Hinduism and Islam in India, Savarkar wrote in his book::
“The Sirkar (government) had already begun to pass one law after
another to destroy the foundations of the Hindu and Mahomedan religions.
Railways had already been constructed, and carriages had been built in
such a way as to offend the caste prejudices of the Hindus. The larger
mission schools were being helped with huge grants from the Sirkar. Lord
Canning himself distributed thousands of Rupees to every mission, and
from this fact it is clear that the wish was strong in the heart of Lord
Canning that all India should be Christian.”
The sepoys,
according to Savarkar, were the primary targets in this mission to
spread Christianity in India. “[I]f any Sepoy accepted the Christian
religion he was praised loudly and treated honourably; and this Sepoy
was promoted in the ranks and his salary increased, in the face of the
superior merits of the other Sepoys!”
“Everywhere”, he argued,
“there was a strong conviction that the Government had determined to
destroy the religions of the country and make Christianity the paramount
religion of the land”. By thus giving religion an unwarranted
centrality in his analysis of the causes of the rebellion, Savarkar,
says Jyotirmaya Sharma, expressed jubilation in his accounts of the
rebellion “at every instance of a church being felled, a cross being
smashed and every Christian being ‘sliced’.”
While the seeds of
communalism had been sown in his mind at a very young age, the poison
fruit of Hindutva ideology was to blossom only in his late 20s, after
Savarkar’s will to fight the British (or the Christians, as he often
referred to them in his book on the 1857 uprising) had been defeated
during his imprisonment. It was during his last few years of
imprisonment that Savarkar first articulated the concept of Hindutva in
his book, Essentials of Hindutva, which was published in 1923 and
reprinted as “Hindutva: Who Is a Hindu?” in 1928. This ideology was a
deeply divisive one which had the potential to distract attention from
the British and cast it on Muslims instead.
While he was careful
to specify that Hindutva, or ‘Hinduness’, was different from Hinduism
and encompassed a wide range of cultures including, among others, the
“Sanatanists, Satnamis, Sikhs, Aryas, Anaryas, Marathas and Madrasis,
Brahmins and Panchamas”, he nonetheless made it a point to warn that it
“would be straining the usage of words too much – we fear, to the point
of breaking – if we call a Mohammedan a Hindu because of his being a
resident of India.”
“Mohammedan or Christian communities”, he
argued, “possess all the essential qualifications of Hindutva but one
and that is that they do not look upon India as their Holyland”. A
cohesive nation, according to Savarkar, can ideally be built only by
those people who inhabit a country which is not only the land of their
forefathers, but “also the land of their Gods and Angels, of Seers and
Prophets; the scenes of whose history are also the scenes of their
mythology.”
The love and loyalty of Muslims, he warned, “is, and
must necessarily be divided between the land of their birth and the land
of their Prophets… Mohammedans would naturally set the interests of
their Holyland above those of their Motherland”. One might wonder
whether this line of reasoning implies that Muslims cannot be nationals
of Pakistan or Afghanistan either, because they would place the
interests of Saudi Arabia, wherein lie Mecca and Madina, above the
interests of their own country.
Back in the 1920s, the damage
that could be done to the freedom movement by his ideology did not fail
to come to the notice of the colonial government.
Even though
Savarkar was released on condition that he should not participate in
political activities, he was allowed by the British to organise the
Ratnagiri Mahasabha, which undertook what is in today’s lingo called
“Ghar Wapsi” and played music in front of mosques while prayers were on.
He
was also allowed to meet K.B. Hedgewar, a disillusioned Congressman,
who, inspired by his ideology of Hindutva, intended to discuss with him a
strategy for creating a Hindu Rashtra. A few months after this
meeting, in September 1925, Hedgewar founded the RSS, a communal
organisation which, like Savarkar, remained subservient to the British.
In spite of the blanket ban on political participation, Shamsul Islam pointed out:
“The
British rulers naturally overlooked these political activities as the
future of colonial rule in India rested on the communal divide and
Savarkar was leaving no stone unturned in aggravating the Hindu-Muslim
divide.”
Collaboration with the colonial government
Savarkar
was elected as the president of Hindu Mahasabha in 1937, the year when
the Indian National Congress won what we today call a landslide victory
in the provincial elections, decimating both the Hindu Mahasabha and
that other communal party, the Muslim League, which failed to form a
government even in Muslim-majority regions. But just two years later,
the Congress relinquished power in protest when, at the outbreak of the
Second World War, the viceroy, Lord Linlithgow, declared India to be at
war with Germany without any consultation.
In September 1939, the
working committee of the Congress declared that it would render support
to Britain’s war efforts in her time of crisis only if the colonial
government recognised India’s independence and “the right of her people
to frame their constitution through a constituent assembly”. When
dominion status was the last concession Linlithgow was willing to grant
to India, the ministers of the Congress resigned in protest.
Quick
to grab the opportunity, the very next month, Savarkar, in his capacity
as president of the Hindu Mahasabha, met Linlithgow. In the report
about the meeting sent to secretary of state, Linlithgow wrote:
“The situation, he [Savarkar] said, was that His Majesty’s government
must now turn to the Hindus and work with their support…. Our interests
were now the same and we must therefore work together… Our interests are
so closely bound together, the essential thing is for Hinduism and
Great Britain to be friends and the old antagonism was no longer
necessary. The Hindu Mahasabha he went on to say favoured an unambiguous
undertaking of Dominion status at the end of the war.”Two
months later, addressing the Mahasabha’s Calcutta session, Savarkar
urged all universities, colleges and schools to “secure entry into
military forces for youths in any and every way.”
When Gandhi had
launched his individual satyagraha the following year, Savarkar, at the
Mahasabha session held in December 1940 in Madura, encouraged Hindu men
to enlist in “various branches of British armed forces en masse.”In
1941, taking advantage of the World War, Bose had begun raising an army
to fight the British by recruiting Indian prisoners of war from the
British army held by the Axis powers – efforts which eventually
culminated in his invasion of British India with the help of the
Japanese military. During this period, addressing the Hindu Mahasabha
session at Bhagalpur in 1941, Savarkar told his followers:
“..it must be noted that Japan’s entry into the war has exposed us
directly and immediately to the attack by Britain’s enemies…Hindu
Mahasabhaites must, therefore, rouse Hindus especially in the provinces
of Bengal and Assam as effectively as possible to enter the military
forces of all arms without losing a single minute.”
In
reciprocation, the British commander-in-chief, “expressed his grateful
appreciation of the lead given by Barrister Savarkar in exhorting the
Hindus to join the forces of the land with a view to defend India from
enemy attacks,” according to Hindu Mahasabha archives perused by Shamsul
Islam.
In response to the Quit India Movement launched in August
1942, Savarkar instructed Hindu Sabhaites who were “members of
municipalities, local bodies, legislatures or those serving in the army…
to stick to their posts,” across the country. At that time, when Japan
had conquered many Southeast Asian countries in India’s vicinity, Bose
was making arrangements to go from Germany to Japan – from whose
occupied territories the INA’s assault on British forces was launched in
October the following year.
It was under these circumstances
that Savarkar not only instructed those serving in the British army to
‘stick to their posts’, but had also been involved for years in
“organising recruitment camps for the British armed forces which were to
slaughter the cadres of INA in different parts of North-East later.” In
one year alone, Savarkar had boasted in Madura, one lakh Hindus were
recruited into the British armed forces as a result of the Mahasabha’s
efforts.
Even though the British Army, with which Savarkar and
the Hindu Mahasabha were collaborating, managed to defeat Bose’s INA,
the subsequent public trials of INA officers at the Red Fort roused in
the Indian soldiers of the British armed forces a political conscience,
which played a crucial role in triggering the Royal Indian Naval Mutiny
in 1946, after which the decision was made by the British to leave
India.
In coalition with the Muslim League when Pakistan resolution was passedThat
Savarkar and the Hindu Mahasabha actively collaborated with the British
may not be difficult to comprehend, since it is widely known that the
Hindutva groups regarded Muslims, and not the British, as their primary
enemies. What is likely to raise more eyebrows today is the
collaboration of the Hindu Mahasabha with the Muslim League.
When the Congress leaders were arrested during the Quit India movement, the
Hindu
Mahasabha, still presided over by Savarkar, entered into a coalition
with the Muslim League to run the governments in Sindh and Bengal – a
move Savarkar justified as “practical politics” which calls for “advance
through reasonable compromises”.After all, in spite of the
deeply-held conviction by Savarkar and his party that the Muslims –
whose holy land lies in a foreign country – cannot be regarded as Indian
nationals,
the Hindu Mahasabha nevertheless had a great deal in
common with the Muslim League. Both parties made no contribution to the
struggle for independence from the colonising empire and both were
communal parties whose ideologies antagonised the prospects of India
remaining undivided after independence.Even after the Sindh
Assembly passed a resolution in 1943 demanding that Pakistan be carved
out of India as a separate state for the Muslims, the Mahasabha
ministers continued to hold their positions in the coalition government.
Not entirely surprising, given that
Savarkar had put forth his
two-nation theory “a clear sixteen years before the Muslim League
embraced the idea of the Hindus and the Muslims as two distinctive
nations and demanded the division of India.” And when India was
eventually partitioned, Savarkar blamed Gandhi for allowing Pakistan to
break away from India, an accusation that stoked the fires of hatred
against Gandhi among many of his close devotees, including his
‘lieutenant’ – Nathuram Godse.
Pavan Kulkarni is a freelance journalist.
https://frontline.thehindu.com/the-nation/interview-dr-vinay-lal-savarkar-did-very-little-for-india-independence/article64764988.ece ‘Savarkar did very little for India’s independence’
Interview with the historian Dr Vinay Lal.
Published : Nov 22, 2021 06:00 IST
Abhish K. BoseThe
claim of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh that V.D. Savarkar, the
Hindutva icon, had written mercy petitions to the British on the basis
of advice from Mahatma Gandhi has stirred a controversy.
Dr Vinay
Lal, a Professor of History and Asian American studies at the
University of California, Los Angeles, has repudiated Rajnath Singh’s
claim. Vinay Lal is the author of many seminal books on history,
including The History of History (2003), Introducing History (2005), and
The Other Indians: A political and cultural history of South Asians in
America (2008). He spoke to Frontline on the issue and also challenged
several existing myths.
Excerpts from a detailed Zoom interview he gave Abhish K. Bose, a journalist based in Kerala:
Defence
Minister Rajnath Singh’s claim that Hindutva icon V.D. Savarkar had
sent a mercy petition on the basis of advice from Mahatma Gandhi has led
to a controversy. What is your opinion? What do you think of the role
played by Savarkar and other Hindu nationalist leaders in the freedom
struggle?With regard to what Defence Minister Rajnath Singh
said, let me say it clearly, loudly and unequivocally: it is a complete
falsehood. It is a complete fabrication and there is not the slightest
evidence that Mahatma Gandhi ever advised Savarkar to write a mercy
petition. Considerable work has been done on Savarkar and his mercy
petitions, and there were many of them, before the Defence Minister came
up with this claim. For example, there is a book published by A.G.
Noorani called Savarkar and Hindutva: The Godse Connection (LeftWord
Books, 2002). If you go through the appendices of the book, you will
find reproduced several of the petitions.
The text of the
petition Savarkar filed in 1911 is not available, but the one from 1913,
and later petitions as well, are painful to read.
He says: “If
the government in their manifold beneficence release me, I for one
cannot but be the staunchest advocate of constitutional progress and
loyalty to the British Government….”. He suggests to the British
government that releasing him would be to their advantage, saying “my
conversion to the constitutional line would bring back all these misled
young men in India and abroad who were once looking up to me as their
guide, I am ready to serve the Government in any capacity they like….”
It
gets more pathetic as he reaches his conclusion: “The Mighty alone can
afford to be merciful and therefore, where else can the prodigal sons
return but to the parental doors of the Government?” What Savarkar is in
effect saying to the British is this, “I will do whatever you want me
to do, just get me out of this jail.”
He is asking the
government, the mai-baap , to take their son back into their bosom.
Gandhi himself was in jail many times. Did he ever write a mercy
petition, or a petition asking to be released? In fact, when he was put
on trial in 1922 on charges of sedition, and indeed charged under
Section 124 of the Indian Penal Code, which the present government uses
at the drop of a hat, he invited the judge to give him the harshest
possible sentence under the law if the judge truly believed that he was
guilty of the charges laid against him.
But for those who don’t
like Gandhi, let us take the example of Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, and
Sukhdev. Did they ever file a petition for mercy as they were awaiting
their execution? On the contrary, when Bhagat Singh’s father pleaded
with his son, saying “You’re a young man, your whole life is ahead of
you, file a petition of mercy with the British authorities”, Bhagat
Singh was outraged and deeply hurt that his father made such a
suggestion. In contrast to this, Savarkar filed mercy petitions
repeatedly.
Let us go back to the claim that Gandhi advised
Savarkar to file a petition with the British authorities that they
should offer him clemency.
On January 18, 1920, Savarkar’s
younger brother wrote to Gandhi saying that the government had given
clemency to other prisoners but not his brother, and enquired whether
Gandhi could do anything. Gandhi replied from Lahore on January 25 (the
text of this letter is in Volume 19 of the Collected Works of Mahatma
Gandhi , published by the Government of India): “I have your letter. It
is difficult to advise you.”
Where did our honourable Defence
Minister get this idea that Gandhi advised Savarkar to file a mercy
petition? Is it there in his letter? No. The letter continues: “I
suggest, however, your framing a brief petition setting forth the facts
of the case bringing out in relief the fact that the offence committed
by your brother was purely political. I suggest this in order that it
would be possible to concentrate public attention on the case.”
Gandhi
meant that Savarkar’s offence was political and he was not jailed for a
common crime. This is important, because whatever political differences
there were between Gandhi and Savarkar, Gandhi understood that people
imprisoned for political offences belonged in a category different from
those incarcerated for ordinary crimes. He was underscoring the fact
that Savarkar was a political offender.
In 1920, Gandhi wrote an
article published on May 26 in Young India , a journal that he edited.
It also appears in Volume 20 of the Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi
under the title, ‘Savarkar Brothers’. The article concerns, once again,
the release of political prisoners under a royal proclamation of
clemency, and Gandhi was once again very clear that the Savarkar
brothers were entitled to clemency just as other political prisoners.
But
what he thought about them is very clear from this article, where he
wrote: “Both these brothers have declared their political opinions and
both have stated that they do not entertain any revolutionary ideas and
that if they were set free they would like to work under the Reforms
Act, for they consider that the reforms enable one to work thereunder so
as to achieve political responsibility for India. They both state
unequivocally that they do not desire independence from the British
connection. On the contrary, they feel that India’s destiny can be best
worked out in association with the British.”
Could there be a
clearer expression of the fact that Savarkar was so desperate to be
released from jail that he stated that he did not care for India’s
independence from the British?
It must be said that the record is
very clear and we should not shirk from the truth. Savarkar was not at
all the hero that his supporters and bhakts are trying to make him out
to be.
He did very little, if anything, for India’s Independence.
I would go so far as to say that the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS)
and the Hindu Mahasabha likewise did not do a single thing for India’s
Independence during the freedom struggle. They were collaborators of the
British.
I would like to recall what B.R. Ambedkar said about
the tendency of Indians to hold Mohammed Ali Jinnah responsible for the
Partition of India. However, the first exponent of the two-nation theory
was not Jinnah; it was Savarkar. How much Savarkar had in common with
Jinnah is not commonly realised, but Ambedkar was absolutely clear that
it was not Jinnah who was the author of the Partition of India, but
Savarkar.
In his book Thoughts on Pakistan (1940), Ambedkar
wrote: “Strange as it may appear, Mr. Savarkar and Mr. Jinnah, instead
of being opposed to each other on the one nation versus two nations
issue, are in complete agreement about it. Both agree… not only agree
but insist, that there are two nations in India, one the Muslim nation
and the other the Hindu nation.”
Gandhi and cultural capital
Why
are the RSS and its affiliates keen on appropriating the legacy of
Mahatma Gandhi? Is it because the Sangh Parivar lacks a person of the
stature of Gandhiji? What is your view on this?
In some
respects you have answered your own question. If you want to lay claim
to be an individual or an organisation that has done something worthy
for the country, especially with regard to the freedom struggle, it is
imperative to show that you are the inheritor of Gandhi’s legacy.
Whatever the limitations of Gandhi, and he certainly had them as does
every other individual, we can understand what his name means if we turn
to a concept proposed by the French theorist Pierre Bourdieu, which is
the concept of cultural capital.
The name of Gandhi has had
cultural capital all over the world. Let me give you an illustration. I
have spoken to Indian immigrants who came to the United States in the
1950s and the 1960s, when there were very few Indians in the U.S.
(Between 1923 and 1945, Indians were not even permitted within the U.S.
because of the 1924 Immigration Act and Asian exclusion laws.) Many came
without having any contact in the U.S. When they came here, all they
had to say was “we are from the land of Gandhi” and people would open
their homes to them. That is what I have been told; and this is, mind
you, before the civil rights movement, when Gandhi became even more
renowned in the U.S.
Gandhi was, and remains, a world historical
figure, and when he died many compared him not to Jinnah or Nehru, but
rather to Jesus Christ and the Buddha, among the greatest teachers of
humankind. Just look at the work of Indian printmakers at that time.
This is what Bourdieu terms cultural capital. The RSS and the BJP are,
of course, trying to legitimise their notion of Hindu nationalism by
invoking the name of Gandhi. And this is something that must not only be
merely questioned but completely rejected. Because, if we do not reject
this, [yet] another lie will circulate in the public domain.
Reading Hindutva history critically
There
are controversies across the country around the demand in some colleges
to study the history of the RSS and its leaders. The move to include
the writings of RSS leaders such as Savarkar, M.S. Golwalkar and Deen
Dayal Upadhyaya in the curriculum of Kannur University in Kerala should
be seen as part of this move. What is your view? Is it essential to
teach the ideologies of Hindutva icons?
I think that it is
very essential that we should take a nuanced view on this matter. I, for
instance, teach an undergraduate course to students aged between 18 and
21 on contemporary world history—from the time of the Industrial
Revolution to the present times. Now, when we get to the 1930s and 1940s
we get to the time of Nazi Germany and to Adolf Hitler. Hitler wrote a
very large book called Mein Kampf . It is actually a mediocre work… an
exceedingly mediocre work. No scholar who has looked at it has been
impressed with Hitler’s thinking. This is not to say that he did not
have a different kind of political genius—one that let him captivate the
country.
Now, one of the things I have my students do is read
around 10 pages from Mein Kampf . Am I therefore promoting anti-Semitism
if I am asking the students to read Hitler? Not at all. It is part of a
critical pedagogy to understand texts that are obviously misleading and
that may even be dangerous. If we are going to be thoughtful and
reflective human beings, we cannot read only books that present a
portrait of humankind in the most flattering terms. It is also essential
to understand what role a text played in society at that time,
especially when a text is pernicious.
I think some students
should have access to what Savarkar or other RSS ideologues wrote, but
there is a risk in doing so. Students have to be guided by teachers who
are sensitive and reflective, who have some moral compass; part of that
critical pedagogy may necessitate requiring the student to also read
something critical of the views associated with Savarkar and his kind.
Savarkar
and Golwalkar are, as thinkers, extremely mediocre, although Savarkar
was in some respects, though not many, a very talented and gifted
person. We must concede that. For example, he was evidently gifted as a
writer of Marathi because he was writing poetry from the age of 10 and
he wrote what became a very crucial (and controversial) book in the
reinterpretation of the rebellion of 1857-58. This is a very interesting
book.
By the way, it is a misleading idea that he gave birth to
the idea of Hindutva. A man called Brahmabandhav Upadhyay, who was a
Vedantic scholar and Bengali convert to Christianity, first wrote on
Hindutva—but that’s a different story.
If you want to understand
Savarkar’s idea of ‘punya bhoomi’, holy land or sacred geography, it is
essential that we have to read some pages from the book. But these have
to be read critically. We do not do any service to students if we do not
work with texts that are difficult and sometimes actually offensive to
others.
Although I personally think that Golwalkar and Savarkar
are not at all interesting thinkers, I think that small extracts from
these books can be taught in order to illustrate some of the most
pernicious consequences of Hindutva ideology. In the case of Golwalkar
the case is even more clear. If you go through A Bunch of Thoughts , or
his other book, We, Or our Nationhood Defined , we can see the great
debt that he owed to the Nazi ideologues.
Golwalkar was
practically speaking as a Nazi. Golwalkar was a great admirer of Nazis
and he said it very clearly that what the Nazis were doing to Jews in
Germany, we can take a lesson from that in India. And I need not explain
who he had in mind when he said that some people can be treated in
India the way the Jews are being treated in Nazi Germany. This is
important to underscore.
Regarding Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, the
present government of India has done much to promote his work and name.
Before 2015 the government had released one stamp in his honour, but
then they released one in 2015, and another in 2016, and yet another in
2017. What is the principal idea that Upadhyaya had? It is an idea that
he called ‘integral humanism’. This idea is what Jayaprakash Narayan
also had. J.P. is a bit more of an interesting thinker, but his idea is
not radically different from Upadhyaya’s. The difference is that we see a
far more ecumenical approach on the part of J.P. with regard to the
question of Muslims in particular, and with respect to the question of
how we can actually forge a movement dedicated to the idea of sarvodaya
or welfare of all. Deen Dayal Upadhyaya was going somewhat in that
direction, but some of his views are, to put it bluntly, wholly
contaminated with a certain partisanship on behalf of the Hindus.
Rewriting history
The
absence of opposition to the moves to rewrite history is apparent
nowadays. Many historians swearing allegiance to the Sangh Parivar
attempt to rewrite history. Attempts in this vein are evident in the
move to term ‘Harappan civilisation’ as ‘Saraswati civilisation’. The
previous attempts to make changes in the syllabus of the National
Council of Educational Research and Training were noticeable in the late
1990s. Why is there no opposition against this in the country?
Let
me answer this question first in the broadest terms. Let us not be
surprised by the attempts to rewrite history. Unfortunately, this is the
prerogative of those who are in power. This is true not only in India,
but all over the world. I have been writing about this question for many
years. In 2003, I published a book called The History of History:
Politics and Scholarship in Modern India (Oxford University Press,
2003). This book is about the politics of the writing of history.
The
attempt to rewrite history is something that we are invariably going to
associate with those who see it as their prerogative when they acquire
power. There are debates about the contents of history textbooks in
almost every country. One of the problems with how we think about these
things in India, if I may be permitted to say, and indeed one of the
problems with Indian journalism, is insularity. Our journalists don’t
look at what is happening in other parts of the world. There are a lot
of debates happening in Japan about the contents of Japanese history
textbooks. Why? Because of questions about the role of Japan in the
Second World War. What should Japan do? Should the Japanese apologise
the way Germany has apologised for the atrocities it committed in the
Second World War?
I am not going to speak here about the politics
of apologies. What I am simply saying is that these kinds of debates
about the contents of the history textbooks, and the fact that people in
power will attempt to rewrite them, is par for the course. Now having
said this, this doesn’t mean that we just sit back and say, “This is
what people in power do.” Of course not, because if textbooks are being
rewritten in ways that can be substantiated by historical evidence, by
powers of reasoning, or by reasonable inference—we have to look at the
totality of what we have—then we have to look seriously at such
attempts.
What is this whole argument regarding Saraswati
civilisation about? Why is the Hindutva brigade so attached to this
idea? One of the many reasons is, they want to dismiss the idea that
Aryans were foreigners; they, in fact, want to claim that India is the
source of all Aryan migrations, but the evidence doesn’t suggest that.
But let’s get to the bottom of this. They want to say, “Muslims are
foreigners in India.” To which I would say, “What does it mean to call
Muslims foreigners in India? How long have the Muslims been in India?
For over a thousand years. At what point will they cease to become
foreigners, I want to know.”
If one then said that the Aryans
themselves were foreigners, that becomes an even greater problem. I’m
not saying the debate is entirely about this. I’m saying this is a
characteristic move. This is what we can call an act of displacement; an
argument appears to be about one thing but is actually about something
else.
Why do you think that the opposition is not
taking any measures to counter it? Why is the intelligentsia of the
country being silent on this?
I don’t think that the
intelligentsia of the country is silent. The problem is that this
current government does not tolerate dissent, it has shut down the
avenues of dissent. Look at what is happening in the universities of the
country. Look what is happening at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).
The Hindutva people will tell you that JNU is a bastion of communists.
That is absurd. Of course, they have some left-wing historians and
sociologists as they do at any half-decent university. But look at what
is happening at JNU now. You mentioned the controversy at Kannur in
Kerala last month or so.
Recently, in JNU they introduced a
course on terrorism and counter-terrorism as an optional paper. It
states clearly that if you are going to study terrorism and devise
counter-terrorist strategies, all one has to do is study Islamist
jehadism, which means that practically speaking, Islamist jehadism alone
is synonymous with terrorism and we need to know nothing else. Nothing
more. This is the primordial and primary example of terrorism and that’s
that. Who has approved this? It has been approved by the academic
council and the vice chancellor. It is frankly a completely suspect
course.
Indian universities are becoming the laughing stock of
the world, unfortunately. The serious dissenters are being marginalised
and silenced at Indian universities. Now there are web portals such as
the Wire and Scroll, but they speak to a largely anglicised audience,
preaching as it were to the choir. I have to say that I’m very glad that
a few years ago the Wire started investing seriously in producing
material—even videos—in Hindi.
If you say to me, however, that no
one is protesting against these changes to the curriculum across the
country, that is not really the case, but there is a problem with regard
to what happens to people who speak out loud. There are trolls
everywhere—in the U.S., too, as I know very well—but the trolls in India
are vicious, absolutely vicious and most of them are unlettered; they
are not accustomed to reading or reflecting, but they have understood
the power of the social media that they use. And this is one of the
risks of such media; it can lead to not just democratisation but also to
authoritarianism.
There are reports that the
government is in the process of forming a single common academic
curriculum for all academic institutions of the country. What is your
view on this?
I have heard about it. But I don’t know enough
about it at this point as to comment on it. There is also speculation
that there are ongoing moves to glorify 10,000 years or more of India’s
history, whatever those 10,000 or 15,000 years of history may be,
considering that the Harappan or Indus Valley Civilisation can be dated
back only to 3000 BCE. What I will say is this: if there is a programme
for a common academic curriculum for all the academic institutions of
the country, it would be a disaster. Because that will be the end of
free inquiry.
The idea that some central agency should dictate a
common curriculum for all the academic institutions of the country is
complete anathema to the life of the mind and to free inquiry. A little
footnote: When I teach history courses even for undergraduates, I do not
even use a textbook. I have my students read dozens of articles and
primary sources. I do not use a textbook and this goes back to the
question of history textbooks, because a textbook is a way of
homogenising knowledge.
What a common curriculum would do is
multiply that problem by a factor of 10, or 20. If we are going to have a
common curriculum, we are going to end up producing a country of
robots. That’s what’s going to happen. If that is what the fight for
swaraj was all about, then why have swaraj at all? There may even be
greater freedom in slavery than in this kind of swaraj .
There
are allegations that in many universities the books of eminent
historians are purposefully being avoided in the reference section, such
as books of Irfan Habib, R.S. Sharma, and Romila Thapar. What is your
view?
Are you telling me that the books by Irfan Habib, R.S.
Sharma, Romila Thapar, perhaps D.N. Jha, and other such scholars are
being removed from university bookshelves? Well, if that is the case,
that is why some people are saying that the analogy with an
authoritarian state, or worse, may not be incorrect. We are moving in
that direction. How is this really different than the burning of books?
What happened at Kristallnacht , the night of shattered glass, when
Jewish synagogues and businesses were set on fire—all this culminated,
we could say, in the Final Solution. Books were also burned that night;
the Nazis made bonfires of books they considered degenerate.
If
the works of these historians are being no longer made available, or are
being thrown out of university and public libraries—if that is
happening, it is not simply a problem of censorship, it is a much graver
problem. A culture that begins to burn or bury books is going down the
wrong path, a very dangerous path.
Rich Medieval period
There
are also moves in many universities to not teach the medieval history
of the country. Allegedly, there are instructions to not teach it.
Again,
if that is the case, we have yet another problem. Of course, if this is
true, or if it is beginning to happen, we know why that is the case,
because the medieval period is synonymous with the period of Muslim
rule—the Muslim conquests, the Muslim invaders, and Muslim rule. In the
north you have the Delhi Sultanate, in the south the Deccan or Bahmani
Sultanates, and then, of course, the Mughal empire.
If all of
this is not taught, the students obviously will not have an
understanding on what happened in this period, they will be gasping for
some understanding. But the problem is not merely that a huge chunk of
India’s history is eradicated, so to speak. It is a much more
fundamental problem that we have to think about. The problem with the
RSS and BJP people who are now beginning to manage our universities and
institutions is that they have this idea that our medieval period is
like the Dark Ages or Middle Ages of Europe. What they do is they take
the template of European history and they just plant it on to India.
Remember
that Europe had a medieval period which was known as the Dark Ages or
Middle Ages. In India, this so-called medieval period was an enormously
rich period. The literature in nearly all Indian languages flourished at
this time; it was also the period of the ‘bhakti movement’. If you look
at the period from 1000 to 1700, India produced a storehouse of
devotional literature which is unmatched anywhere in the world. In the
north we are familiar with figures such as Tulsidas, Surdas, Mirabai,
Kabir, Nanddas; in Maharashtra, we are familiar with Tukaram, Eknath,
Narsinh Mehta, and, much earlier, in the 13th century, Jnaneshwar; in
the south, of course, poets such as Basavanna, the Virasaivas, and much
more; in Bengal, Chaitanya and Chandidas; and so on. I’m just naming
some 15 people who come to mind immediately. Now, whether they were all
working to create a single vision, or can retrospectively be interpreted
as such—there is a lot of discussion about this, about whether one can
speak of a bhakti movement, whether it was not itself in some ways a
creation of the nationalist movement that was trying to think of the
cultural unity of India. Those are questions that are properly addressed
when we are looking at the scholarship on bhakti.
I am simply
saying that this period was, in fact, a very rich period; just because
Europe had its Dark or Middle Ages, it doesn’t mean that our so-called
Middle Ages were also Dark Ages. Europe lost contact with its own
intellectual and cultural inheritance; this is the meaning of the Dark
Ages. It is well known that it is through the Arabs that Greek thinkers
such as Aristotle were rediscovered in the West. There are thousands of
books on this subject. We in India swallowed this idea that we too had
our Dark Ages—and, quite conveniently, this is the period of Muslim
dominance in India.
This whole idea of even carving up the study
of history into three large chunks—ancient, medieval, modern—is a
European idea and there is no reason to even think of history along
those lines. Let me also say that an Indo-Islamic cultural synthesis
developed in north India that is unmatched in the world, except perhaps
in Moorish Spain.
I would be the first to admit that there are
some serious historians who do not accept this idea of Ganga-Jamuni
tehzeeb, or Indo-Islamic cultural synthesis, but nevertheless it is
possible to advance an argument about such a synthesis. And we should
also look at the Deccan, at the Bahmani sultanates; courts at places
such as Bijapur were very cosmopolitan. So, in short, removing this
entire period from our history books, apart from all the other problems
I’ve described, would be a catastrophic failure of intelligence and
imagination.
Jeyamohan argues that Savarkar was a Hindu nationalist leader who
advocated for Hindu supremacy and violence against Muslims.
Savarkar’s
views were incompatible with the ideals of the Indian freedom struggle.
He was a supporter of British rule and even collaborated with the Raj
during World War II.
Savarkar is often portrayed as a hero of the Indian independence movement, but this is a myth.
To the venom that Savarkar was, we only find an antidote in Gandhi,
B. Jeyamohan (translated from the Tamil original by Iswarya V.)
Popular
discussions about Vinayak Damodar Savarkar tend to either be
hagiographic or vilify, depending on the speaker’s political, religious,
or caste affiliations. In contemporary political discourse, every
argument is reduced to a one-line snippet, a monolithic stance, a catchy
sound bite stripped of all nuance. The opponent’s side is painted as
“all evil” while one’s own side is seen as the paragon of virtue; and
this simplistic black-and-white worldview, in turn, forces others to
play the same game. You do not need a writer to tell you that. I always
try to present a comprehensive picture in the belief that every debate
should be approached within a holistic frame of certain fundamental
questions that underpin the subject.
Amid attempts to whitewash
Savarkar’s image as an unsung hero, today we also see others belittling
his role in the Indian freedom struggle, particularly ridiculing his
clemency petitions to the British. To set the record straight, I wish to
aver that Savarkar undoubtedly suffered torture and did so for the sake
of Indian independence. He was neither cowardly nor selfish. Denying
his sacrifice only exposes a mean-minded approach that favours a
complete dismissal of, and contempt for, the other side. I shall try to
approach Savarkar here within a wider historical context.
Violent rebels and democratic protesters
Those
who defend Savarkar claim that Gandhi and Nehru received far better
treatment in prison. This ridiculous comparison even extends to asking
if Ambedkar ever went to jail. Before making such comparisons, it is
important to grasp that historically, all governments make a clear
distinction between armed insurgents and democratic protesters. Weapons
communicate a very clear message: there is no room for any negotiation
or compromise; the only possible outcome is the equilibrium that emerges
in the aftermath of a violent clash of arms.
When you choose the
path of violence, you provide the justification for any violence
unleashed against your own side. After making such a choice, there is no
use complaining about how violently the enemy retaliated. Nothing is
more absurd than claiming one’s own violence as virtuous while the
opponent’s as immoral.
Any government naturally tries to suppress
armed insurgency against it—be it the British government or the
present-day Indian government. To dress up one’s defeat in such an
unequal struggle as a sacrifice is both logically fallacious and morally
reprehensible. The first ethical question that arises is: “If you had
won, would you not have done to them what they did to you?”
Savarkar
called for an armed rebellion against the British and made preparations
for it. He was not grounded by a sense of either reality or history. He
had no understanding of the power of the great administrative machinery
of the British or their massive army. Lacking a sense of history, he
failed to see that the British government drew its power from the
popular acceptance it had gained from the millions of Indian people it
ruled over.
How the British came to rule India
For
context, the British came to power in India after the fall of the
Mughal empire in an environment of utter chaos and anarchy. When they
arrived, India was perishing in hundreds of petty wars. Armies had been
disbanded and turned into bandit groups. The British brought about civil
peace, created an orderly administration, and established a common law;
therefore, the people of India accepted their rule. The situation at
Savarkar’s time was that if a movement opposed the British without
neutralising the popular acceptance the latter enjoyed, it would never
gain mass appeal. Unfortunately, Savarkar did not grasp any of this.
The
evil of the British rule lay in its ruthless economic exploitation of
the country, which they unleashed through the local zamindars. In fact,
the great famines that resulted from this exploitation caused a hundred
times more deaths, destruction, and displacements than had occurred
during the anarchic phase in India’s history. It was Gandhi, who, by
highlighting this economic exploitation and demonstrating its practical
effects on the nation, put forward a serious critique of the British
regime among the Indian populace. Only after Gandhi’s intervention did
the Indian freedom struggle become a people’s movement.
Violence versus democratic resistance
Before
the advent of Gandhi, during Savarkar’s era, some “intellectuals”
believed that the British could be driven out using violent means. Once a
violent struggle was initiated, they thought people would join in the
riots to destroy the British. Fifty years later, tragically, the
naxalites too shared the same belief and modus operandi. Savarkar,
Bhagat Singh, and Subhash Chandra Bose were all people with a similar
misapprehension of history. Their rebellion was a childish effort
completely based on their belief in violence and a misbegotten sense of
personal adventure. Their misplaced confidence came from imagining
themselves to be extraordinary men capable of determining history.
Essentially, it stemmed from a lack of faith in the great power of the
people.
The British successfully suppressed violent uprisings in
India thanks to their experience in doing so across the world. Savarkar
was imprisoned; others were killed. A thoughtful person today might
understand the sentiments of rebels such as Savarkar and even respect
their cause. After all, they were freedom fighters too. That regard does
not in any way justify their views or methods. High-strung demagogues
may obscure this distinction, but a discerning public must not lose
sight of it.
What Gandhi and Nehru spearheaded was a democratic
resistance. Gandhi argued that a British life mattered no less than an
Indian life. He claimed to be fighting on behalf of the working class in
Britain as well. Whenever he went to Britain, he stayed with the
poorest there; history shows that the blue-collar British flocked to the
harbour to welcome him.
Gandhi meticulously avoided violence at
every turn. He was always open to negotiation. He also maintained close
personal ties with some of the great names in the British empire who, in
turn, held him in high esteem. He insisted that his struggle was for
the basic democratic rights of Indians and was not a war against the
British. He repeatedly declared that none of the British people were his
enemies and reiterated the same message to the people of India. He
envisioned his movement as one that would catalyse India’s turn towards
democracy, which was anyway historically inevitable. In the dialectic of
history, he saw the British and his side only as two forces propelling
India in the same direction.
Gandhi emerged as a leader through
his involvement in public demonstrations like the Champaran satyagraha
which grew organically. He proved to the world that political success
can be achieved by democratic means. He had the strong conviction that
common people must not be made scapegoats in political struggles. He was
the first political leader in history to exhibit such an extraordinary
sense of responsibility. That is why crores of Indians stood behind him
attesting to his power as a great leader of the people. The world took
notice of him, and his every word gained the attention of the media.
Even before he returned to India in 1918, he was already a
world-renowned non-violent protestor.
If Gandhi or his follower
Nehru had been dealt with violently, the British claim of faith in
democracy and an impartial rule of law would have been exposed as a lie
in the eyes of the world. The world’s belief in the fairness of the
British judiciary and administration and in their professed democratic
values is what had propped up public support for British rule in all the
Eastern countries. The British were not prepared to lose that support
base by subjecting Gandhi to torture. They knew better than that.
The
British consistently projected themselves as true democrats and went to
great lengths to show the world that their treatment of Gandhi, Nehru,
and others, as well as of the Indian freedom struggle as a whole was in
accordance with the letter and spirit of their laws. Gandhi, too, avowed
faith in their law, administration, and democratic principles; he only
opposed their dominion over India and the economic exploitation of
Indians. The freedom movement itself was thus an elaborate bargain in
which both sides foregrounded their democratic credentials.
That
is not the case with Savarkar, who was not well-known even within India.
He was only the leader of a small violent sect. The moment he chose to
resort to violence, he gave the British the right to deal with him
harshly. The British government quelled by force all those who chose the
path of violence—be they petty princes and zamindars who rose against
them, or later, educated youth who took part in armed rebellion.
The
British were waiting for violence to occur in Gandhi’s demonstrations,
as can be seen in all the British newspapers and government reports of
the day. Had there been the slightest spark of violence, the British
Army—the world’s most powerful army at that time—would have been
deployed. Gandhi and Nehru would have been crushed. The Indian freedom
struggle would have been awash in blood. Gandhi was adamant that the
British should never be given that opportunity. He assumed
responsibility for even minor skirmishes. He apologised for them and
punished himself.
History reveals how many millions of civilians
have been the casualty in various political struggles and civil wars
during the past hundred years and how many have become refugees, losing
their livelihoods. Set against such destruction, Gandhi’s sense of
caution and responsibility, his far-sighted vision, his compassion for
the common people, can be seen for the rare new phenomenon it is in all
of human history. It is not for nothing that our great poet [Bharathi]
sang of “Gandhi the life-giver”.
In short, it may be said that
Gandhi encountered the civil face of the British government, engaging
primarily with their diplomats. On the contrary, Savarkar, Bhagat Singh,
and Subhash Chandra Bose came face to face with the military might of
the British. Gandhi chose a democratic, non-violent path, thereby
forcing the government, too, to meet him on his terms. This is the
difference.
The thrill of adventure and a sense of history
There
is a common yet dangerous mindset that we need to guard ourselves
against. Living in a peaceful society, we often tire of our mundane
middle-class lives and begin to long for the thrill of rebellion. We go
looking for whipped-up emotional highs; we artificially create pretexts
to feel outrage, to scream, and to shed tears. Through these gestures,
we construct our own self-images as serious and authentic. This thrill
and exhilaration we seek, in fact, comprise self-loathing and false
bravado in equal measure. Such silliness, akin to the vicarious pleasure
we derive from watching adventure movies, is forgivable until perhaps
the age of 20. Anyone who is not free from this folly beyond their teens
is not fit to participate in any serious discourse.
When we
begin to approach politics and history through our immature emotional
excesses, we feel inclined to participate in hero worship by turning
individuals into icons. With such an attitude, it is the adventurers and
martyrs who naturally appeal to us as heroes. We valorise them by
repeating the tales of their brave deeds. When a violent man eventually
falls due to his own reckless self-indulgent adventurism, lack of
historical awareness, and mindless truculence, we immediately make him
out to be a martyr; we turn all the hardships he suffered into
lamentable tragedies.
It is this collective folly that has led to
the rise of phony leaders throughout history. Someone who has no
understanding of history, no respect for the people, and no leadership
qualities, goes to jail for violence; if he comes back after enduring
torture in jail, he would be canonised as a martyr. Diminutive
intellectuals would celebrate the brave “sacrifices” made by the hero
and the middle class would be mesmerised. If he cashes in properly on
that collective hypnosis, the hero would be accepted by the people and
become their leader. Many men throughout history have risen to positions
of leadership by inciting public sentiments thus. Every single one of
them has been a brutal dictator. Such “heroes” have inevitably led their
own nations to disaster.
The early phase of the Indian freedom
struggle saw the rise of many belligerent rebels. Later when it became a
popular movement, their life stories were turned into sentimental sagas
in order to appeal to the masses. These men were deified as iconic
leaders of the freedom movement. Their populist appeal lay in the fact
that democracy was still a novel concept and very few people appreciated
the value of democratic leadership. However, hero worship had a two
thousand year old legacy and therefore heroic tales of valour easily
moved the public. All over India, heroic martyrs of the freedom struggle
were identified and stories spun about them.
In today’s
democratic setup, however, we need to move past those exhilarations of
hero worship. These “heroes” ought to be understood within their
historical contexts. The violent rebels belonging to the early phase of
India’s freedom struggle can be seen in the perspective of the global
political situation of their time. Back then, the idea of democratic
protests had not taken deep roots anywhere in the world. It was just
then emerging in Europe and beginning to achieve a few modest successes
in practice. Therefore, all those who wanted to bring about social or
political change at any level anywhere in the world believed that
violence was the only means to attain their end.
Until that point
in history, the prevalent form of government was monarchy. Any
resistance against the monarch was naturally a militant uprising. Later
periods witnessed several minor insurgencies against the ruling powers
of the time, followed by the communist revolutions across different
parts of the world. All these forms of rebellion replicated in their own
way the original tactics of violent riots against monarchical power. It
is no wonder then that Bhagat Singh, Savarkar and Subhash Chandra Bose
subscribed to the same model.
A few significant non-violent
protests had nevertheless succeeded even during the heydays of monarchic
rule. The Reformation (which led to the birth of Protestantism) in
Europe had gained popular support and established itself through
non-violent struggle. It served as the model for all the later
democratic movements across Europe. Exposure to this mode of resistance
was the reason the European Christians could appreciate Gandhi’s methods
when he staged his satyagraha. Post-Reformation, many such popular
resistance movements took place in Europe. Gandhi modelled his
democratic ways on their example as well as on the
Endurance-and-Sacrifice-based protests carried out by Jains in India.
The
final fatal fall of Bhagat Singh and Subhash Chandra Bose was
historically inevitable since they lived in an age that did not fully
grasp how resistance can be non-violent or where the true power of a
modern state lies; Savarkar, too, belonged to their time and shared the
same beliefs. There have been thousands like them throughout history:
rebels who embraced violence and eventually perished. There have also
been outstanding intellectuals and brave heroes among such rebels, and a
few animated by a truly great vision. They just happened to be on the
losing side of history, that is all.
We need to think why so many
of us sympathise with those who attached themselves to a lost cause.
Why do we strive to make martyrs and icons out of such men? Why do we
not reflect on the reason for their failure, and the destruction and
misery they caused to others through their failures? In my view, India
would have been led to annihilation if any of these three men—V.D.
Savarkar, Bhagat Singh, or Subhash Chandra Bose—had won popular support
and come to power. Through their misapprehension of history, they would
have caused the same devastation wreaked by Ayatollah Khomeini, Josef
Stalin, and Adolf Hitler respectively in their own nations.
Of
course, Savarkar, Bose, and Singh suffered brutality at the hands of the
British. However, their suffering is in no way a testimony to their
character, but only an inevitable consequence of their own violent
actions. If we idolise such violent rebels and turn them into cult
leaders simply out of middle-class guilt or boredom with our mundane
lives, we shall pave the way for our own destruction. In fact, we must
understand that it is absurd to judge leaders by a tally of their great
“sacrifices”. The key questions to decide the merit of leaders is to ask
what their understanding of history amounted to, what methods they
chose and what the ultimate consequences of those choices were. Leaders
should always be judged on these counts alone.
I quote V.D.
Savarkar, Bhagat Singh, and Subhash Chandra Bose as three examples of
men who chose different forms of violence. Despite their conflicting
ideologies, they all chose the same means to achieve their ends. All
three fell but are today celebrated by different political parties as
heroic martyrs. In contrast, I would name Gandhi, Nehru, and Ambedkar as
those who chose the democratic path. They, too, often differed in their
views, yet their methods were always democratic. I choose to follow
their path.
I hail them not merely as great Indian leaders. Among
all the world leaders of their time, they stood out on account of their
clearsighted view of history and thorough understanding of democracy.
In fact, it is our good fortune that our nation has been shaped by their
vision.
Was Savarkar a coward?
Today,
Savarkar’s clemency petitions have become a talking point in politics.
The subject could be easily brushed aside if a low-level Congress party
functionary were to raise the point. However, leaders or policymakers
must adopt a broader and more nuanced view of history.
During the
period when Savarkar went to jail, organised political activity was
largely absent in India. The Congress was no more than a gathering of
the elite that tended to make appeals to the British government.
Savarkar belonged to an impatient generation. He was fascinated by the
ideas of seizing power by means of insurrection and the concept of
“cultural nationalism”—both prevalent in Europe at the time. Therefore,
he was impelled to form an armed sect and initiate violent rebellion.
It
is worth noting that when Savarkar sought to seize power through armed
fighter groups, Lenin shared the same beliefs in Russia in 1910. He
converted the armed insurrection he was heading into a military
rebellion at a certain historical moment. By exploiting the Russian
army’s discontent with the Czar, he gained the Russian military support,
overthrew the Czarist Empire and seized power. His ascent inspired
armed groups around the world to fight against their own governments,
but such groups managed to succeed only in a few countries like Cuba. In
other countries like India, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia, Congo,
Spain, and Bolivia, such militant groups were completely crushed.
Savarkar
might have gradually lost faith in militant activities during his
prison term. He might have been fascinated by Gandhi’s methods, seeing
the popular movement that emerged under his leadership in India.
Therefore, he might have decided to compromise with the British and
forge a new path ahead. He might have attempted to convince the British
of his newfound respect for democratic ways. His letters and his later
actions reflect the same.
Many Indian parties in power today
enjoyed the support of the British back in those days. The Justice
Party, the forerunner of the Dravidian movement, was wholly
British-backed. E.Ve. Ramasamy was openly pro-British. Ambedkar was
foregrounded by the British and remained a British supporter almost
until Indian independence. There is hardly any Indian political
party—including the Congress—that did not compromise with the British at
some point. Even Gandhi’s suspension of the Non-Cooperation Movement in
the wake of the Chauri Chaura violence has been seen as a compromise
and drew heavy criticism. The Communists in India too supported the
British during the Second World War.
The nature of politics has
always been such, alternating between conflict and compromise. Some
struggles may have to be given up strategically, like the DMK abandoning
their demand for a separate Dravidian nation. That is how I see
Savarkar’s clemency petitions. The truly unforgivable compromise was the
one Subhash Chandra Bose made with the Japanese despite being aware
that they had brutally tortured and killed lakhs of Tamils in the
construction of the Siam-Burma Death Railway.
Savarkar the fundamentalistI
do not consider Savarkar a coward, nor do I doubt his patriotism. There
is no denying that he made sacrifices for the nation. However, I rate
him a completely unacceptable political figure. This is my assessment
based on his skewed understanding of history and his politics of
violence.
Savarkar was a fundamentalist. Any form of
fundamentalism is antithetical to democracy. It works against the
well-being of the common people and ultimately brings about only
destruction. Regardless of what it may be grounded in—religion, caste,
language, race, or nationality—fundamentalism in any form is essentially
destructive.
All forms of fundamentalism are the same in
practice, because ultimately they posit an ideology as superior to the
well-being of the people. Fundamentalists believe that no matter how
many millions die to uphold their ideology, such sacrifice is justified;
thus they remorselessly massacre millions. History chronicles the same
cataclysmic cycle playing out time and again.
What really is
fundamentalism? It can be defined as the concerted cultural and
political activities carried out in order to establish a rigid and
inviolable ideology which forms its core. Fundamentalism has certain
basic characteristics. First of all, it elevates its core ideology to
the status of being infallible and beyond question. It frames all those
who deny it or disagree with it as enemies and seeks to destroy them. It
constantly conjures enemies to defend itself against. All its
activities are designed to counter the activities of the perceived
enemy; in fact, its actions are never inspired by a positive ideal.
Secondly, fundamentalism works by projecting certain individuals as the
perfect representatives of its ideological core. It invests them with
all powers and deifies them. It exhorts followers to place their
complete faith in such leaders and hail them as icons. Finally,
fundamentalism always borrows its central tenet from age-old cultural
traditions such as those belonging to a religion, race or language. It
chooses an existing dogma and reinvents some aspect of it as an
irrefutable sacred truth. Owing to these three basic qualities,
fundamentalism is in essence anti-democratic.
Debate and
deliberation—granting individuals the right to freely accept or reject
ideas—are the basis of democracy. Democracy strives to include all
perspectives; its function is to deliberate and resolve all
contradictions by arriving at a consensus. Fundamentalism is its
opposite.
Gandhi can be seen as the symbol of the democratic
ideal in India; Savarkar, on the other hand, typifies the perils of
fundamentalism. The two contrasting modes of politics, both originating
in Europe, presented themselves as options for our future at a critical
juncture in our history. We, as a nation, chose democracy.
There
are two aspects to note about fundamentalism, without understanding
which it would be impossible to counter it: (1) Fundamentalism is
different from conservatism; (2) It always presents a deceptive
reformist face.
Conservatism is often conflated with
fundamentalism. Different brands of conservatism exist all over the
world and all religions have staunch conservative adherents.
Conservatism is basically a stagnant mindset: the wish to remain
grounded in age-old values, customs and ways of life, some of which
might be unacceptable by modern standards. Therefore, some of these
traditions may seem unjust or absurd today. Yet there is a section of
people which prefers to remain committed to such an old-world
dispensation. This may be because some cultural or spiritual elements of
the past might give them a sense of grounding, a firm grip on life that
they do not like to relinquish. They might prefer the stability of
tradition to the constant flurry of changes that modern life imposes on
one. I personally believe that one has the right to practise that kind
of conservative lifestyle as long as it doesn’t affect anyone else’s
life.
Fundamentalism, however, is a politico-cultural movement
that borrows only some part of antiquity, constructs a contemporary
ideology out of it, and tries to consolidate power around the ideology.
It does not accept everything that comes from antiquity. It rejects
every aspect of the past that does not advance its power politics.
Therefore fundamentalism always assumes a reformist face. It appeals to
logic, claims a quasi-scientific authority and addresses contemporary
issues. It even appears modern.
Surprisingly, the origin of
fundamentalism coincides with the same cultural phase we associate with
modernism. Every fundamentalist ideology prevalent in the world
co-evolved with modernity. It may even be said that fundamentalism is
just another offspring of modernist thought. Modernism refers to a style
of thinking and living that emerged during the last century. The common
characteristics of modernist philosophy such as privileging
rationality, adopting a universal outlook, favouring individualism,
centralising authority, and concentrating power are all vital to
fundamentalism as well. These traits are also common to other modernist
schools of thought such as liberalism, rationalism, and Marxism. All
over the world, modernist ideologies such as liberalism or rationalism
are actively engaged in an attack only against conservatism. They are
ill-equipped to combat fundamentalism. Often, they accept certain
elements of fundamentalism since they too are offshoots of modernist
thought.
Any fundamentalism can be maintained as logical and
reformist in nature. That is why Wahhabism, a fundamentalist
interpretation of Islam, is seen as a reformist movement by Indian
rationalists and Marxists, who do not hesitate to share stage and
associate themselves with the Wahhabis. Savarkar was an atheist and
rationalist who swore by logic and science. If only EVR and Savarkar had
met, they would have agreed on all but one point: Savarkar’s brand of
nationalism differed from that of EVR. Otherwise both shared in many
modernist beliefs.
Ideologically, Savarkar was entirely a
European product. He was the chief Indian heir to the European concept
of cultural nationalism which emerged at the end of the 19th century. As
a belief system, it later metamorphosed into Fascism and Nazism which
eventually destroyed Europe. Thus Savarkar’s thoughts and beliefs were
all rooted in 19th century Europe.
In the eyes of the modernists,
Gandhi was in many respects unworthy of comparison with Savarkar.
Gandhi was not rational enough, often relying on his intuition instead.
He was “superstitious” and skeptical of science. Instead of a universal
outlook, he advocated indigenous thought. He rejected uniformity and
championed diversity. He envisioned the nation as a collection of
independent economic units. Gandhi called himself a conservative, a
Sanatani. However, in practice he was receptive to all reforms and was a
great reformer himself.
![image.png]()
Mahatma
Gandhi seated at the centre of the dais is addressing a public meeting
at Abbottabad, for the first time since his arrival in the Frontier
province. | Photo Credit: THE HINDU PHOTO ARCHIVES
Ambedkar,
whose philosophy was greatly at odds with Gandhi’s, had harboured
goodwill towards Savarkar. In fact, he has expressed this in various
places. Dhananjay Keer who wrote Savarkar’s biography was later
Ambedkar’s biographer as well. What the two had in common was their
modernist outlook. Reliance on science and logic as well as a
centralising vision was strong in Ambedkar’s thought; he propounded a
reformist version of Buddhism. Therefore, Savarkar’s own engagement with
logic and a scientific bent, his zeal for centralisation and reformist
views appealed to Ambedkar to a certain degree.
This is, in fact,
the trap most modernist thinkers fall into. They cannot completely
resist the roots of fundamentalism; they even make the mistake of
cultivating it sometimes. In the early 1990s, I remember reading several
essays by European and American modernist intellectuals in support of
the Taliban. Those who have not read such essays can draw their
conclusions simply by watching Rambo III. Euro-American scholars argued
that the Taliban were logical-minded religious reformers and a strong
youth force against conservative Islam.
The tools of modernist
schools of thought such as liberalism, rationalism and Marxism can
effectively counter Gandhi but not Savarkar. Their arguments would be
easily knocked down by pointing out that Savarkar himself was a
rationalist, an atheist and a believer in science. Since their tools
prove ineffectual, the present day political opponents of Savarkar
resort to their usual name-calling tactics and label him cowardly and
unpatriotic. However, since this slander is patently untrue, it only
serves to strengthen him. Others choose to attack Savarkar by labelling
him a conservative and a religious fanatic. This too, being far from
truth, ends up unwittingly bolstering his image.
Savarkar was a
fundamentalist. In a word, he was a “Hindu Wahhabi”. His was a
nationalist fundamentalism. Borrowing the concept of a Hindu nation from
Indian antiquity, he constructed a fundamentalist movement around it.
Savarkar’s was the first home-grown fundamentalist thought to emerge on
Indian soil. He was the father of Hindu fundamentalism.
Fundamentalism
always pins its faith blindly on whatever conceptual core it has
appropriated from a tradition. It rejects all other variants of the same
tradition, or tries to adapt them also to suit its ends. That is
exactly what Wahhabism does and its followers present themselves as
reformers too. So did Savarkar and that is how he assumed the identity
of a reformer.
Fundamentalists in general are aggressively
fanatical believers in their cause. As a result, they are unmatched in
their obduracy. They flinch neither from killing nor dying for their
ideology. Therefore, they might face severe persecution for their
beliefs and actions. They may even bravely endure torture. However,
their sacrifice and bravery are not admirable in any way.
If we
begin to glorify their sacrifice and heroism simply driven by our
middle-class cowardice or boredom, we shall end up elevating
fundamentalism to the seat of power. The Islamic world has made that
grave blunder in the last 50 years. Many countries which had made
progress on the path of democracy are now falling into the deadly
clutches of fundamentalism. Countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan,
Iraq, Iran, Syria and Lebanon which got carried away in their
fascination for the adventure, sacrifice and heroism of fundamentalist
“leaders” are now paying for their egregious mistake with blood and
tears. For this reason, I consider anyone who praises a fundamentalist’s
heroism or sacrifice as an evil force ushering in destruction.
To
reiterate: (a) Conservatism is different from fundamentalism. (b) The
intellectual and reformist face of fundamentalism is only a veneer. In
order to counter fundamentalism, these two basic truths must be grasped.
Otherwise we are liable to commit two major mistakes. We might lash out
at all conservative individuals and label them as fundamentalists, thus
alienating them and pushing them towards fundamentalism ourselves. On
the other hand, we might fall for a fundamentalist outfit that seeks our
support by claiming to be a reform movement. The progressives, liberals
and Marxists of our country are consistently making both these
mistakes. Those who join hands with Wahhabis can claim no moral ground
to oppose Savarkar. Such hypocrisy would only end up making Savarkar a
larger-than-life figure. That is exactly what is happening today.
I
am thoroughly disgusted by Savarkar. Even while retrieving his picture
from the Internet for this essay, I could not help but feel bitter and
revolted. However, I do not consider Savarkar a coward, nor do I suspect
the power of his personality. Savarkar is not a conservative; he is, in
fact, the deadliest venom India has ever produced. He is the
fountainhead of fundamentalism in India. That is why I am allergic to
him.
To the venom that Savarkar was, we only find an antidote in
Gandhi. That explains why Savarkar’s invisible hand was involved in the
assassination of Gandhi. All said and done, I believe our nation still
stands indicted for Gandhi’s murder. Savarkar is the culprit who stained
our hands with Gandhi’s blood. Every right-thinking person with a
conscience ought to reject Savarkar outright, with all the words at
their command. Among all the personalities that emerged as leaders in
India, Savarkar is the only one who deserves to be hated and shunned as
much as the world shuns Hitler. He is not worthy of respect by anybody
anywhere for any reason. Even the slightest shred of acknowledgement
that this nation may afford Savarkar is anti-Gandhi, anti-democracy and
anti-humanity as a whole.
Jeyamohan is a writer and critic. This essay has been translated from the Tamil original by Iswarya V.
Three interesting comments at the website:
N SOMASUNDARAM, COMMANDANT, INDIAN COAST GUARDI
have read the article in both Tamil and English. I would like to
congratulate the translator for the wonderful translation! The meaning
and purport of the Tamil original is intact in the English translation. I
agree with the author that any movement, if it has to achieve its end,
should follow the means of democracy. But, i certainly will not agree
with him in equating Savarkar with Netaji and Bhagat Singh. I've been to
the Cellular Jail at Port Blair many times, where Savarkar was
incarcerated, and found nothing so special about the cell. He was
treated one among the jail inmates and meted with the same treatment or
punishment. The author is clearly imbalanced in that while eulogising
the 'sacrifice' by Savarkar, he also justifies his clemency petitions.
Also, his equating Savarkar with Periyar and Ambedkar in being
pro-British stands no reason. While Savarkar was the proponent of Hindu
majoritarian nationalism, the other two fought for the social justice
and believed that social justice should foreground nation's
independence. Every leader worth his salt had sacrificed him/herself at
the altar of freedom struggle. But, elevating Savarkar to the level of
'Tyagi' is unwarranted and will only support the theory of the Sanghis,
who await such heroic anointment to justify their narrow minded
majoritarian nationalism, which will never see the light of the day as
they still live in the midnight on the eve of Independence day! Finally,
being a translator myself, I'd like to leave a congratulatory note to
the translator, Ishvarya, for the brilliant translation. Can I have her
email id?
----------------
Ajit Prasad: The author's
attempt to equate Savarkar with SC Bose, Bhagat Singh is totally out of
the context. Further, the article is made to balance certain equations
that have been going against Savarkar for the last decades. This
justification is unwarranted. Thousands suffered brutal treatment inside
various jails during the British era. The cowardice shown by this man
can not be nullified with mere statements. I truly join with the author
in acknowledging that he (Savarkar) "is not worthy of respect by anybody
anywhere for any reason".
------------------------
Partha Pratim DasThe
basic postulate of the column is that belief in democratic ideals helps
in going farther than that of the path of violence. The reader is also
impelled to construe that the writer of the column seems to find
violence and fundamentalism compatible with each other while democratic
ideals and non violent means can go a long way together to bring
political solutions. Gandhi, to the writer, was a champion of political
protests through democratic means. Nehru was an ardent follower of his.
Ambedkar also believed in non violence and the power of people to gain
political rights. On the other hand Savarkar was a neo-intellectual of
the nineteenth century baptised in the ethos of cultural nationalism
prevalent throughout Europe of his time. He was not Sanatani like
Gandhi, rather a modernist. His modernism developed from selective
plucking of materials from the Ancient Indian antiquities. He visualised
India to be a nation enamoured in the hue and colour of a single
religion, all other religions being subservient to the majority. But
equating Savarkar with the likes of Bhagat Singh and Netaji Subhas
Chandra Bose is far-fetched. Bhagat Singh was an atheist and a committed
communist. Netaji was born from the very womb of non violent protest
under the guidance of Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das and prophesying that
Bhagat Singh or Netaji would have done, had they been alive in
Independent India, the same things what Stalin and Hitler had done
cannot be accepted by any sane individual characterised by rationality.
This is also misplaced that all the followings of Bhagat Singh or Netaji
were the result of boredom of middle class lives. This is historically
true that the British seriously thought of leaving India only after the
Naval Mutiny which was a fall out of the deeds of Indian National army
and participation of British Indian soldiers in the said Army. The
author also expressed his loquaciousness when he said that Netaji had a
truncated view of History. A slogan like Jai Hind which is acceptable to
all religious denominations of the Indian Soldiers of INA tells us how
Netaji had a proper understanding of Indian history and culture. Apart
from this, the entire column gives a very good comparative picture of
what constitutes conservatism and what constitutes fundamentalism. Why
Gandhi's politics through nonviolent means was difficult to be dealt
with by the British than the violent tactics of Savarkar was also
analysed very well. Thanks writer for giving us a good article.
