On
28 May, the Maharashtra government—a coalition of the Shiv Sena and the
Bharatiya Janata Party—will celebrate the birth anniversary of the
Hindu nationalist demagogue VD Savarkar as Swatantraveer Gaurav Din,
perpetuating a tradition among the Hindu Right of lionising him as a
freedom fighter despite his marginal role in the anticolonial struggle.
This month also includes the birthday of Nathuram Godse, who
assassinated MK Gandhi in 1948. Hindutva groups have sought to
rehabilitate Godse’s reputation, with the Hindu Mahasabha commemorating
his birth anniversary in recent years.
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As the Hindu Right celebrates its most controversial figures, read a selection of longform essays and reportage from The Caravan’s archives on a few doyens of Hindutva.
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Abhay
Regi argues that “the deification of Savarkar has been an outcome of
the constant writing and rewriting of his life.” This project is active
today also, as evident in two recent biographies by Vikram Sampath and
Vaibhav Purandare. Regi turns to a 1926 book, The Life of Barrister Savarkar,
to understand Savarkar’s political legacy, “including his urge towards
primal violence and the anti-intellectualism that undergirds his
thinking.”
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.
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Dhirendra
K Jha examines archival documents that prove Godse never gave up his
RSS membership, contrary to the Sangh’s disavowal of Gandhi’s assassin.
“The story of Godse’s life reveals a constant and inextricable link with
the RSS,” Jha writes. “Radicalised at an early age by Savarkar himself,
Godse inhabited an environment constantly pushed him towards a certain
kind of politics.”
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Hartosh Singh Bal’s 2017 profile of Golwalkar—the second sarsanghchalak,
or supreme leader of the RSS—and his continuing influence on India,
with Modi being a staunch admirer of the Sangh ideologue. Bal notes
that, in We or Our Nationhood Defined, Golwalkar unambiguously compares the project of promoting a Hindu culture with German antisemitism.
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Jha
delves deeper into the Sangh’s imitation of the Nazis, noting how many
RSS members were enamoured with European fascists in the late 1930s and
1940s. “Contemporary accounts suggest that, during this period,
Golwalkar sought to turn the RSS into a Nazi-style militia, with the
goal of eventually installing himself as führer.”
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Dinesh Narayanan’s May 2014 profile of Bhagwat, the current sarsanghchalak,
whom he defined at the time as “perhaps the only person who has
publicly checked Modi without experiencing any political fallout.”
Narayanan writes that Bhagwat “is immensely influential, but he does not
unilaterally impose his will on the BJP or on his own organisation.”
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Eight
years after Narayanan’s profile, Jha explains, in the November 2022
issue, how Modi has tilted the balance of power within the Sangh Parivar
in the BJP’s favour, leaving Bhagwat, and the RSS, in a position where
they are obeying instructions instead of issuing them. Ramesh Shiledar
told Jha that Bhagwat was “a man of mediocre qualities and would succumb
to any and every pressure that would be exerted on him.”
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Sujatha
Sivagnanam’s April 2023 profile of S Gurumurthy, who often shies away
from the limelight despite his oversized impact on India in the past
fifty years. “The vision he has shaped through these institutions,”
Sivagnanam writes, “is central to the RSS’s core tenets and his own
upbringing: the establishment of Brahmin influence over political and
economic life.” |
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May 14, 2023
India: Doyens of Hindutva - Collections of essays on Savarkar, Godse, Golwalkar, Mohan Bhagwat, S Gurumurthy | The Caravan
