PM Modi recently batted for Bharat Ratna to Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. The ruling BJP government’s Hindutva ideology was first coined and explained by Savarkar whose name often has the prefix ‘Veer’ or gallant. Recently, his grandson said, “You wont find a more secular man than Savarkar.”
Ranjeet,grandson of Veer Savarkar:Owaisi should follow Savarkar’s belief that keep religion in your house,when out you are not Hindu or Muslim but Indian.Savarkar expected all who enter Parliament to keep caste,religion,sex etc out. You wont find a more secular man than Savarkar https://t.co/dFir8hwDKs pic.twitter.com/FeGRpgxQZj
— ANI (@ANI) October 18, 2019
Nathuram Godse, who killed Mahatma Gandhi, was a member of Hindu Mahasabha, the same organization which celebrated Gandhi’s death anniversary and hailed Godse as a martyr in January this year. Savarkar, one of the extremist leaders, was the founder of Hindu Mahasabha and one of the accused in the killing of Mahatma Gandhi, although he was acquitted later.
Today, his ideas are discussed and talked about, perhaps even more than those of Gandhi’s. So what were his ideas for that the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is advocating his name for the highest civilian award?
1857 – First War Of Independence
VD Savarkar was the first to call the 1857 revolt the first war of independence in his book, The Indian War of Independence 1857. Most historians, especially from the west, described the revolt as Sepoy Mutiny or The Indian Rebellion. Some South Indian historians have argued that there were several revolts that preceded the 1857 revolt. They believe that Vellore mutiny, which dates back to 1806, was the first war of independence. When the Indian postal department issued a postal stamp to commemorate the Vellore mutiny, former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi said: “It is due recognition to India’s first war of independence.”
Rape As A Political Tool
Savarkar in his book Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History advocated rape of Muslim women as a political tool for the subjugation of the Muslim community. He was of the view that it was a religious duty of every Muslim to kidnap non-Muslim women and forcefully convert them into Islam in order to increase their population. He said that Muslim women encouraged their male compatriots to commit atrocities against women. If this wasn’t enough, he even said that Muslim women abducted Hindu women and later on conveyed them to Masjids.
Savarkar wrote all this without providing any proof or citing a single incident of such kind. According to him, Shivaji Maharaj was wrong to send back the daughter-in-law of the Muslim governor of Kalyan, whom he defeated.
Savarkar’s Secularism
Many are calling Savarkar a secular leader. Let us first understand what secular means. According to the Oxford English dictionary, secularism is ‘the principle of separation of the state from religious institutions’.
Dr BR Ambedkar in his book Pakistan or Partition of India described Savarkar’s views on Jinnah’s two-nation theory as inconsistent and illogical. Dr Ambedkar quotes Savarkar’s speeches at the Hindu Mahasabha to bring the latter’s shift in goals as per his convenience.
Savarkar was a staunch critic of Pakistan and opposed its partition from India. He was of the view that Hindus and Muslims should live under one constitution of India which will be ‘predominantly’ Hindu. VD Savarkar’s idea of India was that it was an inclusive ‘Hindu Nation’ but with cultural autonomy to the Muslims. He even advocated a separate flag for the Muslims.
But on the other hand, Savarkar said that Hindus, in spite of having a thousand differences, are bound by such religious, cultural, historical, and other affinities that they stand out as a homogeneous people in contrast with any other non-Hindu people like the English, or the Indian Muslims. “That is the reason why today we the Hindus from Cashmere to Madras and Sindh to Assam will have to be a Nation by ourselves,” said Savarkar. Thereby accepting the fact that there are two nations.
The definition given by Savarkar describes a Hindu as one “who regards-and owns this Bharat Bhumi, this land from the Indus to the Seas, as his Fatherland as well as his Holy Land;—i.e., the land of the origin of his religion, the cradle of his faith.”
Dr Ambedkar points out that this definition of Hindu is carefully designed to exclude Muslims, Christians, Parsis and Jews but at the same time to include Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, etc., by not insisting upon belief in the sanctity of the Vedas as an element of the qualifications.
Savarkar’s concept of Swaraj advocated the change of the country’s name from India to Hindustan and Sanskrit to be ‘dev bhasha’ or sacred language and Hindi to be a national language. He said, “All Hindu languages today whether are either derived from Sanskrit or grafted on to it can only grow and flourish on the sap of life they imbibe from Sanskrit.”
When it comes to giving civi…
