Vinayak Damodar Savarkar :- The Most Debated Name among the Indian Revolutionaries {P-01}

Namaskar.

Today the entire India seems to be divided among 2 ideological classes. The first class subscribes to the political ideology of Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and the rest of the Congress leaders. The second class holds on to the principles of Vinayak Savarkar and Nathuram Godse. The Gandhiwadis believe that the idea of Mahatma Gandhi to fight our Independence Struggle with absolute Non-Violence and Resistence. They appreciate whatever Mahatma Gandhi did. On the other end we have Savarkarwadis and Godsewadis who think that Gandhi was an utter idiot and ruined the entire freedom struggle. They think that we could have got freedom far more earlier if Gandhi had not did some specific blunders.

One thing we all should note is that at some point even Bhagat Singh, Subhash Chandra Bose, Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar and the extremist nationalists too disagreed to Mahatma Gandhi's certain thoughts and beliefs. What makes Savarkarwadis and Godsewadis different from the above mentioned names is that Savarkarwadis and Godsewadis justify the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi to be fair and correct. Almost all of them, again, vote to the ideology of RSS-Hindutva, Hindu Nationalism too.

Amidst all this, I was very much confused that which party here is actually right and which party is wrong. So I went to the library and bought the book "Veer Savarkar :- Life and Works" by Shruti Dubey. Well, I read the book. One thing I must admit that the author has done a fabulous job in balancing the image of Savarkar.

What we will do in today's blog is cut through the life and works of Veer Savarkar and analyse his contributions to our motherland's freedom.

Early Days of Revolutionary Activities

Savarkar at the age of 15 took a vow in front of Goddess Durga to drive out Britishers from India to make her free again. 

At a tender age of 17, when nowadays our Indian chaps are busy in all sorts of naughtiness, Vinayak Savarkar and his brother Ganesh Savarkar started Mitra Mela, a revolutionary secret society in Nasik in 1899. It was one among several such melas (revolutionary societies) functioning in Maharashtra at that time, which believed in the overthrow of British rule through armed rebellion. When he founded this, he was still a student of Fergussen College at Pune.

Just after 5 years of Mitra Mela, in 1904 when Savarkar was 21, he renamed it as Abhinav Bharat Society. The society grew to include several hundred revolutionaries and political activists with branches in various parts of India including Bengal, Pubjab and other states, extending to London after Savarkar went to study law. It carried out a few assassinations of British officials, after which the Savarkar brothers were convicted and imprisoned.

Veer Savarkar, if not the first, but was one of the first Indian commoner to boldly accept the challenge to kick out britishers from Indian Soil. Following is the actual data which proves the legacy of Veer Savarkar :-

1. He was the first Indian poltical leader to call for Swadeshi, and the first Indian leader who publicly performed a bonfire of foreign clothes (in 1906 - long before Gandhiji).

2. He was the first Indian student who was rusticated from a hostel of an institution aided by Britishers (reason was the bonfire).

3. He was the first Indian leader to daringly proclaim absolute Political Independence of India (even before Lokmanya Tilak who had called "Swaraj is my birthright").

4. Savarkar was the first barrister (Advocate) who was refused his degree on account of his political line of thought by the British Government.

5. He was the first graduate to lose his degree from an Indian University (Bombay University) for his love for independence.

{ The same university rescinded its 1911 decision after 49 years in April 1960 and reconferred the degree. Meanwhile, Pune and Nagpur had conferred honorary doctrates on Savarkar! }

6. Savarkar was again the first Indian leader to invest the problem of Indian Independence with international importance.

7. Savarkar was the first Indian leader who cleared the myth British historians propagated and showed that 1857 war of independence was not a mutiny of sepoys in few regiments but a revolt of Indian population against the british sustained over for 2 years. He also highlighted the cruelty of British Generals during that period who slaughtered outright ordinary Indians on flimsiest pretexts. He was the first Indian leader to celebrate 50th anniversary of 1857.

8. Savarkar was the first Indian leader to organise revolutionary movement right in the heart of Britain - London. "India House", with the patronage of lawyer Shyamji Krishna Varma, was initially opened to promote nationalist views among Indian students in Britain. This institute used to grant scholarships to Indian youths for higher studies in England. But the building rapidly became a hub for political activism, one of the most prominent for overseas revolutionary Indian nationalism.

Patrons of India House published an anti-colonialist newspaper, The Indian Sociologist, which the British Raj banned as "seditious". A number of prominent Indian revolutionaries and nationalists were associated with India House, including Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Bhikaji Cama, V.N. Chatterjee, Lala Har Dayal, V.V.S. Aiyar, M.P.T. Acharya and P.M. Bapat.

In 1909, a member of India House, Madan Lal Dhingra, assassinated Sir W.H. Curzon Wyllie, political aide-de-camp to the Secretary of State for India. After Krishna Varma's departure, the organisation found a new leader in Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.

Seeing all this, one thing we could definately conclude is that Savarkar was very quick to understand the intentions of Britishers, that they've come not just to do mere trade with India, but want to COLONIALIZE it.

Fun part :- They were desperately working on their goals to have absolute rule over India without even giving the slightest hints that they were doing so. The proof is how they covered up the entire 1857 revolt as just sepoy mutiny.. Of how they erased the distressed population 1857 as mere dissatisfaction of few sipahis or soldiers of their army.

Savarkar came forward to rewrite the distorted  facts of 1857 revolt. The book, which describes the Indian Rebellion of 1857 as a unified and national uprising of India as a nation against British authority, was seen at the time as highly inflammatory, and the Marathi edition was banned in British India even before its publication!

Now at this point of our blog,

The way I've glorifed Savarkar and his works,

I don't think I would be able to present to you all his critics and controversies in an equal share. 

It would clearly be unjust and unfair If I would end this blog with a mere 2-3 paragraph description of all the criticism Savarkar recieves even today. Thus, I pause my blog here, not stretching it too long, and would come up with part 2 of this blog, where I will present to you all the controversies of Savarkar in detail to equally counter-balance all the positives of him that we discussed here.

Stay tuned for part two.

Thanks,

Daksh Parekh.