Vinayak Damodar Savarkar was born on 28 May 1883 in Bhagur,
Maharashtra, India & died on 26 February 1966 in Mumbai, India, was
an Indian freedom fighter, revolutionary and politician. He was the
proponent of liberty as the ultimate ideal. Savarkar was a poet, writer
and playwright. He launched a movement for religious reform advocating
dismantling the system of caste in Hindu culture, and reconversion of the converted Hindus back to Hindu religion. Savarkar created the term Hindutva, and emphasized its distinctiveness from Hinduism which he associated with social and
political disunity. Savarkar’s Hindutva sought to create an inclusive
collective identity. The five elements of Savarkar’s philosophy were
Utilitarianism, Rationalism and Positivism, Humanism and Universalism,
Pragmatism and Realism.
Vinayak was born in the family of Damodar and Radhabai Savarkar in the village of Bhagur, near the city of Nasik, Maharashtra. He had three other siblings namely Ganesh, Narayan, and a sister named Mainabai.
Savarkar’s revolutionary activities began when studying in India and
England, where he was associated with the India House and founded
student societies including Abhinav Bharat Society and the Free
India Society, as well as publications espousing the cause of complete
Indian independence by revolutionary means. Savarkar published The
Indian War of Independence about the Indian rebellion of 1857 that was
banned by British authorities. He was arrested in 1910 for his
connections with the revolutionary group India House. Following a failed
attempt to escape while being transported from Marseilles, Savarkar was
sentenced to two life terms amounting to 50 years’ imprisonment and
moved to the Cellular Jail in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
While in jail, Savarkar wrote the work describing Hindutva, openly
espousing Hindu nationalism. He was released in 1921 under restrictions
after signing a plea for clemency in which he renounced revolutionary
activities. Travelling widely, Savarkar became a forceful orator and
writer, advocating Hindu political and social unity. Serving as the
president of the Hindu Mahasabha, Savarkar endorsed the ideal of India
as a Hindu Rashtra and opposed the Quit India struggle in 1942, calling
it a “Quit India but keep your army” movement. He became a fierce critic
of the Indian National Congress and its acceptance of India’s
partition, and was one of those accused in the assassination of Indian
leader Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. He was acquitted as the charges could
not be proven.
The airport at Port Blair, Andaman and Nicobar’s capital, has been
named Veer Savarkar International Airport. The commemorative blue plaque
on India House fixed by the Historic Building and Monuments Commission
for England reads “Vinayak Damodar Savarkar 1883-1966 Indian patriot and
philosopher lived here”.
After death of parents the eldest sibling Ganesh, known as Babarao, took responsibility of the family.
Babarao played a supportive and influential role in Vinayak’s teenage
life. During this period, Vinayak organised a youth group called Mitra
Mela (Band of Friends) and encouraged revolutionary and nationalist
views of passion using this group. In 1901, Vinayak Savarkar married
Yamunabai, daughter of Ramchandra Triambak Chiplunkar, who supported his
university education. Subsequently in 1902, he enrolled in Fergusson
College, in Pune (then Poona). As a young man, he was inspired by the
new generation of radical political leaders namely Bal Gangadhar Tilak,
Bipin Chandra Pal and Lala Lajpat Rai along with the political struggle
against the partition of Bengal and the rising Swadeshi campaign. He was
involved in various nationalist activities at various levels. In 1905,
during Dussehra festivities Vinayak organised setting up of a bonfire of
foreign goods and clothes.
Along with his fellow students and friends he formed a political
outfit called Abhinav Bharat. Vinayak was soon expelled from college due
to his activities but was still permitted to take his Bachelor of Arts
degree examinations. After completing his degree, nationalist activist
Shyam Krishnavarma helped Vinayak to go to England to study law, on a
scholarship. It was during this period that Garam Dal, (literally
translated as Hot Faction) was formed under the leadership of Tilak, due
to the split of Indian National Congress. The members of Garam Dal, did
not acknowledge the moderate Indian National Congress leadership agenda
which advocated dialogue and reconciliation with the British Raj. Tilak
advocated the philosophy of Swaraj and was soon imprisoned for his
support of revolutionary activities.
In India, Ganesh Savarkar had organised an armed revolt against the
Morley-Minto reforms of 1909. The British police implicated Savarkar in
the investigation for allegedly plotting the crime. Hoping to evade
arrest, Savarkar moved to Madame Cama’s home in Paris. He was
nevertheless arrested by police on March 13, 1910. In the final days of
freedom, Savarkar wrote letters to a close friend planning his escape.
Knowing that he would most likely be shipped to India, Savarkar asked
his friend to keep track of which ship and route he would be taken
through. When the ship S.S. Morea reached the port of Marseilles on July
8, 1910, Savarkar escaped from his cell through a porthole and dived
into the water, swimming to the shore in the hope that his friend would
be there to receive him in a car. But his friend was late in arriving,
and the alarm having been raised, Savarkar was re-arrested.
Savarkar’s arrest at Marseilles caused the French government to
protest to the British, which argued that the British could only recover
Savarkar if they took appropriate legal proceedings for his rendition.
This dispute came before the Permanent Court of International Arbitration
in 1910, and it gave its decision in 1911. The case excited much
controversy as was reported by the New York Times, and it considered it
involved an interesting international question of the right of asylum.
The Court held, firstly, that since there was a pattern of collaboration
between the two countries regarding the possibility of Savarkar’s
escape in Marseilles and since there was neither force nor fraud in
inducing the French authorities to return Savarkar to them, the British
authorities did not have to hand him back to the French in order for the
latter to hold rendition proceedings. On the other hand,
the tribunal also observed that there had been an “irregularity” in
Savarkar’s arrest and delivery over to the Indian Army Military Police
guard.
Arriving in Mumbai (colonial name Bombay), he was taken to the
Yervada Central Jail in Pune. Following a trial, Savarkar was sentenced
to 50 years imprisonment and transported on July 4, 1911 to the infamous
Cellular Jail in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
His fellow captives included many political prisoners, who were
forced to perform hard labour for many years. Reunited with his brother
Ganesh, the Savarkars nevertheless struggled in the harsh environment.
Forced to arise at 5 am, tasks including cutting trees and chopping
wood, and working at the oil mill under regimental strictness, with
talking amidst prisoners strictly prohibited during mealtime. Prisoners
were subject to frequent mistreatment and torture. Contact with the
outside world and home was restricted to the writing and mailing of one
letter a year. In these years, Savarkar withdrew within himself and
performed his routine tasks mechanically. Obtaining permission to start a rudimentary jail library, Savarkar would also teach some fellow convicts to read and write.
Savarkar appealed for clemency in 1911 and again during Sir Reginald
Craddock’s visit in 1913, citing poor health in the oppressive
conditions. In 1920, the Indian National Congress and leaders such as
Mahatma Gandhi, Vithalbhai Patel and Bal Gangadhar Tilak demanded his
unconditional release. Savarkar tactically signed a statement endorsing
the trial, verdict and British law, and renouncing violence, a bargain
for freedom.
On May 2, 1921, the Savarkar brothers were moved to a jail in
Ratnagiri, and later to the Yeravda Central Jail. He was finally
released on January 6, 1924 under stringent restrictions – he was not to
leave Ratnagiri District and was to refrain from political activities
for the next five years. However, police restrictions on his activities
would not be dropped until provincial autonomy was granted in 1937.
Joglekar considers Savarkar’s appeal for clemency a tactical ploy,
like Shivaji’s letter to Aurangzeb, during his arrest at Agra, Vladimir
Lenin’s travel by sealed train through Germany as a part of a deal with
Germany and Joseph Stalin’s pact with Adolf Hitler.
Veer Savarkar wrote more than 10,000 pages in the Marathi language.
His literary works in Marathi include “Kamala”, “Mazi Janmathep” (My
Life Sentence), and most famously “1857 – The First War of
Independence”, about what the British referred to as the Sepoy Mutiny.
Savarkar popularised the term ‘First War of Independence’. Another noted
book was “Kale Pani” (similar to Life Sentence, but on the island
prison on the Andamans), which reflected the treatment of Indian freedom
fighters by the British. In order to counter the then accepted view
that India’s history was a saga of continuous defeat, he wrote an
inspirational historical work, “Saha Soneri Pane” (Six Golden Pages),
recounting some of the Golden periods of Indian history. At the same
time, religious divisions in India were beginning to fissure. He
described what he saw as the atrocities of British and Muslims on Hindu
residents in Kerala, in the book, “Mopalyanche Band” (Muslims’ Strike)
and also “Gandhi Gondhal” (Gandhi’s Confusion), a political critique of
Gandhi’s politics. Savarkar, by now, had become a committed and
persuasive critic of the Gandhi-an vision of India’s future.
He is also the author of poems like “Sagara pran talmalala” (O Great
Sea, my heart aches for the motherland), and “Jayostute” (written in
praise of freedom), one of the most moving, inspiring and patriotic
works in Marathi literature. When in the Cellular jail, Savarkar was
denied pen and paper. He composed and wrote his poems on the prison
walls with thorns and pebbles, memorised thousands lines of his poetry
for years till other prisoners returning home brought them to India.
Savarkar is credited with several popular neologisms in Marathi and
Hindi, like “Hutatma”(Martyr),”Mahapaur” ( Mayor),Digdarshak (leader or
director, one who points in the right direction), Shatkar (a score of
six runs in cricket), Saptahik (weekly), Sansad (Parliament),
“doordhwani” (“telephone”), “tanklekhan” (“typewriting”) among others.
Following the assassination of Gandhi on January 30, 1948, police
arrested the assassin Pundit Nathuram Godse and his alleged accomplices
and conspirators. He was a member of the Hindu Mahasabha and RSS’s
Swayansevak an organisation started by among others Pundit Madan Mohan
Malviya and Lala Lajpat Rai. Godse was the editor of Agrani – Hindu
Rashtra a Marathi daily from Pune which was run by a company “The Hindu
Rashtra Prakashan Ltd.” This company had contributions from such eminent
persons as Gulabchand Hirachand, Bhalji Pendharkar and Jugalkishore
Birla. Savarkar had invested INR15000 in the company. Savarkar a former
president of the Hindu Mahasabha, was arrested on 5 February 1948, from
his house in Shivaji Park, and kept under detention in the Arthur Road
Prison, Mumbai. He was charged with murder, conspiracy to murder and
abetment to murder. A day before his arrest, Savarkar in a public
written statement, as reported in The Times of India”, Mumbai dated 7
February 1948, termed Gandhi’s assassination a fratricidal crime,
endangering India’s existence as a nascent nation.
Godse claimed full responsibility for planning and carrying out the
attack, However according to Badge the approver, on 17 January 1948,
Nathuram Godse went to have a last darshan of Savarkar in Bombay before
the assassination. While Badge and Shankar waited outside, Nathuram and
Apte went in. On coming out Apte told Badge that Savarkar blessed them
“Yashasvi houn ya”, be successful and return). Apte also said that
Savarkar predicted that Gandhi’s 100 years were over and there was no
doubt that the task would be successfully finished. However Badge’s
testimony was not accepted as the approver’s evidence lacked independent
corroboration and hence Savarkar was acquitted.
On November 12, 1964, a religious programme was organised in Pune, to
celebrate the release of the Gopal Godse, Madanlal Pahwa, Vishnu
Karkare from jail after the expiry of their sentences. Dr. G. V. Ketkar,
grandson of Bal Gangadhar Tilak, former editor of Kesari and then
editor of Tarun Bharat, who presided over the function, revealed gave
information of a conspiracy to kill Gandhi, about which he professed
knowledge, six months before the act. Ketkar was arrested. A public
furore ensued both outside and inside the Maharashtra Legislative
Assembly and both houses of the Indian parliament. Under pressure of 29
members of parliament and public opinion the then Union home minister
Gulzarilal Nanda, appointed Gopal Swarup Pathak, M. P. and a senior
advocate of the Supreme Court of India, in charge of inquiry of
conspiracy to murder Gandhi. The central government intended on
conducting a thorough inquiry with the help of old records in
consultation with the government of Maharashtra, Pathak was given three
months to conduct his inquiry, subsequently Jevanlal Kapur a retired
judge of the Supreme Court of India was appointed to conduct the
inquiry. The Kapur Commission was provided with evidence not produced in
the court; especially the testimony of two of Savarkar’s close aides –
Appa Ramachandra Kasar, his bodyguard, and Gajanan Vishnu Damle, his
secretary, Kasar told the Kapur Commission that Godse and Apte visited
Savarkar on or about January 23 or 24, which was when they returned from
Delhi after the bomb incident. Damle deposed that Godse and Apte saw
Savarkar in the middle of January and sat with him (Savarkar) in his
garden. Justice Kapur concluded: “All these facts taken together were
destructive of any theory other than the conspiracy to murder by
Savarkar and his group.”
After Gandhi’s assassination Savarkar’s home in Mumbai was stoned by
angry mobs. After he was acquitted of the allegations related to
Gandhi’s assassination and released from jail, Savarkar was arrested by
the Congress government, for making “militant Hindu nationalist
speeches”, he was released after agreeing to give up political
activities. He continued addressing social and cultural elements of
Hindutva. He resumed political activism after the ban on it was lifted,
it was however limited until his death in 1966 because of ill health.
His followers bestowed upon him honours and financial awards when he was
alive. His body was visited by over a lakh people, when it lay in
repose. Two thousand RSS workers gave his funeral procession a guard of
honour. According to McKean, there was public antipathty between
Savarkar and the Congress for most of his political career, yet after
independence Patel and Deshmukh unsuccessfully sought partnership with
the Hindu Mahasabha and Savarkar. It was forbidden for Congress party
members to participate in public functions honouring Savarkar. Nehru
refused to share the stage during the centenary celebrations of the
India’s First War of Independence held in Delhi. After the death of
Nehru, the Congress government, under Prime Minister Shastri, started to
pay him a monthly pension.
In 1966 Savarkar renounced medicines, food and water leading to his
death on February 26, 1966. He was mourned by large crowds that attended
his cremation. He had written an article ‘Atma-hatya or Deh-tyaag’,
arguing that suicide in most cases is taking one’s life, but renouncing
life after the body was no longer capable of functioning properly was a
different matter. He left behind a son Vishwas and a daughter Prabha
Chiplunkar. His first son, Prabhakar, had died in infancy. His home,
possessions and other personal relics have been preserved for public
display.
According to Kuruvanchira, Savarkar was a national and political
‘non-entity’ in independent India by the time he died and thereafter.
After his death, since Savarkar was championing militarization, some
thought that it would be fitting if his mortal remains were to be
carried on a gun-carriage. A request to that effect was made to the then
Defence Minister, Y.B. Chavan, who later on became Deputy Prime
Minister of India. But Chavan turned down the proposal and not a single
minister from the Maharashtra Cabinet showed up in the cremation ground
to pay homage to Savarkar. In New Delhi, the Speaker of the Parliament
turned down a request that it pay homage to Savarkar. In fact, after the
independence of India, Jawaharlal Nehru had put forward a proposal to
demolish the Cellular Jail in the Andamans and build a hospital in its
place. When Y.B. Chavan, as the Home Minister of India, went to the
Andamans, he was asked whether he would like to visit Savarkar’s jail
but he was not interested. Also when Morarji Desai went as Prime
Minister to the Andamans, he too refused to visit Savarkar’s cell.
In the 1996 Malayalam movie Kaala Pani directed by Priyadarshan, noted Hindi actor Annu Kapoor played the role of Veer Savarkar.
In 2001, Ved Rahi and Sudhir Phadke made the biopic film Veer
Savarkar, which was released after many years in production. Savarkar is
portrayed by Shailendra Gaur. The Movie Veer Savarkar was released in
2001 which was produced by Vocalist, Musician and a renowned Savarkar
follower Sudhir Phadke. The movie was directed by Ved Rahi and
Shailendra Gaur played the role of Veer Savarkar. This movie was made
after over a decade of fund raising efforts by Late Sudhir Phadke and
his “Savarkar Darshan Prathisthaan”, an organization established solely
with the purpose of depicting the life of great revolutionary Vinayak
Damodar Savarkar aka Veer Savarkar, and to inspire particularly the
young generation with his thoughts and work. The finance for the film
came entirely from hundreds of Veer Savarkar followers, who paid out of
their pockets generously, to help the production of a motion picture
being made on the life of their hero, the legendary Veer Savarkar. Late
Sudhir Phadke, a renowned name in Marathi Music, and an avid follower of
Veer Savarkars ideology; spend many years towards latter part of his
life, raising funds through his musical concerts, in an effort to bring
wishes of Savarkar followers into reality. Maharashtra Government in the
honor of the great Freedom Fighter and Patriot, made the movie tax free
when it opened in theatres.
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