Arun Shourie Tears Apart ‘Veer’ Savarkar and his Myths | M.R. Narayan Swamy

BOOK REVIEW

The New Icon: Savarkar and the Facts
by Arun Shourie

Penguin/Viking
Pages: xviii + 543; Price: Rs 999

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar bragged, exaggerated and even lied. When the Congress battled the British, he did not mind collaborating with the colonial masters. He was adept in spewing hate. Scholar and veteran journalist Arun Shourie says one has to in fact search hard for revolutionary acts that can be traced back to Savarkar. It is such a man who got the sobriquet ‘Veer’ (Brave) from historians who took his writings too seriously and those who saw a hero in him for the way he hated Muslims and Mahatma Gandhi – in equal measure.

Meet an unadulterated Savarkar, a man whose life and exploits have always divided Indians. Indeed, few figures from Indian history have caused so much controversy as Savarkar. Shourie is no Marxist. If anything he has been a champion of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). But as we finish the book, one cannot but admire Shourie for his courage in ferreting out the truth about Savarkar and urging Indians to draw a line between Hinduism and Hindutva.

Savarkar, after all, was a trailblazer of Hindutva politics, which lies at the core of today’s BJP and its ideological parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS). On his 59th birthday, Savarkar told his supporters that he had just one message: “Hinduise politics, militarise the Hindu race.” Those who view him as an icon are engaged in doing precisely this.

Shourie was made a cabinet minister by Atal Bihari Vajpayee but the fiery journalist doesn’t spare the former prime minister – over his poetic tribute to Savarkar. Vajpayee was liberal with words while describing Savarkar’s attempt to escape from a ship taking him to India at a French port. The story is well known. Vajpayee spoke of a “stormy sea”, “infinite ocean” and “limitless water” which Savarkar reportedly battled. All of it was far from real.

In Savarkar’s own words, he swam barely for ten minutes in July 1909 at Marseilles. He was quickly caught as he tried to run after emerging from the water. There was no “stormy sea”, “infinite ocean” or “limitless water”. But a myth was born. Savarkar, Shourie says, allowed many such myths to fester. One such myth was about C. Rajagopalachari claiming that he joined politics after being inspired by Savarkar’s life!

It is known that Savarkar filed mercy petitions while in British jail. The first was written in 1911, just about two months into his incarceration in the Cellular Jail at Andamans. The second followed in October 1912. The third and fourth petitions came in 1913 and 1914. Another came in 1917, followed by similar petitions in 1918 and 1919. He appealed that he be granted remission of his sentence. Two more petitions were filed in January and March 1920. His wife also filed petitions.

One may or may not have a quarrel with the petitions per se. Savarkar was after all a human. But his admirers insist he did what he did at the urging of Mahatma Gandhi. Shourie points out that Gandhi returned to India from South Africa in 1915. By then, Savarkar had already filed three mercy petitions.
Unable to digest Jawaharlal Nehru’s anti-fascist outlook, Savarkar, who came to head the Hindu Mahasabha in 1938, was full of praise for Hitler and his Nazi ideology. His fulsome praise of the German dictator did not abate even after it became known what he was doing to Jews. At a RSS event in Pune in 1939, Savarkar lauded Hitler and cited that RSS founder K.B. Hedgewar was doing to India what Hitler had accomplished in Germany!

During World War II, as the Congress took a hard line against the British, Savarkar came to the Raj’s rescue, offering the support of “Hindus”. He even suggested to the Viceroy to allow colleges and universities to offer compulsory military education so that it will keep the youth from joining – believe it or not – the civil resistance programme. The Hindu Mahasabha offered to strengthen the government’s war efforts. The British, however, are not impressed, either by Savarkar or his supposed strength to sway the masses. Such was Savarkar’s dalliance with the British that many patriotic Mahasabha volunteers chose to support the Congress.

Indeed, in the 1945 elections to the Central Legislative Assembly, the Hindu Mahasabha, for all its bluster, secured only 3.6 per cent of the votes cast – as against around 60 per cent of the Congress and 28 per cent of the Muslim League. And it got no seats. Even among the non-Muslim votes, the Mahasabha got only 5.9 per cent of the votes while the Congress swept with 91.5 per cent.

Until his end years, Savarkar continued to preach hatred, revenge and cruelty (yes, cruelty). But he drew a clear line between Hindutva and Hindusim – unlike those who now paint them as synonyms. At one point, he asked Hindus to emulate Spain, Portugal, Bulgaria and Greece – they did not just defeat Muslims in battles but they finished each one of them.

Savarkar lamented that Hindu kings did not destroy mosques even after defeating Muslim kings. He suggested that beautiful Muslim girls should be captured and converted to Hinduism in warfare – as Tipu Sultan allegedly did to Hindu women. Shourie warns: “In fighting the Islamic State through ‘Hindutva’, it is not a ‘Hindu State’ which will be established but the very thing Savarkar goaded it to fight – an Islamic State in saffron.”

Shourie cites the example of Pakistan to underline the dangers of where religious hatred can take India to. “The same splintering and animosity are bound to occur among Hindus once they embrace the violent certainties and precepts of Savarkar.”

Shourie’s reading makes it easy to understand why Savarkar and those enamoured of Hindutva politics love to hate Mahatma Gandhi. Here was a national hero who spoke for the nation and all the people all the time. And he hated none. No wonder, Gandhi was one of the three icons Savarkar hated the most – the others being Buddha and Emperor Ashoka.

Savarkar poured ridicule and scorn on Gandhi for decades. He could not stand the Mahatma – and his politics. People like Subhas Bose too had differences with Gandhi but they respected him. For Savarkar, Gandhi was a paagal, a poison-filled snake, a broker of the British, lacking intelligence, author of scams, bungler, he had eccentric ideas, whimsical, crazy, laughable conduct, foolish… The list is endless. He hated him, and he made public his hatred. He also fabricated lies about Gandhi. After spreading poison for decades, when a Hindu fanatic finally shot him dead, Savarkar coolly pretended to be innocent of the hate atmosphere he had created. In his statements at the trial court, he even claimed to be friends of Gandhi!

This book is Shourie at his very best – a scholar who peels away the secrets surrounding Savarkar. Shourie has an advice for Indians: Read Savarkar, not his hagiographers.