Tattva

The years of Indian slavery to the British brought forth some of the finest blood our country had to offer to the world. One such giant, shining like a sun amongst that kingly constellation of super-heroes, is Vinayak Damodar Savarkar—Veer Savarkar, as he is better known. Born in 1883 and fondly known as the crown prince of the Indian revolutionary movement, Savarkar was a prodigy. At the tender age of fourteen, he shut himself in his room and swore before the image of his family deity that he would never rest in peace until he had won India’s independence back from the oppressive British rule. Instead of playing games with his classmates, he preferred discussions with his uncles about the swords inherited from his family’s service with Peshwa rulers of Maharashtra.

 An early indicator of his potential was his organization of his school friends into a group dedicated to striving towards India’s independence. Incredible as it may sound, a fourteen year old Savarkar learned to wield swords and knives, built stamina and strength by going on swims in the local river and treks in the nearby mountains, and composed poems and prayers dedicated to the motherland and her glory. By the time he graduated from high school, he already had a sizeable following among his friends who were now fully organized into what was the nucleus of the future revolutionary network with its arms throughout Europe and the Americas. Mitra Mela, the association of Savarkar’s high school friends, later became famous throughout the country as the cradle that spawned the revolutionary society Abhinav Bharat, the nightmare of the British secret police. 

Attending Fergusson college in Pune, Savarkar quickly became notorious with the pro-British school authorities for his fiercely patriotic speeches on campus and for exhorting fellow students to boycott English goods. When he finally got expelled from his program because of his relentless pursuit of organizing the youth on campus into a revolutionary movement, students went on strike forcing the college authorities to withdraw their ruling. Back on campus, Savarkar’s activities continued with renewed vigor, drawing the attention of India’s biggest nationalist leader of that time, Lokmanya Tilak. Tilak was so impressed by the young Savarkar that he personally attended a procession organized by Abhinav Bharat and threw the first English-made cloth in the bonfire lit for the purpose.  Tilak was so taken by Savarkar’s thoughts, words, and actions, that he wrote him a reference letter for the scholarship sponsored by the Indian nationalist Shyamji Krishna Verma for a law degree in London.

With Savarkar’s presence, India House, the house maintained by Verma for Indian students in London, quickly became the central hub of the Indian revolutionary movement. Students living there like Madanlal Dhingra, Pandurang Bapat, and V.V.S. Iyer, went on to become Abhinav Bharat activists and became part of history as martyrs and heroes who sacrificed potentially luxurious lives for lives in prisons and deaths on the gallows. In no time, Savarkar emerged as the coordinator of the nationalist non-resident Indian community in London with the likes of Madam Cama, Barrister Rana, and Shyamji Krisna Verma as his backers and supporters.  Abhinav Bharat was by now a thriving revolutionary organization with members from the Irish Republican Army and Lenin’s revolutionary group in Russia assisting students at India House in manufacturing weapons and explosives. Indeed, Lenin himself paid a visit to Savarkar during the former’s visit to London. Pistols and revolutionary pamphlets started to get smuggled into India on a regular basis. British officers and bureaucrats who had taken sadistic pleasure in torturing the poor in India now started living in fear of their lives. Bullet shots reverberated across the world’s press heralding the renewal of martial Indian resistance to the slave masters from England.

  A number of atrocious British imperialists fell to the revolutionary gun shots master-minded from London, stealing the sleep of the be-alls of the British Raj in India. Indeed, it was our nation’s misfortune that Veer Savarkar was arrested in London, more likely than not by a treacherous tip given to the British C.I.D. Sentenced to solitary confinement and hard labor in the Andaman islands,  Savarkar, instead of wilting away, started a movement within the prison premises to re-convert Hindus who had been converted out of their Hindu faith by force and trickery. His most remarkable achievement was the compilation of a thesis, using nails on the wall of his prison cell, aimed at defining the term “Hindu”. His book, Hindutva, argued that Hinduness is a way of life and has cultural connotations rather than merely religious ones. This was the first systematic attempt at explaining what one means by calling oneself a “Hindu.” Savarkar had outgoing ex-prisoners commit to memory portions of Hindutva, and the book was thus smuggled out of his cell orally and published under a nom de plume even while its author was still in prison and forbidden the use of pen and paper. Such was the magnitude of this man’s powers and intellect.

For all his efforts though, Savarkar never really saw the fruition of the vision he had for our country’s future. He was back-stabbed by people he considered his colleagues and fellow nationalists. People who did not appreciate Savarkar’s ideas of achieving independence forsake him even when his entire family was dragged into the streets by the police and his family house sealed and confiscated by the British authorities.  Ignored and shunned by the media and the powers that be, Savarkar remains a shrouded, misunderstood figure. Yet, he has a lot to teach us through the vast amount of literature that he has left behind.  Indeed, Savarkar’s life deserves to be discovered and studied anew especially by the youth of our country. It is for us to look past the clouds of chicanery throttling the political theatre of our country today, heralding a new morning on a strong and prosperous India.

Amar Mulay is from Thane, Mumbai and is pursuing his Master’s Degree in Philosophy at Cal State Long Beach. He also teaches undergraduate Philosophy classes at Long Beach Community College.

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