Book Review of ‘Veer Savarkar- The Man Who Could Have Prevented Partition’

– Bhagavad Gita-2.33 If, however, you refuse to fight this righteous war, abandoning your social duty and reputation, you will certainly incur sin.

An Indian childhood means implicit belief in the national myth of the benevolent father and the genial Chacha(Uncle) duo of M.K Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru.

However, there are warts in the woodwork too numerous to ignore. An ageless civilization that shed off the yoke of British imperialism a mere 75 years ago has to its credit numerous heroes, unfathomably wise spiritual teachers and countless common men whose contributions have been sadly forgotten in the unthinking political cult of mindless deification. Biographies of Savarkar have popped up over the past few years particularly by Vaibhav Purandare and Vikram Sampath. However this book is largely on Mr. Savarkar’s role in opposing the brutal vivisection of the country.

In the long list of leaders who have not been given their due by previous dispensations, this single name looms large mainly due to the controversies and needless vilification done by a sycophantic Leftist-Islamist axis that reserved its particular venom for an unabashedly patriotic non-populist leader whose biggest crime in their opinion was to adhere to an Indic perspective.

The brown man’s burden in the modern age is that India is not exactly Bharat and Bharat is not precisely India. Our modern society is a confused medley of self-abnegation, excessive and sometimes irrational pride and most critically, visceral hatred for a rich heritage that has been spawned by ignorance and indifference.

Savarkar was in the middle of the spectrum, he earned the ire of traditionalists as well when he condemned the rot in Hindu society manifest in an irrational reverence for the cow and a rigid and decrepit caste system that had become insular largely due to the numerous invasions and their devastating effect on the Brahminical patriarchy. He understood the true import of Sri Krishna’s words in the Bhagavad Gita, varnas as fluid designations due to intrinsic qualities and not solely birth. Savarkar’s great friendship with Dr B.R. Ambedkar, another patriot who is selectively misquoted and misunderstood these days stems from that realisation.

Although the main focus of the book is Mr. Vinayak Damodar ‘Veer’ Savarkar, it starts off with the hellish hotbed and cauldron of seperatism that spawned and fueled the Islamic ‘two-nation’ hypothesis that led to one of the most bloody and tragic events in human history, India’s partition. Syed Ahmed, the Aligarh Muslim University, the Aga Khan and rich Muslim landowners that colluded with the British are dealt with in extensive detail. Curiously, however in the appeasement template perfected by a Conmangress and other political copy-cats, Jews, Nazis and foreign events occupy a larger part of the media and general landscape than the bloody events that took place within our doors and keep on repeating with devastating regularity.

In the COVID pandemic era, a temptation to describe these historical faux pas w.r.t narratives as social distancing of a modern setup that has been subliminally indoctrinated with a sanitized version of past events. Young and old alike tend to dismiss real events as ‘historical’ fluff that is irrelevant for their present lives.

It is ironical that people who suffered for India’s freedom are now condemned as ‘stooges’ and ‘puppets’ of the British raj by the very people who enjoyed power, privilege and influence due to their kowtowing before colonial masters. Harvard-educated windbags pontificate on all and sundry while perpetuating a Nehruvian dystopia that is inherently unsuited for the 21st century. Our political princes party on foreign shores while the country keeps boiling practically every month on issues that range from frivolous to fictional.

The early Congress with its stalwarts like Dadabhai Naoroji, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Lala Lajpat Rai and Aurobindo Ghosh among others play a major part in the first part of the book. It was heartening to read Bhagat Singh drawing inspiration from Savarkar and even meeting him along with Rajguru.

In the present day, Singh’s Arya Samaj and Sikh upbringing has been sidelined apart from his ire at the brutal beating of a Punjabi Hindu Lajpat Rai that led to his death. The sorry spectacle of anti-nationals, biased historians and shrewd political operators like Tharoor misappropriating Singh as a Communist icon merely due to his musings on atheism are an insult to the patriotic spirit of a man who would despise such vile treachery.

Socialism was in vogue those days due to the recent success of the Soviet Union and its struggle against imperialists that had impressed many including Savarkar and Nehru. Savarkar was in touch with patriots throughout the country, including Master Tara Singh in the Punjab, Rash Bihari Bose and S.P Mukherjee in Bengal apart from the Travancore Kingdom and Sir C.P Iyer, its diwan.

A point stressed on umpteen times in this book is that above all, Savarkar was a realist who always advocated calibrating and changing strategies based solely on national interest. It is a fact that he was wily and masterful. Madanlal Dhingra, a rambunctious patriotic Punjabi from a rich Amritsar family was inspired to exterminate Curzon Wyllie due to Savarkar’s influence. However, the jury is still out on the most infamous killing of them all, the 1948 assassination of the ‘Mahatma’.

Although the authors have largely absolved him of involvement insisting that he respected opponents of every hue and dispensation, many books on the subject including a few in Marathi believe Veer Savarkar played a part.

Mr. Savarkar’s transformation from a typical ‘pseudo-secularist’ to the ideological founder of a more assertive brand of Sanatan Dharma viz. ‘Hindutva’ took place in his painful and long incarceration in the Andaman Cellular Jail. Maharashtra with firebrands like Vasudeo Balwant Phadke, the Chaphekar brothers, Tilak among others was on the forefront of violent rebellion apart from the Punjab and Bengal.

That the British considered him an ‘extreme’ subversive threat due to his intelligence was evident when they sentenced him to a record 50 year imprisonment at the young age of 28. The situation in this place was more inhumane and solitary than present day hellholes like Guantanomo that may appear to be a ‘vacation’ in comparison.

The Irish jailor gladly colluded with Islamic jailors and inmates in their attempt to convert Hindu(particularly Bengali) and Sikh convicts who formed the large majority. Amrish Puri played a Pathan jailor with great aplomb and terrifying effect in a 1996 Malayalam Mohanlal movie on the Andaman cellular jail inmates.

The writers of this book have also given a convincing explanation of his clemency petitions that are ‘mocked’ by ‘present-day’ politicians and the Leftist-Islamist nexus who have the luxury of distance. Savarkar asked for mercy not only for himself but for many other inmates. In contrast, Nehru and Gandhi spent a lot less time in British jails and that too on the mainland. Motilal, Jawaharlal’s father and an eminence grise lawyer even managed to pull a few strings to get Jawahar out from Nabha jail in two weeks on the condition that he would not enter the princely state.

However, the main takeaway and major thrust of this book begins in the middle and continues to the end. Savarkar’s prescience in observing the devastating effect of Congress’s appeasement template taking centrestage particularly after Gandhi taking centrestage and his support to the medieval fanatic ‘Khilafat’ movement in the name of ‘Hindu-Muslim’ unity.

The horrible ‘Moplah’ massacres in Kerala in the 1920s were dismissed by Gandhi with such inane comments as ‘The Muslim is by nature a bully, and the Hindu is by nature a coward’. Savarkar with his profound reading and understanding of world history and the religious scriptures of Indic faiths including Jainism and Buddhism apart from Hinduism countered the emasculating ‘ahimsa’ construct of Gandhi with relevant examples of Jain kings aided by Munis apart from the Buddha advocating violence for a righteous cause as true dharma.

The sagely demeanour, PR and appeal of Gandhi to the Indian masses apart from the masterful machinations of the Muslim League would prove to be the death-knell for Savarkar’s dream of a United(Akhand) India(Bharat). It is to the author’s credit that despite the painful text, we are offered a window into Savarkar’s soul and transported into those times long ago, that were quite different and still very similar.

The Hindu Mahasabha’s spirited opposition to the Muslim League’s evil plans managed to block the creation of multiple Pakistans. Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, a Tamil icon who I personally admired due to reading his ‘Mahabharata’ and ‘Ramayana’ at a very early age came up with a dastardly ‘Rajaji’ plan for the division of India under Gandhi’s tutelage.

Savarkar opposed this tooth and nail, organising protests across undivided India and rightfully questioned whether an ancient country was the personal fiefdom of Gandhi and Nehru. The Mahatma’s negotiations lacked both self-respect and courage, Savarkar rightfully asserted when Gandhi went 27 times to meet Jinnah with the latter not paying a single return visit.

Also, Muslim League goons were entirely disrepectful of Gandhi and his entourage. Unlike Gandhi, Rajagopalachari and Nehru later on, Savarkar was empathetic to the sufferings of the entire nation, from Punjab and Sind to Bengal, Gujarat and the South.

The authors suggest that Veer Savarkar planted the idea of ‘escape’ in Subhash Bose’s head, but fail to mention the assistance of Punjabi Communist sympathisers and a remarkable quintuple agent Hindu Khatri Bhagat Ram Talwar(Codename ‘Silver’) apart from Sikhs from Calcutta to Kabul apart from Saifuddin Kitchlew who helped him understand the culture of the lands he was going to pass through.

The fact that Veer Savarkar was an inspiration and in regular contact with many stalwarts of the age is stressed quite forcefully. Savarkar was also instrumental in the militarisation of sections of the Hindu population and recruitment of Hindus in the army, that served them well in the light of genocidal Islamic mobs that mobilized after the Muslim League’s ‘Direct Action’ Day. RSS founders, also ex-Congressmen disenchanted with its spineless appeasement drew inspiration from Savarkar.

Post-independence, Savarkar warned Nehru repeatedly not to compromise on national integrity and be wary of China and not kowtow on Tibet as well as China. The man’s wisdom and his Kautilyan realpolitik approach were not appreciated by India’s first Prime Minister who was obsessed with his own delusions about non-alignment and Asian brotherhood.

When the Pakistani PM Liaquat Ali Khan visited India in 1952, Savarkar was placed under arrest. Nehru also allowed the birthplace of the ‘Pakistan’ movement, the Aligarh Muslim University to enjoy protected status and flourish in India. He even allied with the All India Muslim League, an offshoot of the party that caused the country’s partition in a 1950s election.

Although in some places it reads like a hagiography with its advocacy and explanation of Savarkar’s viewpoint, it is towards the end that a little criticism of the him does take place. Moody and temperamental at times, Savarkar’s long incarceration and the stigma and ostracism orchestrated by the Nehru government based on his perceived role in the Gandhi assassination would have taken a toll is what the authors contend.

Like many anti-Hindu pogroms to the present day, the 1948 anti-Brahmin riots that took place pan-India after Gandhi was killed is a historical fact that is forgotten and glossed over.

The fact that Savarkar’s conception of Hindutva was not rabid vitriol like the heathen and infidel bashing of other faiths but rather an evolved all-encompassing respect for patriotic, sane and hard-working people from all faiths is something that is deliberated obfuscated by a street-smart, servile, deliberately vindictive and sometimes intellectually deficient opposition.

The tragedy of present-day dialectic is the refusal to condemn monolithic Abrahamic faiths that effectively censor dissent and ensure forced compliance but prattle on relentlessly using colonial constructs that were meant to divide and rule. The authors also have indicated this, albeit indirectly.

To sum up, Vinayak Damodar ‘Veer’ Savarkar will always be a controversial figure, prone to misinterpretation and unfounded calumny. His ideas will continue to invite debate and inspire true patriots. It is a tragedy that present-day Maharashtra does not have the intellectual heft, patriotism, calibre and wisdom of leaders like Savarkar, Tilak or Gokhale.

As a pointer, one of Asia’s richest municipal corporations has a long way to go in making India’s financial capital even remotely like Shanghai.

However, what shines through in this book is the profound love Savarkar had for the country and his conception of a majestic, united, vast Indian motherland with economic, intellectual and military muscle that would have served as a beacon for the world.

Although, the reality is different, Indic as well as other readers can always draw inspiration from the Savarkar world-view which deserves more respect and analysis than it has got in the post-independence era.