‘Satya Asatya’ (truth and untruth)-Savarkar : reevaluating profane myths about India’s nationalist hero, a researched

By Our Correspondent

Agartala, March 14, 2024

During his study stint as barrister in London Mahatma Gandhi had met Vinayak Damodar Savarkar twice in London’s India House and was appalled by the non-veg food being cooked by the great but much-reviled man. Savarkar in his inimitably smart style had told Gandhiji if he could not bear the smell of non-veg food how he could work together with himself and his comrades. So had Lenin in the year 1902 but the living spirit behind the epoch making Russian revolution realized in time that giving Marxist orientation to the nascent Indian struggle for freedom to nationalist Savarkar and his associates would not be possible. These are historical anecdotes which bear recapitulation but more was to come.

Savarkar’s relation with the Mahatma never really soured as evident from his article in ‘Young India’ dated May 26 1920 wherein he resented the British obduracy in keeping Savarkar and his younger brother Baburao detained in the ‘Kalapani’ (Cellular Jail of Andaman Nikovar islands) as ordinary criminals , subjected to all kinds of physical and mental torture, despite the ‘general amnesty’ declared by the British government as part of the government of India act of 1919. The great man had in fact eulogized Savarkar for his sacrifice and the incarceration he had been subjected to without any proven charge. There is also the record of correspondence between Gandhiji and Savarkar in Abhijeet Deb’s authentically researched work which also reveals how deeply Gandhiji appreciated Savarkar’s book on Sepoy mutiny of 1857 in a book conveying the idea that it was not a petty mutiny but beleaguered India’s first freedom struggle.

Another historically significant point cited with evidence by researcher Abhijeet Deb is Savarkar’s correspondence with the British during his horrifying confinement in Cellular Jail and nowhere it was written that he was seeking mercy or tendering apology for his past political activism as a freedom fighter. In fact the British government had made it mandatory for all ‘ordinary criminals’ to apply for premature release by addressing letters to the highest authority but Savarkar was pleading for release of all such freedom fighters willfully branded as ‘ordinary criminals’ expressing his intent to sacrifice his own life . Many before and after him had made ‘mercy pleas’ including the great Bal Gangadhar Tilak and revolutionary Ullaskar Dutta, in stead of committing suicide as many had done or rotting in horrible jail chambers till death.

Savarkar had also made an appeal to Indian youths to enlist in the British army during second world war, but unlike Gandhiji who himself had recruited Indian soldiers for the British army in first world war under the mistaken belief that in the post-war period the British would give concession, Savarkar wanted the Hindu youths to receive arms training for a future Indian war with Britain. He had foreseen the devastation that the British would suffer in the second world war and how it would render them incapable of holding on to India as a colony. His role , specially his appeal to youths to join the INA had earned kudos and regard for him from none other than Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose , as recorded in Abhijeet Deb’s book. Another important aspect of his political life and thinking was his lifelong opposition to and abhorrence of the infamous caste system in Hindu society which brought him closer to another great Indian, Dr B.R.Ambedkar. Even in regard to minority Muslims Savarkar was not how he is painted by perverters of history : in a rally in Pune in 1939 he had categorically stated “…Its (Hindu Mahasabha) political aim was that all Indians , Hindus , Muslims, Christians, Parsis should have equal rights in political, social , civic and religious spheres….”.

But in the post-independence India Savarkar has been reviled by motivated historians of a particular school who specialize in evasion, prevarication and subterfuge under the liberal patronage of the Nehruvian school who stigmatize any one speaking for the majority Hindus. The great man had spent twenty six long years in British and Indian jails and was falsely implicated in the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi but post his death in 1966, the great man was respectfully honoured only by then prime minister Indira Gandhi who had donated by cheque Rs 11 thousand to Savarkar foundation , had a postal stamp released with the great revolutionary freedom fighter’s picture inscribed on it and had a documentary on his life produced and circulated by the Film Division under the then I&B ministry. Abhijeet Deb’s excellently researched work removes many a misconception about a great man whose legacy is still ‘contested’ and is a must read for anyone keen to dig out the authentic history of India’s freedom struggle from the maze of deliberate distortions and misrepresentations.

Abhijeet Deb’s book divided into sixteen rich chapters, four all-important references and source materials, in a 164-page sleek volume, published by the ‘Parent Publishers’ of Dhaleshwar shall have an abiding value for readers inquisitive about history and national freedom movement . It deserves to adorn book-shelves of all intellectuals and informed readers and researchers.