Savarkar Unmasked

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar today shares national eminence with MK Gandhi; their portraits hang side by side on the walls of Indian Parliament. This is despite the fact that Sardar Patel, the first Home Minister of India, held Savarkar responsible for the murder of the Father of the Nation. In a letter, dated February 27, 1948, to Jawabarlal Nehru, the then Prime Minister of India, Patel wrote: ‘It was a fanatical wing of the Hindu Mahasabha directly under Savarkar that hatched the conspiracy (to kill Mahatma) and saw it through.’ // This book is the outcome of a sincere urge to separate facts from myths and present facts as they unfolded in the history of India’s Freedom Struggle. In order to know the real Savarkar, author has mainly relied on original documents available in the archives of Hindu Mahasabha, the RSS, the Government of India and the memoirs of revolutionaries who were in the Cellular Jail with Savarkar. These documents, awfully, show that he not only kept aloof from the Freedom Movement but also openly helped the British war efforts during the World War II at a time when Subhash Chandra Bose was trying to liberate India militarily. Savarkar remained a diehard believer in Casteism, Racism and Imperialism throughout his life. He called it Hindutva. This book also evaluates the original 1923 edition of Hindutva authored by Savarkar so that all those who cherish a democratic-secular India are able to understand the gravity of ideas which originated to undo India. // Quote by Khushwant Singh starts: [Savarkar] in his presidential speech at the Mahasabha conference in Ahmedabad in 1937, said: ‘As it is, there are two antagonistic nations living side by side in India’…The Hindu Mahasabha had no problem in joining the Muslim League Government in Sind and Bengal. He was also the supporter of the princely order and thought it would not be a bad idea if the King of Nepal became the Hindu emperor of India…If you want to recheck what I have written, take a look at Shamsul Islam’s book on Savarkar. —Khushwant Singh