Shourie’s takedown of Savarkar

(Clockwise from above) Veteran journalist and author Arun Shourie, Hindutva progenitor Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Shourie’s latest book on the historical figure

We cannot separate an icon from his followers as we cannot the "dancer from the dance." This truth shimmers in veteran journalist Arun Shourie's The New Icon: Savarkar and the Facts, wherein he analyses the writings and speeches of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, the progenitor of Hindutva. Shourie establishes the primacy of hate and violence in Savarkar's worldview, spotlights his reworking of Hindu morality, his propensity to spawn myths about himself, and his delusions. Savarkar, to invoke poet W B Yeats' imagery, was the dancer; his dance, albeit posthumously, is the politics of his followers today.

"Hate unites as well as separates," Savarkar wrote, arguing that "nothing can weld peoples into a nation and nations into a State as the pressure of a common foe." Hate, thus, is a necessary political tool for unity, for which an enemy must be invented in case there doesn't exist one - and kept separated to build imaginary "pressure" on the rest.

For Savarkar, Muslims were the principal enemy, as they are still today for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and its affiliates. The everyday othering of Muslims as seen today is therefore not to be abhorred, for it coalesces Hindus, evident from the Bharatiya Janata Party's
continuing domination.

To make hate a national imperative, Savarkar scoffed at Hinduism for considering tolerance as a virtue. "They…went on tolerating even such a hideous religion as Islam…," he wrote, faulting the Hindus for not destroying, after the decline of Muslim rule, "the various masjids at Kashi [Varanasi], Mathura or Rameshwaram." Today, after demolishing the Babri Masjid in 1992, Hindutvawadis have in their crosshairs many more mosques than just those at Mathura and Varanasi.

Savarkar criticised Hinduism for its idea of "purity," which, he thought, deterred Hindus from converting Muslims even after they were vanquished. His wish is expressed today through the Hindu Right's Ghar Wapsi, or reconversion, programme. He admonished Chhatrapati Shivaji for returning "untouched" the daughter-in-law of the Muslim governor of Kalyan, whom he had defeated. The ovation the rapists of Bilkis Bano received on their release from prison was Savarkarian in character, as were the rapes of Muslim women during the 2002 Gujarat and 2013 Muzaffarnagar riots.

Savarkar hated Buddhism, as he believed its philosophy sapped the nation's vitality for war. It is for this reason Buddha and Emperor Ashoka top Savarkar's list of villains. Portraying Buddhists as incorrigible traitors, Savarkar celebrated Hindu kings who exterminated them. He conceded to Akbar's greatness but said he should be decried by "us, Hindus" because he "belonged to another religion." The Savarkarian impulse has, today, shrunk the space for the Mughals in history textbooks. "Not one Englishman" features among Savarkar's villains, Shourie wryly points out.

During his trial in the Gandhi assassination case, Savarkar submitted to the court a written statement saying that he and Gandhi had "lived together as friends" in London in 1908. Shourie shows Gandhi did not even visit London that year. Savarkar detested Gandhi for his advocacy of nonviolence, even describing him as a walking plague, mad, eccentric, a broker of the British. Shourie fills two pages with Savarkar's epithets for Gandhi. The Hindu Right still displays its contempt for Gandhi, none more sensationally than former BJP MP Pragya Singh Thakur did.

Shourie cites from Savarkar's speeches to show he favoured a centralised State, towards which Prime Minister Narendra Modi is gradually taking India. For instance, in a 1961 speech, Savarkar said, "Instead of today's weak democracy (of Nehru), I would prefer thousand times one-man rule of Shivaji and Chandragupta." On his 59th birthday, Savarkar's message to his followers was: "Hinduise politics, militarise the Hindu race" - the two goals more or less accomplished today.

Savarkar acquired the halo of a revolutionary largely because of his bid to escape from SS Morea, after it docked in Marseilles, en route to India, where he was being taken to face a trial for political murder. Savarkar jumped out of a porthole and swam "for his life," claims Chitragupta's The Life of Barrister Savarkar, "now diving, now riding the waves," and then, on reaching the shore, ran for a mile before he was nabbed. Shourie says Chitragupta was likely the pseudonym of Savarkar, who, in reality, swam for 10-12 feet and raced for about 200 yards. Today, dubious data are marshalled and exaggerated claims made to tom-tom India's march to become Vishwa Guru, or the world's teacher.

Savarkar's delusion had him claim that it was on his suggestion Subhas Chandra Bose escaped to Germany and sought Hitler's support to raise an army for overthrowing British rule in India. Savarkar boasted he was no less than Italian revolutionaries Mazzini and Garibaldi. For all his radical prattle, he wrote craven letters of mercy to the British for his release from Andaman's Cellular Jail. For all his diatribes against Muslims, he readily cut a deal with the Muslim League.

Shourie's book ends with a plea to readers to save Hinduism from Hindutva. Yet there isn't a word of regret from Shourie about his own role in popularising Savarkarian ideas. It is hard to tell whether he wrote The New Icon as an act of atonement, but this book will certainly
enrage Hindutvawadis.

The writer is a senior journalist and author of Bhima Koregaon: Challenging Caste

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