While ordinary revolutionaries who used arms in independence movement of Hindustan were sentenced to only single death by hanging, British saw reasons in taking two lives out of one Savarkar. He was sentenced to serve two life-terms and that too under rigorous imprisonment – a punishment – that was arguably one of the toughest pronounced in the Colonial era. A cruel sentence for two-life terms puts him in a category worth titled as ‘Veer’ by the Indians and that makes him easily a revolutionary against the colonial era, unmatched in the history. That the British government kept on rejecting his several assurances that he will keep himself away from revolutionary activities, is yet another proof of how British were convinced that his assurances were merely hiding a revolution awaiting to explode with his release. His mercy petitions were especially singled out for repeated rejections as British could hardly believe them. It was not for no reason that even after ten years of his inhuman imprisonment, when his brother Ganesh Savarkar was being released in 1920, the British decided to keep him as a hostage in an openly declared strategy to restrict Ganesh from indulging in revolutionary activities again. Just as British army were known to fear coming close to the armed-revolutionaries even after their death in encounters, Savarkar was never trusted for whatever he used to write to the British government in the name of these petitions. As a matter of fact, a few propagandist-historians have kept on misleading us and have been conspiratorially evading reasoned analysis of these rejections one after the other. Even after his so called release, he was confined to a place in Ratnagiri and was not allowed to move freely till he served his imprisonment for 26 years in continuation. This period was more than a life term and includes his ten years of ‘Kala Pani’ punishment in the Cellular jail of Andaman and Nicobar Island known for torturing the imprisoned revolutionaries in general and Savarkar in particular.
Savarkar symbolizes revolution as his ideas and writings seem to have naturally erupted from a nationalists’ volcano. Recent researches have uncovered his strategic association with Netaji and other revolutionaries with whom he contributed in strategising the armed struggle for independence even after his ‘technical’ release from imprisonment.
Savarkar realised that Indians collectively had almost lost all sense of pride after suffering continuously for a stretch of thousand long years of brutal invasions, unimaginable atrocities and inhuman mistreatments. We were made to forget that before the religion-driven medieval invasions, this part of the world used to have the most prosperous, most happy and most contended population. We used to lead developments in all streams of knowledge such as Arts, Science and Philosophy. Savarkar found it more disturbing that apart from this, we were also losing our common threads to unite ourselves in a changed world that had become highly polarized where religion had become the primary identity of individuals and collective. It was difficult for us to accept this change as this used to be a place that had never witnessed Rulers making violent distinction among citizens based on their religious identities before the medieval era. Indian society was shocked and unable to find ways to deal with this kind of brutality unleashed on the basis of religion. In this demoralizing era, his idea of ‘Hindutva’ helped India to realize its potential that helped us later in establishing a cohesive sovereign and a country united by common culture, shared traditions and common moral values. He carried forward the legacy of Chatrapati Shivaji of strategising fights and wars with a singular aim to snatch wins by all means and topped it with Swami Vivekananda-like revolutionary vision and discussions that used to infuse positivity in a society that was otherwise finding it hard to discover its pride following centuries of slavery.
Savarkar reminded us that our idea of nation was never derived from religion or language. Our idea of nation was geo-cultural and therefore always inclusive as against the medieval-era understanding that was forcing us to digest an idea of nation based on religion. He called our ancient traditional idea of nation as Hindu Rashtra and advocated to continue with our rich past traditions and reject the medieval idea of nation. Before medieval era invasions our practices and traditions were so rich that historically in this part of the world even wars were fought observing well laid down norms of not hurting the interest and lives of common citizens other than the armed warriors. It was exactly for this reason that wars, those days, were fought in open fields and only during day-time, as noticed by Megasthenes in his book ‘Indica’. Saavarkar gave us the identity that we were losing. Being a true intellectual revolutionary he could identify the common thread among us that was being destroyed in the era of narrow religious identities. Savarkar came up with the revolutionary idea of identifying our unique and traditional characteristics with ‘Hindutva’ that was always there within us but never decoded in this simple way.
In the words of Savarkar, “We are Hindus only because you are Muslims” thereby meaning that actually those who identify themselves completely with their religion happen to confuse Hinduism with yet another religion. In his opinion, putting religion above all of their other identities, simple contradicts the idea of nationalism. Medieval Invaders identified everyone residing east of river ‘Sindhu’ as Hindus. However, when they invaded Hindustan, they spared Muslims living over here and picked up non-muslims for some of the worst kind of inhuman treatment. They plundered, butchered, raped and did all kinds of atrocious acts on all, except Muslims. People residing in Hindustan were not very familiar with the idea of organised religion by that time. People in this part of the world were known to be religiously curious. We were used to find ways to handle our own spiritual inquisitiveness by choosing an explored path or by exploring an innovative approach. We were known for practicing complete freedom of choice and switch-over of thoughts on the Creator of this universe. We were identified as Hindus only because we were identified as those who were ever curious about the idea of God. Savarkar himself was a self confessed atheist. His idea of Hinduism was as wide as our traditions and practices. His idea of Hindu Rashtra was beyond the scope and comprehension of those who were confined to trivial religious identities. He was a social reformer who rejected untouchability and fought against the caste system prevailing in the society. We collectively were never bound to uniform kind of rituals and were never known to have identical understanding about the Creator. In the understanding of Savarkar, Hindus are primarily those people who still continue to associate themselves with our ancient old civilization. It was the brilliance of Savarkar who could discover and concretize a common thread of unity among the fellow residents of this region.
The present India, has recently started finding inspiration in the understanding and vision of Savarkar. Savarkar’s ideas have slowly begun to find acceptance in the new India that has rejected the policy of minority appeasement and the idea of a theocratic state.
