Decades ago Savarkar warned the Hindus not to be misled by the Congress concept of freedom:
"Mere geographical independence of the bit of earth called India should
not be confused with real
'Swarajya'. To the Hindus, the independence of Hindusthan could only
be worth having if it ensured
'their Hindutva - their religious, racial and cultural identity', Swarajya
to the Hindus must mean only
that 'Rajya' in which their 'Swatva', their 'Hindutva' could assert
itself without being overloaded by
non-Hindu people, whether they be Indian territorials or extraterritorials."
One of his followers said that Hindus cannot take this country as jointly owned by those who either came running away from their countries and sought protection here or those descendants of ex-Hindus, who for the greed of power and money or out of fear renounced their glorious faith and became converts, or those who are the descendants of those barbarous invaders who spoiled our very sacred land, demolished our sacred temples . . the country cannot belong to them, if they are to live here they must live here taking it for granted that Hindusthan is the land of the Hindus, of no one else.
Savarkar's followers like Advani and Vajpayee are less candid but no
less committed. They
denounce Nehru but the real target is Gandhi. Nehru was his devoted
disciple and the man Gandhi
himself anointed as his heir. Godse's bullet killed Gandhi. Savarkar
and the various fronts of the
Sangh Parivar seek to bury the Gandhian heritage which Nehru lovingly
fostered and enriched over
the years. A veritable campaign of 'cultural assassination' is now
afoot in the name of 'cultural
nationalism'. This baleful campaign draws its inspiration from Savarkar's
essay Hindutva published
in 1923 under the pseudonym 'A Maratha' since he was in prison.
Savarkar died a political failure. He and his Hindu Mahasabha had ceased
to be players in Indian
politics since the early forties. But his ideology took new life once
it was adopted by the RSS in its
entire nuance. It is writ large in Golwalkar's book We or Our Nationhood
Defined (1938).
Vajpayee was wrong in saying in the Rajya Sabha in May 6, 2002 that
the book represented
Golwalkar's personal views. The book was cited in a formal legal document
filed in 1978 before the
District Judge, Nagpur by the RSS, as an organization. Keer records
that in a speech in Mumbai on
May 1 1963 Golwalkar said that 'he found the principles of nationalism
scientifically explained in
Savarkar's great work Hindutva. To him it was a text-book, a scientific
book. It was on this
occasion that Golwalkar also publicly acknowledged his debt to the
book Rashtra Meemansa by
Savarkar's eider brother Babarao (G.D.) Savarkar. Golwalkar's own Bunch
of Thoughts reflects a
deep impress of Hindutva. It has a whole chapter denouncing 'Territorial
Nationalism'. It was also
relied on by the RSS in the 1978 document. Golwalkar himself acknowledged
that 'Veer Savarkalji
wrote a beautiful book "Hindutva" and Hindu Mahasabha based itself
on that pure philosophy of
Hindu Nationalism. This is precisely what Advani began advocating in
1990, and the BJP in its
election manifestos since 1996. The true originator of this philosophy,
Savarkar, was himself hailed
only in 2002.
This long neglect of their intellectual guide by the Sangh parivar
was commented upon with
remarkable perception by Swapan Dasgupta, himself an admirer of Hindutva.
This is what he wrote
in the aftermath of the demolition of the Babari Masjid:
Savarkar's abysmal failure in the realms of realpolitik is more
than compensated by his continuing
relevance as the chief theoretician of modern Hindu nationalism.
Neither the RSS nor the BJP has
highlighted this aspect sufficiently, preferring to emphasize its intellectual
lineage from Bankim
Chandra Chatterjee, Swami Vivekananda, Swami Dayananda, Lokmanya Tilak
and Sri Aurobindo
right down to Guruji [sic] Golwalkar and Deendayal Upadhyaya. It is,
however, a commentary on
Savarkar's perspicacity that his celebrated pamphlet, Hindutva, written
in 1923, remains the starting
point of any theoretical construct of the Hindu upsurge.
. . . Just as he attempted to rescue Hindutva from the Hindu penchant
for spiritual abstractions,
Savarkar was equally categorical in defining nationhood. 'A Hindu',
he wrote in a celebrated
definition, 'means a person who regards this land of Bharatavarsha
from the Indus to the seas as his
fatherland (pitribhumi), as well as his holyland (punyabhoomi), that
is the cradle land of his religion.
It is surprising that for a man who flaunted his irreverence and rationalism,
Savarkar attached so
much importance to formal religion in defining punyabhumi. His definition
of Hindu - unlike Hindutva
- was narrow, put Christians and Muslims beyond the purview of nationhood
and was consislent
with a belief that reconversions to the Hindu fold were the only way
to arrest this change of
nationality. What emerges from this very brief overview is the amazing
extent to which Savarkar has
influenced contemporary Hindu nationalism, both in its positive and
negative facets."
Dasgupta was wrong in holding that the RSS' concept of 'cultural nationalism'
was different from
Savarkar's Hindutva. The BJP itself regards them as being synonymous.
He, however pointed out
that 'Savarkar's limited view of punyabhumi has tacitly given legitimacy
to vicious anti-Muslim
tendencies which have also manifested themselves after December 6.'
Dasgupta pines for an 'enlightened Hindutva' minus the hate. In thus
trying to square the circle he is
not alone. Vajpayee also tried it in a pathetic venture. On March 27,
2002, he said, 'when Swami
Vivekananda speaks of Hindutva, nobody can call him a communalist'.
But some 'defined Hindutva
in such a manner that it is better to keep a distance from it.'
And again, on May 6, he said: 'I accept
the Hindutva of Swami Vivekananda. But the kind of Hindutva being propagated
now is wrong and
one should be wary of it.'
The truth, as Vajpayee is doubtless aware, is that Swami Vivekananda
did not speak of Hindutva at
all. He was concerned with the profundities of Hinduism. It was Savarkar
who 'coined' the term
Hindutva in 1923 to propagate a cult of hate.
The noted historian Tapan Raychaudhari says of Vivekananda that 'he
was among the earliest
nationalist thinkers to claim the Indo-Islamic past as part of the
Indian heritage'. He noted with
disgust that, 'the VHP has the audacity to claim him as their own'.
'It is difficult', he argued, 'to
imagine him [Vivekananda] as the ideological ancestor of people who
incite the ignorant to destroy
other people's places of worship in a revanchist spirit.' The
intellectual progenitor of the Hindutva
project is not Vivekananda, but Savarkar. Andersen and Damle note that
'a major influence on his
[the RSS founder Hedgewar's] thinking was a handwritten manuscript
of... Savarkar's Hindutva
which advanced the thesis that the Hindus were a nation'. And Keer
records that 'one of the early
visitors to Savarkar in Ratnagiri was the great founder of the RSS,
Dr KB Hedgewar. The interview
took place in 1925 at Shirgaon, a village on the outskirts of Ratnagiri.'
Hindutva had just been
published. 'Before starting' the RSS, Hedgewar 'had a long discussion
with Savarkar over the faith,
form and future of the organization.'