Savarkar: A 'history in full'

Hindutva and Violence: V D Savarkar and the Politics of History

Author:  Vinayak Chaturvedi

Publisher: Permanent Black with Ashoka University

Pages: 463

Price: Rs 1,095

The influence of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar on India’s political discourse and narratives has steadily increased over the past three decades. Amplification of Savarkar’s influence on the polity has, however, not been matched by an understanding of the man and his works. The names of the book’s protagonist and the author’s, being the same, is not coincidental. Actually, it was this awareness of being named after Savarkar that motivated Vinayak Chaturvedi to begin examining the life and writings of a man about whom opinions are readily formed by most without serious engagement with Savarkar’s works. The author had the option to “ignore, hide or obscure” this fact, but he chose to inject autobiographical renderings into the book with remarkable success.

In some ways perhaps, the author follows Savarkar’s “method” of writing autobiographical texts through which he expounded on one of the two central ideas he propagated — “history in full” — during a crucial period of his life. These texts form a significant part of Savarkar’s oeuvre too. The “original” Vinayak felt it necessary to “narrate his life within the same parameters that he used in examining the lives of past historical characters”. Likewise, the “contemporary” Vinayak retells the process of discovering why he was named such, although this is a small but significant part of the book. Coda, the last “non-chapter” in the book, is a sensitive portrayal of the journey into his own past. Readers are taken through that foray, into the minds of not just Savarkar but also of Dattatreya Sadashiv Parchure, decades-long associate of the codifier of the Hindu nationalistic idea and the person who was believed by all, except the Punjab High Court, to have supplied the 9 mm Beretta to Nathuram Godse with which he assassinated Mahatma Gandhi.

No one with an interest in South Asia can ignore Savarkar and the idea of Hindutva that he popularised. The author rightly contends that his ideas contributed, perhaps controversially, to the making of modern Indian political thought in the 20th century. Paradoxically, Indians, and even a large number of scholars who engaged with Hindu nationalistic politics and its ideas on both sides of the ideological divide, know more about Savarkar’s life, what he accomplished and where he failed. But there is scanty awareness about Savarkar’s varied writings. Most remain uninformed of his works beyond the 1923 publication, Essentials of Hindutva, the inspirational text for the formation of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Dr Chaturvedi fills this void with aplomb despite being aware that writing on Savarkar is challenging due to his polarising legacy.

In a terrain where positions on Savarkar have already been “taken”, Dr Chaturvedi does not try to explore the middle ground. Instead, he examines Savarkar from a different perspective — that of Savarkar’s evolving ideas and their inter-relation and allows his presentation to do the talking. The book steers clear of assessing Savarkar on the basis of his actions and positions. 

Dr Chaturvedi is not concerned if his subject was a veer (brave man) or not. Or for that matter, if his apologies to the British while in Cellular Jail were a tactical ploy or not. In the process, Dr Chaturvedi treads on both sides of this divide, although critics of Hindutva preferring damning and direct criticism of Savarkar and his ideas, may for once look at the “Savarkar in full” that comes into view through the book. This will enable them to not just comprehend the man, but also today’s Savarkarites, many of whom are leading members of the present regime.

Dr Chaturvedi does not mince words in arguing that Savarkar “struggled with defining Hindutva.” This is a similar failure of a later and lesser Sangh Parivar icon, Deendayal Upadhyaya, whose idea of Integral Humanism has a halo of vagueness surrounding it. Savarkar’s argument is that Hindutva is “conceptually defiant” because it is not the name of an ideology, a theory, religion, or a movement. For Savarkar, Hindutva is fundamentally conjoined to history but it is not simply “history” or “the history”. Instead, it is “a history”, or more specifically “a history in full”. The Savarkar that comes alive through the pages thinks that even “a history in full” is incomplete and remains so till all historical events are not traced to a certain “motive” or “desire.” Hindutva for Savarkar was little else but history, and he was the first to establish a formal unity between the two. Since 2014, history has been discussed in the political terrain more than before and arguments are essentially Savarkarite —to know Hindutva is to know History and vice versa. The book is unsparing in pointing out that for Savarkar, history also meant a fair dose of myths and popular notions. Savarkar’s historical tracts were devoid of the rigours of a professionally committed historian because he wrote “works of history for personal consumption.”

Violence, Dr Chaturvedi establishes, was integral to the conceptual framework of the Ghost Father of the Nation. Madan Lal Dhingra, who assassinated Curzon Wyllie in 1909, was indoctrinated by Savarkar. He was, as an aide described, the “real guru, the Avatar of Krishna” and his first disciple was the forerunner of Godse. The assassin’s memory inspires many among today’s Hindutvawadis because Savarkar spoke for the dead, especially those hallowed by martyrdom. Dr Chaturvedi’s work underscores the numerous occasions when the path India’s regime followed was Savarkar’s. The book will enable better understanding of the current political drift and teach people how to engage with the man. 

The writer is an NCR-based author and journalist. His latest book is The Demolition and the Verdict: Ayodhya and the Project to Reconfigure India. @NilanjanUdwin