Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, also known as Veer Savarkar, is known an Indian nationalist and political leader who played a significant role in the Indian independence movement. However, over the last 75-80 years, the Congress party has left no stone unturned to present him as a controversial and polarizing figure in Indian politics only because of his association with Hindutva ideology and crystal clear views on certain topics.
Vilification of Veer Savarkar for mercy petitions
Especially, former Congress MP Rahul Gandhi has often criticized Vinayak Damodar Savarkar for submitting mercy petitions while he was imprisoned in the Andaman Cellular Jail. Rahul Gandhi and other Congres members have accused Veer Savarkar of betraying the Indian freedom struggle by seeking clemency from the British authorities and giving up his fight for independence. Both these lines of criticisms of Savarkar by Rahul Gandhi and his fellow Congressmen stoked controversies as they attempted to vilify the nationalist hero.
It is notable that Veer Savarkar was one of the most learned prisoners in Andaman as opposed to other prisoners. Many of them would approach Savarkar for writing mercy petitions. Uneducated prisoners would call him ‘Bada Babu’. Savarkar’s elder brother Ganesh Savarkar was also imprisoned there. Savarkar was jailed with a sentence of 50 years and hence he also looked at mercy petitions as a way to get out of prison and fetch some ways to involve in public life to contribute to society in whatever way he could rather than withholding his potential in the jail.
Cellular Jail was not a luxurious jail as MK Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru often used to enjoy staying at. Looking at the hardships of other Indian prisoners there, Savarkar has also said in his mercy petitions that he would be as satisfied as his own release if his fellow Indians in Andaman are released by the British rulers and he is not spared. Veer Savarkar sought the freedom of every other political prisoner in Cellular Jail in exchange for his own continued incarceration.
Vilification of Savarkar over MK Gandhi’s murder
Besides, Veer Savarkar was accused of being involved in the assassination of MK Gandhi in 1948. He was arrested and tried for the murder but was ultimately found not guilty and acquitted due to lack of evidence. Despite the acquittal, many Congressmen and Congress sympathizing liberals continue to believe that Savarkar was involved in the assassination. It is only because of his association with Hindu nationalist organizations and the Hindutva ideology.
Savarkar’s ideological differences with Gandhi and his opposition to the Indian National Congress are often cited as potential motives for his involvement in the assassination. However, it is important to note that Savarkar was acquitted of the charges and there is no evidence of any sort linking him to the murder.
It is only because of the ideological differences that Congress and its ecosystem have systematically vilified Veer Savarkar over the last 75-80 years. This systematic vilification is not a new thing and it started much before MK Gandhi’s murder. However, it attained a visible violent form when Congressmen attacked his house ‘Savarkar Sadan’ in the Dadar area of Mumbai immediately after the murder of the so-called greatest preacher of non-violence.
Congress members led a violent attack on the ‘Savarkar Sadan’ after MK Gandhi’s murder
M K Gandhi was assassinated by Nathuram Vinayak Godse on January 30, 1948, in Delhi. The news sent shock waves across the country. Nathuram Godse belonged to an orthodox Chitpavan Brahmin family living in Pune. As soon as the family and caste details of Godse were made public, violence abruptly outpoured in major cities of Maharashtra. Congress party workers unleashed violence against Brahmins in Maharashtra. As Nathuram Godse was a Chitpavan Brahmin, the Congressmen attacked Chitpavan Brahmins first and then all sub-groups of Brahmins across Maharashtra. Savarkar was both – an ideological opponent as well as a Chitpavan Brahmin.
Savarkar’s vilification was done so strongly by the ‘non-violent’ followers of MK Gandhi – even before independence – that seldom do people revisit the fact that the first major lynching incident of independent India has been executed by the same Congressmen at the ‘Savarkar Sadan’. The victim of this incident is none other than Dr Narayan Damodar Savarkar – the younger brother of Veer Vinayak Damodar Savarkar who mainstreamed the term Hindutva in the Indian polity. Dr Narayan Damodar Savarkar was attacked by Congressmen in Mumbai. He never recovered from a head injury he received in this attack and succumbed to it 20 months after this attack.
At that time, the media disregarded the events that were taking place and state authorities exerted pressure to prevent any documentation of these occurrences, resulting in a lack of resources available today. However, British journalist Maureen Patterson’s investigation into the aftermath of Gandhi’s death in India shed light on the violence against Brahmins in Maharashtra in 1948, which had previously been overlooked. This spurred discussion and brought attention to the issue. OpIndia has gone through the documentary evidence of this heinous act of Congress workers.
Brutal attack on Dr Narayan Savarkar
Dr Narayan Savarkar’s lynching is documented in Patterson’s work “The Shifting Fortunes of Chitpavan Brahmins: The Focus on 1948”, published in D.W. Atwood et al. (eds.), “City. Countryside and Society in Maharashtra”. We, for the sake of this article, call it source 1. Besides, enough details regarding the attack on the ‘Savarkar Sadan’ are also documented in the ‘Digitized Private Papers of Sardar Patel: Letters and Newspaper Articles’ in the National Archives of India New Delhi. Let this be called source 2. Both sources are also cited in the second part of historian Vikram Sampath’s recent two-volume biography of Veer Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.
Source 2 says, as quoted by Vikram Sampath, “Savarkar’s house in Dadar became the next target of mob anger. A crowd of 500 to 1,000 people gathered outside his house shouted slogans and pelted stones. As noted in a news report, Savarkar’s books, pictures and photographs were scattered everywhere on the road. Then people set it all ablaze. In many places, Savarkar’s photographs were first vandalised and then burnt.”
Vikram Sampath, on page number 420 and 421 of his book “Savarkar: A Contested Legacy”, further says, “Many people entered the ground floor area where Bhide Guruji, Savarkar’s former secretary and editor of the English weekly ‘Free Hindusthan’, lived. Savarkar was resting in his room on the first floor. The presence of mind of his colleagues Bal Savarkar and Bhaskar Shinde saved Savarkar’s life, as well as his wife Yamuna and son Vishwas. The previous night, 10 members of Savarkar’s family, including his bodyguard Appa Kasar and his personal secretary Gajanan Damle, were detained by the Mumbai Police.” Notably, there is no specific mention of Bhaskar Shinde – a non-Brahmin – getting attacked by Congressmen during this scuffle.
After this, Vikram Sampath quotes source 1 to describe the attack on Dr Narayan Damodar Savarkar. It says, “Congress supporters got angry and gathered around Veer Savarkar’s house, but police intervention prevented him from physical injury. However, the police did not pay attention in time to prevent the attack on his brother, who lived next door.”
The details of the attack are horrific. Dr Narayan Damodar Savarkar was dragged out, he was hit with stones and bricks so much that he fell in a pool of blood. He had suffered a serious head injury, was rushed to a hospital and his family was rushed to a safe place. Dr Narayan Damodar Savarkar was physically assaulted in the aftermath of the Gandhi murder. He never fully recovered and died on 19 October 1949.
Massacre of Brahmins in Maharashtra after MK Gandhi’s murder
The outbreak of violence against Brahmins began in Pune, where as many as 50 Brahmins were identified and killed on January 30th, 1948. This wave of violence quickly spread to other cities in southern and western Maharashtra, with Nagpur in Vidarbha becoming a focal point for unrest. While the initial attacks were targeted at individuals with the surname ‘Godse’, the caste-based fury soon extended to all sub-castes of Brahmins, including the Deshastha and Karhade communities in Maharashtra. The violence was not limited to Chitpavan (Konkanastha) Brahmins alone.
The root cause of the violence was the assassination of Gandhi by a group of Hindu-nationalist men from the Brahmin community. Their motives were linked to Gandhi’s policies on partition, and not related to either Godse’s caste or his ideology. Despite this, the consequences of the assassination were borne disproportionately by Hindu nationalists and Brahmins including the Savarkar family. The tragic and senseless act of violence had far-reaching repercussions, affecting innocent individuals and communities beyond those directly involved in the assassination.
Ironically, the advocates of the ideology of “absolute non-violence” – followers of Gandhi – were involved in one of the earliest hate crimes in independent India. The incident of violence against Brahmins in Maharashtra was a dark stain on the legacy of Mohandas Gandhi as a proponent of peace and non-violence. The fact that such an act was perpetrated by those who espoused his teachings was a tragic contradiction. The violence of Congressmen thus caused Dr Narayan Damodar Savarkar’s death making him the first noted victim of mob lynching in India.
