Recent comments by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Hindutva ideologue VD Savarkar have caused a furore in Maharashtra, with Uddhav Thackeray, whose Shiv Sena is a Congress ally in the state, saying he does not agree with Rahul.
Reading out excerpts from Savarkar’s mercy petition to the British, Rahul had said that in the letter, Savarkar calls himself an obedient servant. “Wasn’t it the betrayal of freedom fighters like Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel and Pandit Nehru who sacrificed their lives for the country but never bowed in front of the British,” he said.
Savarkar is a much-debated figure, as he took hardline as well as rational positions on various subjects. His views on the cow being just a useful animal are cited as going against the conservative Hindutva stand. His mellow attitude towards the British post his release from Andaman’s Cellular Jail are used to question his credentials as ‘veer’ (the title he use for himself, meaning brave) and as a freedom fighter. But what is agreed upon beyond debate is that he was among the foremost ideologues of Hindutva, defining the term in his 1923 treatise, ‘Essentials Of Hindutva’.
In the book, Savarkar elaborates on his views on a variety of subjects. Here are some excerpts.
‘Hinduism is a derivative of Hindutva’
Arguing that Hindutva is different from Hinduism, Savarkar asserts the importance of using the right names in certain contexts.
“Jesus died but Christ has survived the Roman Emperors and that Empire. Inscribe at the foot of one of those beautiful paintings of ‘Madonna’ the name of ‘Fatima’ and a Spaniard would keep gazing at it as curiously as at any other piece of art; but just restore the name of ‘Madonna’ instead, and behold his knees would lose their stiffness and bend his eyes their inquisitiveness and turn inwards in adoring recognition, and his whole being get suffused with a consciousness of the presence of Divine Motherhood and Love!”
Saying Hinduism is just a fraction of Hindutva, Savarkar adds, “To this category of names which have been to mankind a subtle source of life and inspiration belongs the word Hindutva, the essential nature and significance of which we have to investigate into….Forty centuries, if not more, had been at work to mould it as it is. Prophets and poets, lawyers and law-givers, heroes and historians, have thought, lived, fought and died just to have it spelled thus… Hindutva is not a word but a history. Not only the spiritual or religious history of our people as at times it is mistaken to be by being confounded with the other cognate term Hinduism, but a history in full. Hinduism is only a derivative, a fraction, a part of Hindutva.”
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‘Ram’s conquest of Ceylon real birth-day of Hindu people’
Tracing the history of Aryans as the ‘sapt-sindhu’ (seven sindhus) spreading over the Indian subcontinent, Savarkar writes that thanks to the expansion, the name ‘Hindu’ was overshadowed. “As time passed on, the distances of their new colonies increased, and different settlements began to lead life politically very much centred in themselves. The new attachments thus formed, though they could not efface the old ones, grew more and more pronounced and powerful until the ancient generalizations and names gave way to the new. Some called themselves Kurus, others Kashis or Videhas or Magadhas while the old generic name of the Sindhus or Hindus was first overshadowed and then almost forgotten.”
However, he claims, the “great mission which the Sindhus had undertaken of founding a nation and a country, found and reached its geographical limit” with Ram’s victory over Ceylon.
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“…the valorous Prince of Ayodhya made a triumphant entry in Ceylon and actually brought the whole land from the Himalayas to the Seas under one sovereign sway. The day when the Horse of Victory returned to Ayodhya unchallenged and unchallengeable, the great white Umbrella of Sovereignty was unfurled over that Imperial throne of Ramchandra, the brave, Ramchandra the good, and a loving allegiance to him was sworn, not only by the Princes of Aryan blood but Hanuman, Sugriva, Bibhishana from the south-that day was the real birth-day of our Hindu people. It was truly our national day: for Aryans and Anaryans knitting themselves into a people were born as a nation.”
On Akbar and ‘moral victory’
Savarkar writes that as the “sword of Islam” overran nation and civilisations, India stood as a lone bulwark. “But here fur the first time the sword succeeded in striking but not in killing. It grew blunter each time it struck, each time it cut deep but as it was lifted up to strike again the wound stood healed,” he writes.
Savarkar claims that Akbar coming to the throne and Darashukoh’s birth was a moral victory.
“Day after day, decade after decade, century after century, the ghastly conflict continued and India single-handed kept up the fight morally and militarily. The moral victory was won when Akbar came to the throne and Darashukoh was born. The frantic efforts of Aurangzeb to retrieve their fortunes lost in the moral field only hastened the loss of the military fortunes on the battlefield as well,” he writes.
On Buddhism
Savarkar writes that the “political consequences of the Buddhistic expansion” were “disastrous to the national virility and even the national existence of our race”, although he asserts his respect for Buddha and Buddhism multiple times.
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“The reaction against universal tendencies of Buddhism only grew more insistent and powerful as the attempt to re-establish the Buddhist power in India began to assume a more threatening attitude. Nationalist tendencies refused to barter with out national independence and accept a foreign conqueror as our overlord,” Savarkar writes.
And, in opposition to this expansionism, “…And thus we find that institutions that were the peculiar marks of our nation were revived: – The system of four varnas which could not be wiped away even under the Buddhistic sway, grew in popularity to such an extent that kings and emperors felt it a distinction to be called one who established the system of four varnas. Reaction in favour of this institution grew so strong that our nationality was almost getting identified with it.”
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However, Savarkar does assert, “We yield to none in our love, admiration and respect for the Buddha-the Dharma-the Sangha. They are all ours. Their glories are ours and ours their failures.”
On inter-caste marriages
Savarkar addresses the claim that because of the caste system, Hindus could not really be called a race.
“We are well aware of the not unoften interested objection that carpingly questions ‘but are you really a race ? Can you be said to possess a common blood ?’ We can only answer by questioning in return, ‘Are the English a race ? Is there anything as English blood, the French blood, the German blood or the Chinese blood in this world? Do they, who have been freely infusing foreign blood into their race by contracting marriages with other races and peoples possess a common blood and claim to be a race by themselves ?’ If they do, Hindus also can emphatically do so.”
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On the caste criticism, he says, “For the very castes, which you owing to your colossal failure to understand and view them in the right perspective, assert to have barred the common flow of blood into our race, have done so more truly and more effectively as regards the foreign blood than our own… Even a cursory glance at any of our Smritis would conclusively prove that the Anuloma and Pratiloma marriage [marriage between a man and a woman of different castes] institutions were the order of the day and have given birth to the majority of the castes that obtain amongst us…”
“All that the caste system has done is to regulate its noble blood on lines believed-and on the whole rightly believed-by our saintly and patriotic law-givers and kings to contribute most to fertilize and enrich all that was barren and poor, without famishing and debasing all that was flourishing and nobly endowed,” he adds.

This data comes from MediaIntel.Asia's Media Intelligence and Media Monitoring Platform.