By Krishna Jha
On August 15, amidst the celebrations of the Independence Day, petroleum ministry in the social media came out with a surprise post, against the basic fabric of our freedom struggle. VD Savarkar, who consciously kept himself away from the freedom struggle, was shown placed above Gandhiji, Bhagat Singh and Subhash Chandra Bose. That was not all. Prime minister, in his speech from Red Fort, hailed RSS on its centenary year as “world’s largest NGO”. He also called its journey of hundred years as “glorious”.
The attempt was not only brazen, it was a dishonor to our national heroes, and freedom struggle itself. While history tells us in golden words about their heroic sacrifices, attempts are made to obliterate them. The foundations of these attempts were laid little more than a century back when in 1923, V D Savarkar wrote the book, “Essentials of Hindutva”, an early attempt to divide the country. Hindus were eulogized as the sole creators of India as a nation, without mentioning the role of Muslims and other communities. Savarkar claimed that it was only Hindus “who claim to have in their veins the blood of the mighty race incorporated with and descended from the Vedic fathers, the Sindhus.”He wrote, “We [Hindus] are one because we are a nation, a race and own a common Sanskriti [cultural tradition].”
The text also claimed that Hindus were in a state of thick battle against Muslims since after Mahmud of Ghazni crossed the Indus to invade India in eleventh century. The book said that in “this prolonged furious conflict, our people (those who were Hindus), became intensely conscious of their Hindu identity and were welded into a nation to an extent unknown to our history”.
In an effort to legitimize the British strategic policy of divide and rule, the book pitted Hindus against Muslims and not against the British imperialists. It was a desperate attempt by Savarkar to prove that he could be a potential partner to break the Hindu-Muslim unity that Mahatma Gandhi was trying to weave into the core of anti-colonial movement. Savarkar was keen to prove that since ancient days, India belonged to Hindus and the Muslim invaders set off a thousand-year long clash between the two communities, and how Hindus’ primary objective must now be to safeguard it from Muslims after the departure of the British.
Within months after the publication of the “Essentials of Hindutva”, Savarkar was released from the jail. Soon thereafter, the book provided the ideological base for organizing the RSS which was founded in 1925, though without a constitution. Also there was no mention of its aims and objectives. It was widely perceived as an organization through which a large section of Maharashtrian Brahmins dreamt of establishing in India the Peshwa rule – a euphemism for the rule of Brahmins – after the withdrawal of the British. The RSS’s adoption of bhagwa (saffron) flag of the Peshwa rulers as their own flag was seen almost as an indication of their secret desire. The non-Brahmins, therefore, had no sympathy with it.
Following Savarkar’s lead, the RSS stayed away from taking any anti-British stance or activity. It also stayed away from any party that vowed to fight against colonial regime.
When Mahatma Gandhi launched civil disobedience movement in 1930, the RSS felt the rumblings within its ranks in favour of joining it. However, Hedgewar wrote to RSS branches stating that members could join the movement in an individual capacity. He joined the movement himself but before that resigned as sarsanghchalak since this would have formally associated the RSS with the anti-British upsurge.
The Hindu communal line pursued by Savarkar and the RSS eventually strengthened the Muslim communalism and created ground for the demand for partition of India. When delivered, Savarkar’s enumeration of his idea in “Essentials of Hindutva” had mostly remained un-noticed outside the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha. But in 1937, upon becoming the president of the Hindu Mahasbha, he took this idea to a new level and declared that Hindus and Muslims constituted two separate nations. The two-nation theory that he expressed now added to the deteriorating communal environment in the country, especially when the Muslim League picked up the thread and passed a resolution demanding the partition of India three years later in 1940.
On August 9, 1942, when the entire country stood against the arrest of Gandhi and other top Congress leaders, Savarkar was active to weaken the Quit India movement. His statement, published in Times of India on August 11, 1942 said, “It is my duty to call upon all the Hindu Mahasabhaites in particular and Hindus in general not to extend any active support to this resolution [Quit India resolution]in its totality and abstain from any action which is meant and calculated to back up this resolution and the present policy of the Congress Party nor to take up any hostile attitude, on the other hand, so long as the Working Committee of the Hindu Mahasabha, which is to meet at Delhi on August 29, does not give any authoritative lead how to safeguard and promote the interests of Hindudom as a whole under the present political situation.”The RSS, now under the leadership of Golwalkar, also stayed away from the Quit India movement.
The programme of Hindutva did not only lead Savarkar to fight against the nationalist efforts to unite Hindus and Muslims in general against the British; it also required to adopt a position that suited the colonial rulers. Through his writings and his actions, Savarkar sought to create an alliance between anti-nationalist and anti-Muslim sentiments and appointed himself as their spearhead. The RSStoed the line given by Savarkar.
It is because of this reason that praising Savarkar and the RSS on Independence Day amounts to dishonouring our freedom fighters and our national movement. (IPA Service)
