In the last few years, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar has become the most contentious political icon of our age. From DU to JNU, Maharashtra to MP, and Congress to BJP, the political discussion is centred around Savarkar, and the political divide is between those who adore Savarkar and want to see him as a public icon, and those opposed to ideologue.
In the current political scenario, the dividing line of the country’s political spectrum is Savarkar. However, Maharashtra saw the fine line broken when Shiv Sena allied with Savarkar hating Congress, but the party has maintained that the Hindutva icon must be given Bharat Ratna. Except this one example, the dividing line has been Savarkar, especially in the intellectual arguments.
Savarkar is antidote to leftist icons, who have been imposed on the country by the intellectual space- universities, media, and publishing- an therefore, there is so much opposition to Savarkar in the leftist hotbeds like JNU, DU, HCU. If we take JNU, the university has hostels and roads named after almost all leftist icons including hateful bigoted ones like Periyar. But when a road was named after Savarkar, there was complete outrage among the leftist students and professors.
Yesterday, Left-wing vandals vandalized the JNU main road nameplate, which was named as Veer Savarkar Marg by the administration a few days ago. The vandals have stuck a poster on the nameplate which reads Mohammed Ali Jinnah Marg on the nameplate.
Previously the administration decided to name the JNU entrance road as Veer Savarkar Marg, and the JNUSU, dominated by Left alliance, was obviously not happy with that. The left-wing students termed the naming the road after Hindutva icon as “shame on the legacy of JNU.”
Last year, when a bust of Savarkar was installed at Delhi University campus along with Subhash Chandra Bose and Bhagat Singh, the NSUI- the student wing of Congress- blackened it. The bust led to much controversy in the university and the administration decided to remove it, as it was installed without the permission of authorities.
On 15th January, the Congress government in Madhya Pradesh suspended the principal of a Government high school in Ratlam district, after notebooks, which had printed on them a picture of Veer Savarkar, were distributed among students. In the last few months, rabid intolerance against iconoclasm of Veer Savarkar has been on display in the state governments led by the Congress.
Just a few days before Madhya Pradesh incident, a Mumbai university Professor was suspended for making a video in which he said to Rahul Gandhi, “You are right you are not Savarkar. You have nothing of him in you, his dedication, his sacrifice his valour, but you also do not have anything to be called Gandhi. I condemn your pappugiri.”
Savarkar has always been a hero, a freedom fighter, and a Nationalist poet in public folklore. But, the Congress governments- in the states as well as centre, have always avoided any confrontation on the celebration of Savarkar, and therefore, the popular version has no official/government recognition.
But since BJP came to power, there has been official recognition of the person who is a hero among the masses of the country. Two biographies of Savarkar have been published in the gap of less than a year by Vikram Sampath and Vaibhav Purandare. Both have appreciated as work of considerable scholarship, and were well received by critics, even those on the opposite side of the political spectrum.
The heroism of Savarkar in the popular folklore does not have an intellectual backing so far (Especially among the English speaking authors, journalists, and professors), but with increasing scholarly work on the Hindutva icon, the gap is being filled.
The Congress party does not like the fact the intellectual class of the country- media person, writers, teachers, professor – is now celebrating the Hindutva icon; and therefore, the Congress governments in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra are leaving no stone unturned to punish those who venerate Savarkar.
So far, under the various regimes of ‘Secular’ Congress party, the contribution of Savarkar was severely undermined, as the Congress did not like the Hindutva icon, whose rise would have helped parties like BJP and vice-versa.
Savarkar was also the author of the iconic, “Hindutva”. He remained a staunch supporter of Hindu values and also founded the Hindu Mahasabha as a separate political party. Moreover, it was his firm belief that there is no difference between a Hindu identity and the Indian identity.
Savarkar’s Hindu Rashtra was an Akhand Bharat, stretching across the subcontinent and Hindus as being people who live as children of a common motherland, adoring a common holy land. Himself an atheist, Savarkar did not see ‘Hindu’ as a religious term, but as a Socio-Cultural descriptor. His philosophy of Hindutva doesn’t envisage a militant Hindu imperial policy, unlike what the left-liberals try to propagate.
The Congress party is worried that with popular sentiment and official backing, Savarkar can become a public icon of Gandhi’s stature, and be venerated throughout the length and breadth of the country. Unfortunately for the Congress, his memory has already been reinvigorated by the rise of PM Narendra Modi. This would not only harm the Congress party electorally, but the domination of Congress’s ideology in the intellectual ecosystem would also end. Therefore, the party is trying to punish the people from the intelligence community who have come out in open support of Savarkar.