Savarkar and his stance on Muslims: Topical and Layered

And thus too complex to the contemporary penchant for sloganeering, name-calling and labelling (Part-1).

PROLOGUE

The self-professed custodians of the ‘idea of India’ are doomed to bear a burden which is ceaseless in its purveying to them of utter disquiet. This burden is not the custodianship itself but an appurtenance of that hallowed duty, which mandates being peeved at the very mention of the name, ‘Savarkar’. For the man, to revile whom it is imperative for the custodians, is an unyielding enemy of that which they so zealously guard.

Why? This ‘idea of India’ is identified chiefly by two values: ‘democracy’, which is often precise in its implications and thus commendable; and ‘secularism’, which may with only a trace of hyperbole be regarded as more warped a value than abstrusely written philosophy. So impassioned are the custodians about ‘secularism’ that one may mistakenly ascribe to them a halo of enlightenment; as if to their meditated minds alone was this virtue revealed. Yet, fallible as we humans are, this pretence is apt only to evoke hubris, and their hubristic selves fail to set aside austere adherence to objectivity, thus reviling this eminent figure of India’s revolutionary, political and sociocultural history.

One of the traits of such a ‘nemesis’ of this ‘idea of India’ is bigotry, or so say its custodians who have not a particularly versant definition of this endearing adjective. The only connotation of this word is a mode of thought that deviates from a romanticized view of India’s Muslim community. Let not criticism of the most reasonable wordage sully one’s speech, lest one be construed a bigot by the esteemed guardians of India’s conscience.

Alas! Savarkar persists in honouring this test of ‘secularism’ rather in the breach than in the observance. And so it has come to pass that they view him as the battering ram against their citadel of virtue. Unless, of course, they happen in fact to be partisans of mediocrity themselves, cowed by the threat the fragrance of his intellect poses to the fetor of their pretended wisdom that suffuses the highbrow halls.

But one may pose: in what sense is Savarkar ‘bigoted’? For bigotry could assume as many forms as the number of identities our ingenuity invents, be it race, language, religion, culture or a political cause. He is bigoted, allege they, in respect to religion, by which they attribute to him a faith in the supremacy of his religion. Thus, the adjective ‘bigoted’ assumes now a more specific form as it morphs into the adjective ‘communal’. Regrettably, their usage of ‘communal’ is as much an injustice to the English language as their wanton usage of ‘bigoted’, for which injustice we may much praise or reproach the Indian National Congress, that has popularized this infantine use of language right from the days of the national struggle and has endured in this puerility for seven decades thence.

For, ‘communalism’ has a more layered meaning. In its unsullied, context-bereft form, it refers purely to a manifestation of interests concerning a community. In itself, it is neither iniquitous nor worthy of praise. It is the manner of its manifestation and the objective it seeks to attain that together determine whether communalism is to be commended or deplored. It depends, therefore, quite heavily on the social milieu that prompts its emergence.

Doubtless, in this unsullied sense of the word, Savarkar’s politics was communal, emerge as he did as a proponent of the interests of the Hindu community. That adjective alone, if we are to use it as intellectually mature adults should, does not aid in a foundation either of criticism or of praise of him; and so it follows that communalism is not perforce a barrier to harmony between or amongst the extant categories of ‘community’ (religion, caste, language and suchlike). As to why a communal, that is, community-centric form of politics interested Savarkar, it would be unjustified of us to arrive at conclusions sans studying the factors that morphed him from a proponent of Hindu-Muslim unity in his book The First War of Independence to a proponent of Hindutva. It shall emerge that the two are not in fact opposing viewpoints, and that the latter is more realistic than the former.

I must conclude this prologue with the pressing assertion that the exploration of historical events concerning any community therein referred to, is not a verdict, cannot be a verdict, on those communities today. For the bigotry of the aforementioned custodians of the ‘idea of India’ invariably leads them to presume the worst from him who so endeavours; and unlike them, I have grounds to use the word ‘bigot’, since they purport an exclusive profession of virtue.

The Contagion of Khilafat

The victory of the Allied forces in World War I was to bear on India’s future in an unforeseen manner. The victory betokened the utter defeat of the Ottoman Empire, whose emperor was also regarded as the khalifa or caliph — the apex figure of authority in Islam. Not all Muslims necessarily regarded the emperor’s title as worth anything but formality, and his defeat was not universally seen by Muslims as an affront to their faith and their identity. This general indifference, however, did not hold true of the Muslims in India; certainly not a few important figures in the class of educated and prominent Muslims.

Two such Muslims, the brothers Maulana Mohammad Ali and Maulana Shaukat Ali, did regard this as an affront to Islam, and sought to prevail on the Government of British India by all means necessary for the reinstatement of the caliph. At first, their entreaties seemed not to gather much influence. Their venture was enlivened with an ardent pledge of support by a figure who in the credendum of academia is hallowed and immune to profuse criticism (a trifling may be permitted to maintain the façade of serious academic work): Mahatma Gandhi. He sought to allure the hitherto peripheral Muslims, unaffected by the rising tide of nationalist fervour, over to the Indian National Congress; a body formed by educated Indians to negotiate with the British colonial apparatus on behalf of the Indian masses — a body of which he was in effect the generalissimo. By dint of his desire was raised the artifice of the concern of Khilafat being integral to Indian nationalism and the latter’s concern with independence. A little-heeded concern now burgeoned into a movement, and the question of the Khilafat seemed to have appealed a considerable number of Indian Muslims. To this endeavour of doubtless religious tinge was later added the aim of self-governance, so that more Hindus could be allured to the movement, and it was christened the ‘Non-Cooperation Movement’.

Victory, or at least partial victory, must have seemed imminent to Gandhi, for he swore two tall oaths — not in the hallowed sense of the term — ones which no astute man would ever swear nonetheless. To the Muslims he assured that the British would acquiesce within a year and reinstate the caliph, and to the Hindus he assured that swaraj shall be attained within the same duration. Neither, of course, materialized. Had the consequence of the British refusal to relent been a mere ushering in of national torpor, it might perhaps have been better in retrospect, for what followed was horrific, over which studied silence is of present maintained in the perjured halls of scholarship.

In 1899, the British educationalist and member of the Council of India Theodore Morrison wrote:

The views held by the Mahomedans (certainly the most aggressive and truculent of the peoples of India) are alone sufficient to prevent the establishment of an independent Indian Government. Were the Afghan to descend from the North upon an autonomous India, the Mahomedans, instead of uniting with the Sikhs and the Hindus to repeal him, would be drawn by all the ties of kinship and religion to join his flag.

In the 1920s, it seemed that Morrison would be proven right.

Of the fact that core to the creed of Islam are the designs of conversions, much has long been known. The Cellular Jail, where Savarkar was imprisoned and where imprisoned with him were a few Muslim convicts, was no exception to such designs. The treatment was discriminatory, with greater leniency being shown to the Muslim convicts. So as to escape the ignominy, some Hindus converted. Some others were forcibly converted, and Savarkar was perturbed. He grudged not an instance of voluntary conversion, but that of coerced conversion. For the subconscious Indian-ness of India, however nebulous in the realm of conscious language, was contingent on the Hindu faith. It was core to the essence of being Hindu — to Hindutva — to not impose itself on other faiths, but to welcome their assimilation and enhance its own syncretism. But a community that is aggressive in its proselytization, seeks not to assimilate and endorses an extraterritorial allegiance to a religious brotherhood, could scarce be said to operate with the best of intentions. The doctrine of this community, this religion, would at its essence be inimical to Indian nationalism, and prove portentous to the nationalist cause, eventually perhaps to the Indian civilization itself. That, to Savarkar, was unacceptable.

Ayond the sea on the Indian mainland, the Muslims lost patience as the purported duration of a year approached its end, and neither the caliph nor swaraj was at hand. And this dissipation of patience was expressed in incidents of violence, beginning with the abominable genocide of Hindus at the hands of Moplah Muslims in Malabar, Kerala. In his trenchant book Pakistan or the Partition of India, the eminent jurist Dr. B.R. Ambedkar writes:

Beginning with the year 1920 there occurred in that year in Malabar what is known as the Mopla Rebellion. It was the result of the agitation carried out by two Muslim organizations, the Khuddam-i-Kaba (servants of the Mecca Shrine) and the Central Khilafat Committee. Agitators actually preached the doctrine that India under the British Government was Dar-ul-Harab and that the Muslims must fight against it and if they could not, they must carry out the alternative principle of Hijrat. The Moplas were suddenly carried off their feet by this agitation. The outbreak was essentially a rebellion against the British Government. The aim was to establish the kingdom of Islam by overthrowing the British Government. Knives, swords and spears were secretly manufactured, bands of desperadoes collected for an attack on British authority. On 20th August a severe encounter took place between the Moplas and the British forces at Pinmangdi Roads were blocked, telegraph lines cut, and the railway destroyed in a number of places. As soon as the administration had been paralysed, the Moplas declared that Swaraj had been established. A certain Ali Mudaliar was proclaimed Raja, Khilafat flags were flown, and Ernad and Wallurana were declared Khilafat Kingdoms. As a rebellion against the British Government it was quite understandable. But what baffled most was the treatment accorded by the Moplas to the Hindus of Malabar. The Hindus were visited by a dire fate at the hands of the Moplas. Massacres, forcible conversions, desecration of temples, foul outrages upon women, such as ripping open pregnant women, pillage, arson and destruction — in short, all the accompaniments of brutal and unrestrained barbarism, were perpetrated freely by the Moplas upon the Hindus until such time as troops could be hurried to the task of restoring order through a difficult and extensive tract of the country. This was not a Hindu-Moslem riot. This was just a Bartholomew. The number of Hindus who were killed, wounded or converted, is not known. But the number must have been enormous.

The Hindus were not free of blemish in the fifteen-year-long spell of riots that sullied the decade of the 1920s and thereafter, but it would have been justified of a distant observer, of even the coeval masses, to expect the Indian National Congress to deplore such incidents regardless of that religion or caste to which the perpetrator adhered. Which, regrettably, is not what the Congress under Gandhi’s leadership did.

Gandhi had been desirous of seeing forged a unity between Hindus and Muslims, so that a potent force against the British colonial rule could be projected. The spell of riots meant an obvious, recurrent pulverization of his desire. In his trademark avuncular disappointment with his countrymen, he announced that he would commence a fast of twenty-one days, stating:

The fact that Hindus and Mussalmans, who were only two years ago apparently working together as friends, are now fighting like cats and dogs in some places, shows conclusively that the non-cooperation they offered was not non-violent. I saw the symptoms in Bombay, Chauri Chaura and in a host of minor cases. I did penance then. It had its effects protanto. But this Hindu-Muslim tension was unthinkable. It became unbearable on hearing of the Kohat tragedy…Had I not been instrumental in bringing into being the vast energy of the people? I must find remedy if the energy proved self-destructive…I must do penance. It is a warning to the Hindus and Mussalmans who have professed to love me. If they have loved me truly and if I have been deserving of their love, they will do penance with me for the grave sin of denying God in their lives. The penance of Hindus and Mussalmans is not fasting but retracting their steps. It is true penance for a Mussalman to harbor no ill-will for his Hindu brother and equally true penance for a Hindu to harbor none for his Mussalman brother.

Alarmed Congressmen and well-wishers, writes historian Dr. Vikram Sampath, invited over 200 all-India leaders of all parties and communities for a unity conference in Delhi to find a solution to the communal problems and also save Gandhi’s life. Over 300 people attended the conference. Pious resolutions on peace and amity were passed, which as Dr. Ambedkar notes, were ‘broken as soon as they were announced’. Gandhi could perhaps not fathom that the malaise ran too deep for the purposed medicine of his fasts to cure.

On most other occasions, however, his avuncular disappointment was reserved only for the Hindus. Towards the Muslims, he had an affinity that perhaps even the Muslims did not harbour for themselves. Two such instances were of particular notoriety. The one was his stance on the Moplah riots, the horrors of which are described above in Ambedkar’s description. In that regard, Gandhi said:

Hindus must find out the causes of Moplah fanaticism. They will find that they are not without blame. They have hitherto not cared for the Moplah. They have either treated him as a serf or dreaded him. They have not treated him as a friend and neighbor, to be reformed and respected. It is no use now becoming angry with the Moplahs or the Muslims in general.

Maulana Hasrat Mohani, the eulogized freedom fighter and a friend of Gandhi, justified the massacre of Hindus in Malabar, saying that it was Islamic jihad and that according to the rules of jihad, those who help the enemy become enemies themselves. Gandhi proceeded to opine:

I do not blame the Maulana. He looks upon the British Government as an enemy. He would defend anything done in fighting it. He thinks that there is much untruth in what is being said against the Moplahs and he is, therefore, not prepared to see their error. I believe that this is his narrowness, but it should not hurt the Hindus. The Maulana speaks what is in his mind. He is an honest and courageous man. All know that he has no ill will against the Hindus…In spite of his amazingly crude views about religion, there is no greater nationalist nor a greater lover of Hindu-Muslim unity than the Maulana.

Further gems graced his views:

Forcible conversions are horrible things. But Moplah bravery must command admiration. These Malabaris are not fighting for the love of it. They are fighting for what they consider is their Religion and in the manner, they consider is religious.

And

Even if one side is firm in doing its dharma, there will be no enmity between the two. He alone may be said to be firm in his dharma who trusts his safety to God and, untroubled by anxiety, follows the path of virtue. If Hindus apply this rule to the Moplah affair, they will not, even when they see the error of the Moplahs, accuse the Muslims…I see nothing impossible in asking the Hindus to develop courage and strength to die before accepting forced conversion.

Yet more

I was delighted to be told that there were Hindus who did prefer the Moplah hatchet to forced conversion.

…Even so is, it more necessary for a Hindu to love the Moplah and the Muslim more, when the latter is likely to injure him or has already injured him.

…Why should a single Hindu have run away on account of the Moplahs’ atrocities?

Usually, should one beseech a beleaguered people to prefer the tyrant’s hatchet to fleeing for their lives or striking back in defence, it would be regarded as lunacy. But perhaps Gandhi is an exception?

Yet another infamous instance was the assassination of the social reformer Swami Shraddhanand, leader of the Arya Samaj, by one fanatic Abdul Rashid on 23 December 1926. Such was Gandhi’s scandalous opinion:

From Swami Shraddhanand’s point of view what has happened may be called a blessed event. He had been ill. I had not been aware of it, but a friend told me that it would be a miracle if Swamiji survived…you see, he (Shraddhanand) was a brave man…he had no fear of death for he had faith in God…there is nothing to be wondered at that he was killed…Today it is a Mussalman who has murdered a Hindu. We should not be surprised if a Hindu killed a Mussalman. God forbid that this should happen but what else can one expect when we cannot control our tongue or our pen? I must, however, say, that if any Hindu imitated this act he would only bring disgrace to Hinduism…Let us pray to God that we may understand the real meaning of this assassination…Let the Hindus remain peaceful and refrain from seeking revenge for this murder. Let them not think that the two communities are now enemies of each other and that unity is no longer possible. If they do, they will be committing a crime and bringing a disgrace upon their religions.

Of the assassin Abdul Rashid, he spoke thus:

Brother Abdul Rashid was shown in. I purposely call him brother, and if we are true Hindus you will understand why I call him so. Swamiji asked his servant to admit Abdul Rashid, because God had willed to show there through the greatness of Swamiji and the glory of Hinduism…The murder has been possible because the two communities look upon each other with feelings of hatred and enmity…Let every Mussalman also understand that Swami Shraddhanandji was no enemy of Islam, that his was a pure and unsullied life, and that he has left for us all the lesson of peace written in his blood…

You will all be accepting this resolution standing while, at this moment perhaps, there are Hindu-Muslim disturbances going on in Delhi. But I tell you that, if every one of you understands and lays to his heart the lesson that Swami Shraddhanandji has left for us, it is again possible to win swaraj in no time. I am a mad man, you will say, accustomed to giving rash promises. Well, I tell you I am not mad, I am still as much in earnest about my programme as I was in 1920, but those who made pledges in 1920 broke them and made swaraj impossible then. We are all children of the same Father — whom the Hindu and the Mussalman and the Christian know by different names…

Now you will, perhaps, understand why I have called Abdul Rashid a brother, and I repeat it, I do not even regard him as guilty of Swami’s murder. Guilty, indeed, are all those who excited feelings of hatred against one another. For us Hindus, the Gita enjoins on us the lesson of equality; we are to cherish the same feelings towards a learned Brahmin as towards a Chandal, a dog, a cow and en elephant. This is no occasion for mourning or tears; it is an occasion that should burn in our hearts the lesson of bravery. Bravery is not the exclusive quality of the Kshatriyas. It may be their special privilege. But, in our battle for swaraj, bravery is essential as much for the Brahmin and the Vaishya and the Shudra as for the Kshatriya. Let us not therefore shed tears of sorrow, but chasten our hearts and steel them with some of the fire and faith that were Shraddhanandji’s.

On 30 December 1926, Gandhi wrote:

I wish to plead for Abdul Rashid. I do not know who he is. It does not matter to me what prompted the deed. The fault is ours. The newspaper man has become a walking plague. He spreads the contagion of lifes and calumnies. He exhausts the foul vocabulary of his dialect, and injects his virus into the unsuspecting, and often receptive minds of his readers. Leaders ‘intoxicated with the exuberance of their own language’ have not known to put a curb upon their tongues or pens. Secret and insidious propaganda has done its dark and horrible work, unchecked and unabashed. It is, therefore, we the educated and the semi-educated class that are responsible for the hot fever, which possessed Abdul Rashid. It is unnecessary to discriminate and apportion the blame between the rival parties. Where both are to blame, who can arbitrate with golden scales and fix the exact ration of blame? It is no part of self-defence to tell lies or exaggerate…Swamiji was great enough to warrant the hope that his blood may wash us of our guilt, cleanse our hearts and cement these two mighty divisions of the human family.

Ambedkar wrote of this vexing tendency of Gandhi to exonerate such violent incidents as were attributable to Muslims:

What is not understandable is the attitude of Mr. Gandhi. Mr. Gandhi has been very punctilious in the manner of condemning any and every act of violence and has forced the Congress, much against its will, to condemn it. But Mr. Gandhi has never protested against such murders. Not only have the Musalmans not condemned these outrages, but even Mr. Gandhi has never called upon the leading Muslims to condemn them. He has kept silent over them. Such an attitude can be explained only on the ground that Mr. Gandhi was anxious to preserve Hindu-Muslim unity and did not mind the murder of a few Hindus, if it could be achieved by sacrificing their lives.

This propitiatory attitude towards Muslims that was adopted by the Congress and Gandhi, while being indifferent and even hostile to the very idea of Hindus resurging to defend themselves, coupled with his experiences at Cellular Jail, led Savarkar to propound the cause of the Hindus. Yet, as the following sections shall evince, he was never driven by contempt towards Muslims.

This propitiatory attitude towards Muslims that was adopted by the Congress and Gandhi, while being indifferent and even hostile to the very idea of Hindus resurging to defend themselves, coupled with his experiences at Cellular Jail, led Savarkar to propound the cause of the Hindus. Yet, as the following sections shall evince, he was never driven by contempt towards Muslims.

Savarkar and his belief in the good tenets of Islam

Savarkar wrote three plays between 1927 and 1933: Sangeet Ushap published in 1927, Sangeet Sanyasta Khadga in 1931 and Sangeet Uttar Kriya in 1933. Ushap dealt with the evil of untouchability, and how its scourge left millions of Hindus of the depressed classes vulnerable to the scheme of conversions. It tried to educate the orthodox Hindus who were opposed to his movements to eradicate untouchability about the dangers that such conversions could pose to their own fold. This was done through a few Muslim characters in the play.

In Act II, Scene 3, one of the Muslim characters, Ibrahim, says:

It has been four years since I became a Muslim, but I swear on the Almighty that my tongue knows not a single verse of the Koran. The kind of Urdu they speak, I hardly know how to. I am a born Hindu, my mind thinks like a Hindu’s, but till the time I was a Hindu, right from the Brahmins to the Shudras, and even the Mahars, I was condemned and thrown away as a lowly born. There was almost a fierce competition among all their castes about who can oppress us better than the other. Hence in frustration I decided to eschew this religion and accept Islam. My sister tried her best to dissuade me. But the irony of ironies — our Subedar, Bangash Khan’s eyes fell on my sister! He eventually managed to convert her first and I became the Muslim brother-in-law later. Not just this, I was also the commander of some fifty odd sepoys. Such respect I now commanded, while I was hitherto used to only social disgrace. Almost with a vengeance, any Hindu beauty who caught my eyes, I would inform or hand her over to my brother-in-law. This enhanced my prestige further in his eyes.

But as a complete contrast to the fanatic Bangash Khan or Ibrahim is made to appear as the voice of sanity in the play, of all people, a Muslim mullah. Making an appearance in Act IV, Scene 3, he advises the subedar and Ibrahim:

Pardon me, but as a true devotee of Allah, I disagree with the politics being done here. Propagating Islam this way is totally against the tenets of our holy Koran and disgraces it. My Koran teaches me tolerance and acceptance and asks me to propagate it through love and brotherhood. But when politics enters the scene, the means are replaced by the sword and through coercion. This does not comply with the words of the Almighty.

That the ever vigilant government took affront even at so well-thought a depiction of a problem that existed in verity is a matter of exploration for another post. But one may credibly assert that a truly bigoted person would have in his play portrayed all Muslim characters as partisans of deceit. That he did not would impugn the assertion that he was bigoted. A further objection could be that Savarkar, by means of such portrayal, only cloaked his bigotry. In favour of this assertion, however, they would have no evidence to adduce, and his politics would credibly narrate a story altogether differing from this assertion.

His observations on the state of Islam and Muslims was often a blend of candour and erudition. Taking recourse to history, he wrote in an article on 27 January 1927 that when Islam as a political force conquered Syria, the local Christians underwent immense genocides, and had to abandon their homes and their homelands. In these times of tribulations, India was a welcoming abode as they found, in its southern provinces, an untroubled refuge. He noted that when the same fate befell Persia, the victims held dear their sacred fire and the Zend Avesta, and again found refuge in the welcoming abode of the Hindus. He emphasized that the history of Islam in India from its tide of conquest and the attack on the Somnath Temple in Gujarat was ‘a story bloodied with the sacrifices of a million Hindu martyrs’. He conceded that actuating unrest on grounds of such long-buried tales was fruitless and counterproductive, but ‘if one has to solve a contemporary problem, one has to go to the root of it, address it and not window-dress from the outside even as the volcano keeps building within and readies to erupt.

The blunt reality is that a majority of Muslims do not consider Hindustan to be their own and co-existence with the Kafir Hindus strikes their conscience badly. This is sadly the root of the whole communal cauldron. Barring some broad-minded and sensible Muslims, many want to Islamize India just as Turkey, Iran or Afghanistan. Just day before yesterday Barrister Amin said in a public meeting in Delhi that in the next ten years it was the bounden and religious duty of every Muslim to convert a minimum of at least three Hindus, so that when India gets swaraj, the dream of the establishment of a Muslim country can be realized. It is this attitude that strikes at the foundation of national unity and becomes the core of the Hindu-Muslim conflicts. The fact that most Muslims are not vocal against such tendencies is also part of the problem. And to compound that, our own leaders including Gandhiji spout such nonsense that ‘What is the need or use of numerical strength?” Even at this time of a heinous murder, Gandhiji has not mustered sufficient courage to unequivocally condemn these tendencies. Had it been some hot-blooded Arya Samaji who dared to answer a Barrister Amin, by now all hell would have broken loose and like an angry school headmaster Gandhiji would have unleashed the sword of his pen on all of us. This attitude of his is what hurts us Hindus. He would be well-advised to begin his charity at home and sit with his favourite Ali Brothers of the Khilafat fame, remind them of those peace-loving verses of the Koran and bind them by it completely, rather than make the inflammatory speeches that they have been doing. Yet, Gandhiji’s silence even on proven atrocities like in Kohat, and his lack of courage to tackle this problem from the roots, is bound to create serious problems for the country in years to come.

Yet, his candour did not belie any inveterate contempt, as his elaboration on the purpose of history would evince.

As president of the Hindu Mahasabha: His speech as President

On 30 December 1937, Savarkar was elected the national president of the Hindu Mahasabha. In his presidential address, he defined ‘Hindudom’ as that which was ‘simply identified with best interests of Hindustan as a whole’. He said that the ultimate mission of Hindudom was one whereby the Motherland was set completely free and consolidated into an Indian state in which ‘all our countrymen to whatever religion or sect or race they belong are treated with perfect equality and none allowed to dominate others or is deprived of his just and equal rights of free citizenship as long as everyone discharges the common obligations and duties which one owes to the Indian Nation as a whole’.

As to what position Savarkar was to accord the non-Hindus (Muslims, Christians, Paris and Jews in his definition) in his construct of a Hindu Rashtra, he said as follows:

Let the Indian State be purely Indian. Let it not recognize any invidious distinctions whatsoever as regards the franchise, public services, offices, taxation on the grounds of religion and race. Let no cognizance be taken whatsoever of man’s being Hindu or Mohammedan, Christian or Jew. Let all citizens of that Indian State be treated according to their individual worth irrespective of their religious or racial parentage in the general population. Let that language and script be the national language and script of that Indian State which are understood by the overwhelming majority of the people as happens in every other state in the world i.e., in England or the United States of America and let no religion bias be allowed to tamper with that language and script with an enforced and perverse hybridism whatsoever. Let ‘one man one vote’ be the general rule irrespective of caste or creed, race or religion. If such an Indian State is kept in view the Hindu Sangathanists will, in the interest of the Hindu Sangathan itself, be the first to offer their wholehearted loyalty to it. I for one and thousands of the Mahasabhaites like me have set this ideal of an Indian State as our political goal ever since the beginning of our political career and shall continue to work for its consummation to the end of our life. Can any attitude towards an Indian State be more national than that? Justice demands that I must plainly proclaim that the mission and policy of the Hindu Mahasabha with regard to an Indian State have been more national than the present-day policy of the Indian National Congress itself.

Such of Savarkar’s detractors as actually care to read his literature are affronted by one of his quotes with regard to the Muslims: ‘If you come, with you; if you don’t, without you; and if you oppose, in spite of you’. They insinuate thereby a malefic or chauvinist intent on his part. However, this quote is, as should be obvious, bereft of context. It is part of the following observation of his:

When an overwhelming majority in a country goes on its knees before a minority so antagonistic as the Mohammedans, imploring them to lend a helping hand and assures it that otherwise the major community is doomed to death, it would be a wonder if that minor community does not sell their assistance at the higher bidder possible, does not hasten the doom of the major community and aim to establish their own political suzerainty in the land. The only threat that the Mohammedans always hold before the Hindus is to the effect that they would not join the Hindus in the struggle for Indian freedom unless their anti-national and fanatical demands are granted on the spot. Let the Hindus silence the threat once for all telling point blank: ‘Friends! We wanted and do want only that kind of unity which will go on to create an Indian State in which all citizens irrespective of caste and creed, race and religion are treated all alike on the principle of one man one vote. We, though we form the overwhelming majority in this land, do not want any special privileges for our Hindudom; nay more, we are even willing to guarantee special protection for the language, culture and religion of the Mohammedans as a minority if they also promise not to infringe on the equal liberty of other communities in India to follow their own ways within their own respective houses and not try to dominate and humiliate the Hindus. But knowing full well the anti-Indian designs of the pan-Islamic movement, with a link of Moslem nations from Arabia to Afghanistan bound by their recent offensive and defensive alliances and the ferocious tendencies of the frontier tribes to oppress the Hindus out of religious and racial hatred, we Hindus are not going to trust you any longer with any more blank cheques…We are not out to fight with England only to find a change of masters but we Hindus aim to be masters in our own house. A Swarajya that could only be had at the humiliation and cost of Hindutva itself is for us Hindus as good as suicide. If India is not freed from foreign domination the Indian Moslems cannot but be slaves themselves. If they feel it to be true, if and when they feel they cannot do without the assistance and the good will of the Hindus let them come then to ask for unity and that also not to oblige the Hindus but to oblige themselves. A Hindu-Moslem unity which is effected thus is worth having. The Hindus have realized to their cost that in this case seeking unity is losing it. Henceforth the Hindu formula for Hindu-Moslem unity is only this: ‘If you come, with you; if you don’t, without you; and if you oppose, in spite of you’ — the Hindus will continue to fight for their National Freedom as best as they can!

Savarkar was much concerned about the propensity of separatist sentiment amongst the Muslims. However, one has in the present not much need to evaluate events from Savarkar’s position in this regard — this was categorically proven in 1947 when the Partition finally came to pass.

I warn the Hindus that the Mohammedans are likely to prove dangerous to our Hindu nation and the existence of a common Indian State even if and when England goes out. Let us not be stone blind to the fact that they as a community still continue to cherish fanatical designs to establish a Moslem rule in India. Let us work for harmony, let us hope for the best, but let us be on our guard! As it is, there are two antagonistic nations living side by side in India. Several infantile politicians commit the serious mistake in supposing that India is already welded into a harmonious nation, or that it could be welded thus for the mere wish to do so. These our well-meaning but unthinking friends take their dreams for realities. That is why they are impatient of communal tangles and attribute them to communal organizations. But the solid fact is that the so-called communal questions are but a legacy handed down to us by centuries of a cultural, religious and national antagonism between the Hindus and the Muslims.

In the meantime, the new Congress president Subhas Chandra Bose came calling to Bombay and addressed several meetings. He expressed a desire that Savarkar change his mind and join the Congress to strengthen his and the party’s hands. In his response, Savarkar sent him a letter, in which he explained his position:

The Constitution of the Congress and the Congress norms dictate that no member of the party can be part of any ‘communal organization’. When they say this, they speak only about the Hindu Mahasabha but there are people in the Congress who have declared themselves openly as supporters or members of the Muslim League and even gone on to occupy leadership position in the party, despite this. People in positions of power have been notified not to take part or be associated with the Hindu Mahasabha and/or any movement organized by it. Joining the Congress in such circumstances would mean that I am a Hindu Mahasabhaite only in name, not in action, which to me would be a betrayal of Hindu interests. Swarajya, according to me, is the full independence of myself, my tatva [essence] which is Hindutva. Even when it is obvious that Indian interests are inevitably Hindu interests, the Congress actively forbids it, it concedes to every demand of the Muslim, sometimes even when they are against national interests or human morality. I feel it is impossible for me to work in such an organization until the mindset is changed. Hindu Mahasabha does not forbid any of its members from being part of the Congress. I hope that the Congress is also as open minded. If they are willing to guide Hindus with their wisdom, they should also be ready to protect their rights [Hindutva], advocate their just demands and oppose any nati-national, separatist movements and policies. When that happens, I promise to lend my voice and support fully to the Congress. My opinion on the suggestion of a united front against the Empire as a member of the Hindu Mahasabha is that I would not even blink and jump into any such movement assuming national character, irrespective of which party leads the movement. I can even work with the Socialists and the Bolsheviks to a certain extent. One can contribute towards the national cause without being a member of the Congress and hence we have decided not to yoke ourselves to the membership of the Congress and its ideals, but instead work towards the national cause with even more vigour and inspiration. The Congress needs to come clear on its position regarding Hindu Sangathan and Shuddhi movements.

Of such quotes as do not reflect a source in the hyperlinks, the default source is ‘Dr. Vikram Sampath, Savarkar: A Contested Legacy (1924–1966).’

In the upcoming post shall be delineated his success in ensuring basic rights of Hindus in Bhagnagar (Hyderabad) in his capacity as President of the Hindu Mahasabha.