Vinayak niti: Veer Savarkar’s socio-political ethics
By Shrinivas Tilak
Unmaking of the hero
Savarkar appeared on the radar of politicians, media personnel, and
academics as soon as he entered actively in the ongoing political process in
1937 becoming the president of the Hindu Mahasabha 1937-1943. The Congress
party under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948; hereafter Gandhi) and
the Muslim League under the leadership of Mohamed Ali Jinnah (1876-1948;
hereafter Jinnah) immediately recognized that if given a free hand Savarkar
could easily become a thorn in their sides. Congressmen, Communists, Muslims,
and the Untouchables therefore launched a vicious campaign against Savarkar and
Hindutva. In this they were assisted by media personnel, intellectuals, and
academics both Indian and Western. On February 26, 2003 as President A P J
Abdul Kalam unveiled a portrait of Savarkar in the Central Hall of Parliament
on February 26, 2003, the process of unmaking of the hero was complete. The
function was boycotted by the entire opposition, barring former Prime Minister
Chandrashekhar, at the urging of the Congress president Sonia Gandhi. What was
the reason for the boycott? They did not want to honor a person who had helped
in the division of the country, collaborated with the colonial authority, and
conspired in the death of ‘Mahtmaji’ (report in the Indian Express
online; posted on March 20, 2003.
That tradition of undermining Savarkar and his vision of
Hindutva continues even today in academic circles. A Typical example is the
collection of articles edited by Llewellyn (2005) referred to above. Consider,
for instance, the criticism offered by Julius J. Lipner that for “extremist
Hindu rightwing elements” Hinduism has a “fixed, non-negotiable meaning,” which
is divisive. The purpose of the essay by Marie Searle-Chatterji is to expose
the improper reification of the Hindu religion because that serves the
interests of the Hindu nationalists led by Savarkar. Brian K. Smith’s
objective in proposing a ‘scholarly’ definition of Hinduism is to wrest control
over it from the Hindu right (see Llewellyn 2005: 6-7). For these academics (like
most others) Savarkar and his interpretation of Hinduism are the arch villains
solely responsible for perpetrating the crisis in Indian public life. Non-Hindu
religions have had no part or role in that crisis. Each of them is concerned to
define a Hinduism of his/her own creation and liking and to demonstrate why and
how his/her version is better able to denounce Hindu nationalism and
internationalism.
Let us consider in more detail one of the essays in the
Llewellyn collection: by Julius Lipner who begins by observing that Hinduism
refers to a family of religious traditions whose kinship is based on the
distinctive characteristic of ‘Hinduness.’ ‘Hinduness’ denotes a particular
orientation in the world, a specific way of being, a distinctive mentalite. The
Sanskrit terminological equivalent of Hinduness is either hindutva or hindutā.
Terminologically both mean exactly the same thing. Hindutva or Hindutā is a
perfectly regular construction formed by the application of a well-known
grammatical rule in Sanskrit, that is, rule 5:1.119 in the grammarian Pāņini’s
magisterial work, the Aṣṭādhyāyī. Introducing the (taddhita)
suffixes –tva and – tā, Pāņini comments: tasya bhavas tvatalau.
This may be construed as follows: “The abstract noun formed when either the
suffix –tva or the suffix –tā is added to a nominal stem denotes
a state or condition as identified by than nominal stem.” For Lipner the
abstract noun thus formed denotes a property. Linguistically, no implicit
statement is being made about the kind of thing that the property may be.
Rather, a statement is being made about a specific way of being of the
property-possessor. Thus, to predicate sat-tā or ‘beingness’ of
something is not, on the basis of its linguistic construction, to imply that
the property ‘beingness’ is some thing; it is only to say that its
property-possessor exists in a certain way, that is, really rather then [than?]
notionally. Again, to say that someone has ‘blindness’ (andha-tva) is
not ipso facto to make some metaphysical statement about blindness, for
example, that it is a kind of thing. Rather, it is to say that the person who
has blindness—that is, the blind person—exists in a certain way, the way that
we understand to be identified by the use of the (Sanskrit) nominal stem for
‘blindness.’
Determining the metaphysical status of the property
identified by the particular –tva or –tā suffix is a further
question, a task for the philosophers. And indeed there has been a protracted
and sophisticated debate in the Sanskritic philosophical tradition, between
‘Hindus’ ‘Buddists’ and ‘Jains’, about the status of properties thus denoted
(Bhattacharya 1990, especially ch. 3; Matilal 1985, especially ch. 2). Similarly, to speak of hindutva/-tā
is not, on the basis of the construction alone—if the spirit of Pāņini’s
rule is to be followed—to make a metaphysical statement, to pronounce on the kind
of thing that hindutva/-tā “’Hinduness’) might be; it is only to refer
to a way of being, to an orientation or stance in the world.
Lipner claims that in the political arena in India today,
the grammar of the term hindutva is being misused precisely in the way he
suggested above. It is being appropriated by extremist Hindu rightwing elements
to refer, apparently ipso facto, not only to a way of being, but also to a kind
of thing, ‘a reality in its own right…for which followers are prepared to fight
and even die, and which can be used as a weapon to bet the opponent with”
(Lipner 1992, 7). And if it is used to refer to an attribute, then it is an
attribute whose reality-status enfranchises the attribute-possessor and
dis-enfranchises everybody else. It is for this reason that I eschew the use of
hindutva for ‘Hinduness’ in this essay, and suggest, for the purpose
value-neutral discourse, not only in this essay but in general, the use of
hindutva for ‘Hinduness.’ Lipner claims that his purpose “is to make neither a
metaphysical nor an ideological statement, but, rather, taking my cue from the
term hinduta’s open-ended grammatical origins, to inquire into the kind of way
of being, of life-orientation, that it seems to intimate” (Lipner 2005: 33-34).
But notwithstanding this avowal, Lipner does exactly that! Lipner’s Hinduism (or rather his
understanding), he claims, is superior because of its ‘insightful aversion to
dogmatism’ and because it offers a ‘healthy dose of relativism’ (Lipner 1992, 2005).
It does not occur to Lipner that the Hinduism of his making is not any more
tolerant that the alleged intolerant Hinduism of Savarkar because it does not
allow for the narrowness of the Hindu right itself. Lipner labels Savarkar’s
Hinduism ‘un-Hindu.’ What an irony! There is no place for religious nationalism
under the capacious canopy of the banyan tree that is Lipner’s Hinduism (see Lewellyn’s
comments 2005: 15).
Concentrating on
Savarkar’s alleged dark side; A.G. Noorani (2003) concludes that Savarkar was
neither a hero nor a patriot. Not one phase of his chequered career reflected
true grit, lofty nationalism, a noble vision, unremitting sacrifice, courage,
intellectual gifts of a high order, or nobility of character. He never wielded
a weapon himself goading others instead to kill while covering his tracks
skillfully. Savarkar was a coward who did not die on the gallows like many true
revolutionaries (Noorani 2003: 10-11). While serving his sentence in the
Andamans he submitted petition after petition seeking clemency and tendering
apologies for his acts in order to escape the brutal prison life (Noorani 2003:
18-21). Of course, Noorani would have liked to see Savarkar die on the gallows
or rot in the prison. During World War II General Eisenhower was inspecting the
allied troops when one fresh recruit proudly declared to the General that he
was willing and ready to die for preserving freedom and democracy in the world.
“Are you crazy,” barked back the General “Don’t volunteer to die! You force the
enemy to die for his country!” Neither Barrister Jinnah nor Dr Ambedkar courted
arrest; let alone die for their respective causes. Do they, for that, become
cowards in Noorani’s eyes?
Paṅcatantra: a manual on ethics, polity, and statecraft
(nītiśāstra)
This
work on wise conduct (nītiśāstra) has become celebrated as an excellent
means
of awakening young minds. It has travelled far and wide over this earth.
This is how the preamble (kathāmukha) of the Paṅcatantra
speaks of itself. Its subsequent history demonstrates that this is no idle
claim, but a claim amply justified. A product of the genius of Viṣņuśarman, Paṅcatantra
has covered the world under many guises: translations, transcreations, and
adaptations. According to Johannes Hertel, who spent many years in the study of
the textual corpus of Paṅcatantra in its original Sanskrit, there are more than
two hundred versions in fifty languages. The Paṅcatantra started on its
‘triumphal progress’ as a version in Pehlavi during the reign of Khosro
Anushirvan (550-578), Emperor of Iran. Unfortunately, this version, as well as
the original Sanskrit, are now lost. However, a Syriac version followed by an
Arabic one (Kalilah wa Dimnah), made in 750 have survived and this
version is the parent of nearly all the modern versions of Paṅcatantra (see
Rajan 1993: xv-xvi). Paṅcatantra poses questions and problems that arise in the
lives of all, princes or peasant. These are presented in real life situations
that demand solutions. Thoughts and actions of saints, villains, fools, sages,
rogues, decent men and women are held up in a mirror particularly in section
number three entitled Of Crows and Owls dealing with six expedients in
statecraft (sandhi, vigraha, yāna, āsana, samśraya, and dvaidhibhāva).
Its first verse states:
Trust
not a former enemy who comes professing amity. Mark! The cave thronged with
owls was burned by deadly fire the crows kindled (# 1; Of Crows and Owls).
In realpolitik one should avail of four expedients:
conciliation, bribes, intrigues, and (war)(sama, dama, bheda, daņḍa) and
if these fail, punishment or retaliation. All issues, problems, and situations
must be subjected to discriminating wisdom (Rajan 1993: xxvii).
The Paṅcatantra does not set up precepts and practices that
men and women would deem impracticable in everyday life. Life is short and the
obstacles many; life’s essence therefore should be grasped and mastered as a
swan draws milk out of water (Anantapāram
kila śabda śāstram svalpam tathāyurbahavśca vighnāh; Sāram tato grāhyamapāsya
falgu hamsairyathā kśīramivāmbudhyāt (# 6; Mitrabheda).
When locked in a struggle for very existence, one
should resort to any means, foul or fair (i.e. without wasting time at that
stage on whether the means employed are right or wrong). After you emerge
victorious from the struggle some kind of atonement may be undertaken to wipe
off past sins (Yenakeāpyupāyena
śubhenāpyuśubhena vā; uddhateddīnamātmānam samartho dharmamācaret (# 362; Mitrabheda).
Wise men take recourse to ‘strategic
withdrawal’ like a ram that falls back in order to strike with a greater force
(# 139; Mitraprāpti). He who takes
[preemptive] action before a thing comes to pass (i.e. provides for the future
by anticipating it) shines (lives successfully). He who does not provide for
what is to happen, comes to grief (Anāgatam yah kurute sa śobhate; sa śocyate yo na karotyanāgatam # 192; Kakolukiya). He who speaks the
truth to the detriment of his interest is a fool (# 38; Svārtham utsṛjya yo dambhī
satyam brūte sa mandadhī Labdhapraṇāśa. One should not have too much greed, nor should
one give up greed (just desire) altogether ( # 22 atilobho na kartavyo
lobham naiva parityajet…Aprīkṣitakārakam). When the loss (or destruction) of the whole
[enterprise] impends, a wise man forgoes a part of it [half] in order to save the
rest [other half] (# 41; Sarvanāśe samutpanne ardham tyajati paṇḍitah; ardhena kurute kāryam sarvanāśo hi duhsah; Aprīkṣitakārakam).
Formulation of Vinayakniti
II
Systematic and organized plan of action to promote and
preserve Muslim separateness, conversion of Hindus to Indians, Hindusthan to
India, and transformation of a Hindu national identity into the Indian national
identity; formation of the All India Muslim League in 1906, ill treatment of
Hindu prisoners (including Savarkar himself) by Muslim warders in the Andaman
jail, the Moplah rebellion of 1921, and Gandhi’s unconditional support to the
Khilaphat agitation brought about a radical shift in Savarkar’s perspective on
Muslims and the need for an altogether new strategy (tantra) to deal
with them. In the Andamans, Hindu prisoners suffered doubly: first from their
fellow-prisoners, the Muslims and secondly from their Muslim warders (Savarkar
1950: 90-91). He concluded that Hindus have lost terribly for not playing the
game which others have played (Savarkar 1950: 286). In his collected works
running to eight thousand pages, therefore, one comes across a systematic
attempt to rectify this problem by deploying specific measures and expedients.
Evolution of Muslim separatism
By the sixteenth century, the Muslim community in India
comprised of rulers, immigrants from Afghanistan, Persia, and Central Asia, and
converts from the local Hindu community. A vast majority of the converts
remained untutored in the faith of Islam and on the whole had remained
undistinguishable from their Hindu neighbors. During the seventeenth century,
however, leading Muslim thinkers, fearful that these former converts would be
re-absorbed into the Hindu sea around them, began to reassert the distinctive
legal and doctrinal forms of orthodox Islam. Curiously, it was in the end the
Sufis who called a halt to the syncretistic Sufi trend in Indian Islam. This
movement was led by the Naqshbandi order of Sufis headed by Shaikh Ahmad
Sirhindi (1563-1624). When the Muslims lost the protection the Mughal Empire
had provided them after the Marathas took possession of Delhi, the Muslim turn
toward internal cohesion and separation gained strength under the leadership of
Shah Walyullah (1703-1762), the Delhi head of the Naqshbandi order. By the time
the British emerged victorious from their battles with the Marathas, the Indian
Muslims had become an organized community apart from the Hindus. In 1803, after
the British had dislodged the Marathas from Delhi, Shah Abdu-l-Aziz
(1746-1843), the son of Shah Walyullah, formally inaugurated a movement to
reverse the worldly decline of Islam in India by issuing a fatwa
declaring India to be daru-l-harb (Smith 1971: 108-109).
While the Congress party was doing a splendid job of
converting Hindus to Indians, Sir Sayyad Ahmed Khan (1817-1898) carried out an
equally splendid job of keeping Muslims away from joining the Congress. Founder
of the Aligarh Muslim College, Sir Sayyad was also instrumental in inspiring
Muslim leaders like the Aga Khan who subsequently founded the Muslim League
(see below). Under its growing influence, Muslims began to resent the notion of
a common Indian identity altogether. The British had taken great care to see
that the Muslim solidarity as Muslims did not catch the contagion of this new
Indian Nationalist cult (Savarkar 1945: 110-112). Because if the Muslims had joined the
Congress as whole-heartedly as had the Hindus, then there would really emerge a
united Indian nationality, a contingency likely to prove more dangerous to
British supremacy in India than a Hindu revival single-handed prove to be.
Accordingly, the British on the one hand encouraged and helped surreptitiously
the fanatical hatred, enmity, and distrust that the Muslims had already borne
against the Hindus and the Hindu nation. They thus encouraged the rise of Sir
Sayyad Ahmad as the prominent leader of Muslims who would keep his brethren
away from the Congress. They also helped in the founding of the Indian Muslim
League in 1906 to promote Muslim solidarity and identity (as opposed to the
Indian national identity). On the other hand, they encouraged the Hindus that
mirage of a common Indian identity with avidity so that the rise of homogenous
Hindu nation might be ruled out of practical politics (Savarkar 1945:
114).
By 1937 the mood among the Muslims had become: Muslims
first, Muslims last, and Indians never! (Savarkar 1945: 118-120; Savarkar 1964:
316). During the decades for the struggle for India’s independence, most
Muslims chose to sit on the fence allowing the deluded Hindus to fight in order
to wrest political rights for All Indians Alike, going to the prisons in lakhs,
to the Andamans in thousands and to the gallows in hundreds. When sufficient
pressure was brought upon the British government compelling it to negotiate the
transfer of political power around 1940s; the Muslims jumped down the fence
claiming “They were Indians too demanding their pound of flesh” (Savarkar 1945:
120-121).
Hindus become Indians; Hindusthan becomes India
Once it had gained a decisive military and political control
over a large part of India, the British colonial authority initiated a policy
to undermine the very concept of Hindu nation amongst the new rising generation
of Hindu youth by introducing a denationalizing scheme of Western education in
India. The first two generations of Hindus who were products of the new
education system devised by Thomas B Macaulay looked upon the British as God
send and prayed for the permanence of the British raj. Fed and nurtured on
Western education, culture, and thought they were simultaneously weaned from
their tradition, culture, and literature. Like all other ideas and sentiments
their notion of patriotism and nationhood were also borrowed readymade from
England and Europe. Thus, the bond of territorial unity, the fact of residing
in a common geographical unit by itself was a sufficient factor to mark out a
people into a nation. Because India had become a territorial unit and a country
under the British, India must also be a national unit. Since most of the first
generations of students were Hindus, they thought nothing of calling themselves
Indians at the same time ceasing to be Hindus. They expected others: Muslims,
Christians, Sikhs etc also to merge themselves entirely and totally into the
new identity: Indians, Indian people, and the Indian nation (Savarkar 1964 6:
311-313).
As the western education spread like wild fire through the
Hindu population, the idea of an Indian identity and the Indian nation also
found larger and larger following. Inversely, the sense of the solidarity with
a Hindu nation and Hindu people grew feebler and feebler. The British rejoiced
at the turn of events visualized by Macaulay because the only danger to their
continued rule over India would come from the continued and conscious sense of
the Hindu nation and Hindu identity as sought by Ram Singh Kuka in Punjab and
Vasudev Balwant Phadke in Maharashtra who had led armed insurrection against
the British to revive an independent Hindu kingdom as Shivaji had done. The
British then helped in the establishment of the Indian National Congress to
promote amongst Hindus the new identity of the Indian nation and Indian people
as an antidote to any possible revival of Hindu nationalism.
Non-Hindus cling to their respective religious identities
By the beginning of the twentieth century, Hindus on the
whole had rallied round the Congress with unsuspecting enthusiasm lending their
honest devotion to the principle of a territorial nationality that underlay it.
The same principle, however, failed miserably in appealing to the Muslims and
other non-Hindu minorities in India.
Distinction between nation and state ignored
A nation is a group of people who are bound together by some
or all of the following bonds or ties: religion, culture, history and
traditions, literature, and consciousness of rights and wrongs done to them.
Such people come to occupy a common territory and aspire to form a political
unit. When a given nation realizes this
aspiration, it becomes a state. A state is an administrative and governmental
unit having one or more nationalities under its rule. Indians and the Congress
leaders committed a serious blunder in not always making a careful distinction
between a nation and a state. In modern states it is common to find different
nationals living together sometimes in harmony sometimes in conflict. China,
Greece, Britain, France, Hungary, Malaya, Japan and other civilized states have
Muslims and/or other nationalities in their populations. But these countries
are invariably named and known by the name of the nationality of their original
and majority inhabitants. Why then did the Congress leaders like Gandhi and
Nehru hesitated to formally recognize their country as Hindusthan and the
nation Hindu?
Foundation of the All India Muslim League
On December 30 1906, the annual meeting of Muhammadan Educational
Conference was held at Dhaka, Bangladesh under the chairmanship of Nawab
Viqar-ul-Mulk with three thousand delegates attending the session. Nawab Salim
Ullah Khan presented a proposal to establish a political party to safeguard the
interests of the Muslims: the All India Muslim League. The British next sponsored a Muslim
delegation, led by the Aga Khan, to wait on the Viceroy Minto at a meeting
wherein the Muslims told the Viceroy that democratic institutions of the
western model did not suit India. They wanted that Muslims should be given
special weightage in the Central and provincial councils which Minto readily
agreed. A two-nation theory was implicitly recognized in the provision of
separate electorates for Muslims in the Indian Councils Act of 1909. This
theory (a British creation really) ignored the fact that (as Gandhi was to
point out later to Jinnah) the overwhelming majority of Indian Muslims (and
Indian Christians) are descendants of Hindu converts. The two nation theory,
and the demand for Partition based on it were also supported by the Communist
Party of India. One of its theoreticians, Dr. G. Adhikari, justified the demand
for Pakistan as reflecting the aspiration of Muslim nationalities for
self-determination. The same Communists, however, later accused Savarkar of
echoing the two-nation theory. In August 1946 civil war was launched by Jinnah
with his call for ‘direct action’, to which Muslims in Kolkata responded with
large-scale killing of Hindus. This led to a chain reaction across the country,
and Gandhi who had said that partition would be like vivisection of his own
body acquiesced in Congress acceptance of the Mountbatten plan.
The Khilafat agtation
The Khilafat movement (1919-1924) was a political campaign launched
mainly by the Muslim League in association with the Congress party under the
leadership of Gandhi. At the end of World War II, areas now known as Arabia,
Palestine, and Syria which previously were part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire
were detached from Turkey by the Treaty of Sevres. Since Muslim holy lands were
situated in these now detached areas, Muslims across the world launched the
agitation to return these areas to Turkey whose Sultan also was the Khalifa,
the ruler and the head of the Muslim world. In India Gandhi and other Congress
leaders supported the Khilafat agitation led by Mahomed and Shaukat Ali and in
return the Ali brothers promised Muslim participation in the non-cooperation
movement led by Gandhi. Almost immediately, however, under the leadership of
Kemal Pasha, Turkey was declared a secular state and the office of the Khalif
was abolished. At about the same time Gandhi called off the non-cooperation
movement and the frustrated Muslim community resumed its separatist agenda and
the presumed Hindu-Muslim unity began to disintegrate fast.
The Moplah rebellion in Malabar
A series of riots broke all over India, perhaps the most serious being in
the Malabar area of Kerala. The Moplahs were a community of Muslims descended
from the Arabs who settled in the Malabar Coast in about the 8th or 9th century
A.D and married mostly Indian wives. They had over the years acquired notoriety
for insubordination under the impulse of religious frenzy. During the British
rule, they were responsible for thirty-five minor outbreaks the most terrible
being the one that took place in August 1921 after the Khilafat agitation
fizzled out. The Moplahs declared independence (Swaraj) in the areas they
controlled and in the ensuing riots the Hindus of Kerala suffered massacres,
forcible conversions, and desecration of temples. Though normalcy returned
toward the end of 1921, the dream of a Hindu-Muslim was shattered. In
Pakistan, or, the Partition of India, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar has insightfully
elucidated the irrational length to which the Congress and Gandhi went to
support the doomed Khilafat dream in order to defend and preserve their formula
of Hindu-Muslim unity.
An entry of January 6, 1946 in Shyama Prasad Mookerji’s
diary provides a clearer view: As seventy-five percent of the population was Hindu,
and if India was to adopt a democratic form of government, the Hindus would
automatically play a major role in it. Even though Hindus constituted a
majority in India; it would be a political, not a communal
majority that would rule India as Indians sharing power with other Indians.
Gandhi and Nehru rejected this view consistently (cited in Noorani 2002: 84).
Vinayak niti II: 1937- political ethics (samājavyavasthāśāstra)
Kśehmendra had recognized that nīti
is connotes the ability to frame a particular issue within a given context and
then recommend a specific plan of action suitable for that particular situation
during a specific period of time. This aspect of nīti is reflected in
the Dāsabodha of Samartha Ramdas (1606-1682) who was a prominent saint
and religious poet who was an ardent devotee of Śrī Rāma and Hanumāna. He is
credited with shaping the character and career of Shivaji and hence ensuring
that the Hindu Samskrṛti in Maharashtra was protected from the ravages
of the Mughal onslaught. The Dāsabodha is a manual on the ethics and
science of political theory and practice in which Ramdas teaches that time and
conditions are not always exactly similar due to their constantly changing
nature. Nor can one rule prevail for ever. If one rule alone is followed every
time, difficulties arise in politics. Following Ramdas, Savarkar felt that it
was necessary to adjust his political thought to suit the situation prevailing
in India in the 1940s.
Toward that objective he also sought support in the commentary of Medhātithi
who had tested the rules of socio-cultural and political conduct outlined in
the Manusmṛti on the anvil of Cāņakya’s Arthaśāstra. Thus, to
invade an enemy kingdom cannot be an immoral act in political science. It is
the duty of the king to crush his enemy before he grows powerful enough to
invade one’s kingdom. It is suicidal for the Aryan king to wait until the enemy
gives offence. That the neighboring king is an enemy is in itself his fault. At
an opportune moment, therefore, he should be pounced upon and crushed (Savarkar
1971: 195). Manu advised that a villain [or a terrorist] should be killed
without the slightest compunction and without considering whether he is a
preceptor or an old man or a child or learned Brahmin. On such an occasion, the
killer does not incur the sin of killing because the villain is killed by his
own unrighteousness (Manusmṛti 8:50). There is no sin in speaking
untruth on the following occasions: during sex with a woman; in conversation
with a woman; at the time of marriage; if a life is in danger; or for
protecting your property (Āraņyaka 82:16). Life is superior to death, said Viśvāmitra,
because dharma can only be practiced by one who is alive (jīvitam maraņāt śreyo
jīvan dharmam avāpnuyāt).
The Aryadharma nowhere decrees that the Aryans should
confine themselves to the boundaries of Āryāvarta. Conquer new lands and after
spreading and consolidating Aryadharma there, incorporate them into Aryavarta.
Savarkar remarked that taking this advice of Medhātithi, the Kalingas, the
Cheras, and the Cholas sent naval expeditions to the Western, Eastern, and
Southers seas carrying the Arya banner to the African coast on one side and to
the Chinese on the other. During the medieval period, kings like Rajendra Chola
continued to live by Medhātithi’s advice and established and maintained
contacts with Hindu confederate states in Java, Indo-China, and Thailand
(Savarkar 1971: 196). During the same period in North India, however, Hindu
kings seem to have forsaken this wise counsel. According to Savarkar, of all
the sins and weaknesses that brought about the military and political defeats
of Hindus in medieval India, the greatest and most potent was the galaxy of
exalted virtues: non-violence, kindness, chivalry to men and women, offering
protection to the defeated enemy, forgiveness. Savarkar quoted a maxim from the
Mahabharata to explain why the Hindu ethics failed so miserably in the medieval
period: Any virtuous act done without the least regard to the propriety of
persons involved (without a thought whether the other person deserves such a
noble treatment or not) becomes a glaring vice most harmful to dharma (Śāntiparvan
36:13; Savarkar 1971: 187).
To let go the vanquished after he surrenders or begs for
mercy was another virtue that Hindus in medieval India cultivated to perfection
even at the cost of their own destruction. Savarkar gives two instances from
India’s history from that period. The ungrateful Muhammad Ghori and the Rohila
Najib Khan were set free by Prithviraj Chouhan and Dattaji Shinde respectively.
How did they return the favor? The first brutally murdered his benefactor while
the latter conspired against the Marathas by collaborating with Ahmad Shah
Abdali who soundly routed the Marathas at the battle of Panipat in 1761. Having
learnt by role the maxim: give food to the hungry and water to the thirsty, the
Hindus went on giving milk to the vile poisonous snakes and vipers. Savarkar
notes with anguish how Hindus in this period chose to live with this maxim:
Never
pay the tormentor in his own coin but bear the torments meekly
and
be patient that God will punish him (Savarkar 1971: 169).
It seems Hindus paid dearly for having forgotten the
relevant maxims endorsed in the Paṅcatantra:
Whoever through sheer indifference disregards his foe,
or a disease,
and
lets them move unchecked will, in no time, meet his end (# 2 Of Crows and Owls).
At
no cost should peace be proposed with one devoid of truth and justice;
However
binding the agreement you make, inborn viciousness will in no time change his
course
(#
19 Kākolūkīya).
When
it is clear a foe can be contained only by recourse to the final expedient
(punitive action; danda), conciliation proves a disservice: Would a wise man
douse with water the initial stages of a fever that can only be sweated out? (#
21 Kākolūkīya).
Like
the tortoise a wise man will retreat into his shell and suffer cruel blows;
when the time is ripe he will rear up ready to strike like a deadly serpent (#
17 Kākolūkīya).
Political ethics deals with worldly wisdom, polity, and
statecraft that requires an ethic based on the values of shrewdness and
practical wisdom in the affairs of life. Like Viṣṇuśarman, Savarkar admonished
that he, who speaks the truth to the detriment of his nation, is a fool (svārtham utsṛjya yo dambhī
satyam brūte sa mandadhī Labdhapraṇāśam # 38). This honest
depiction of practical wisdom in the art of life explains why in the Paṅcatantra,
the cunning jackal comes out the winner in the First Book (this outraged many
readers of the Paṅcatantra and so in one version the Arabic translator rewrote
the end in which the jackal was jailed, put on trial and finally executed. For
Savarkar, however, the Marathas came out winners in their struggle for life
against the mighty Mughals by fighting a guerrilla warfare based on similar
tactics.
The Paṅcatantra advises: Never trust an enemy; a ‘reformed
enemy’ does not exist. The idea is an oxymoron. There is a comparable thought
in the words of a character who had granted sanctuary to a person who had
approached as supplicant but who later proved to be ungrateful:
Try
your best to honor a rogue he will still remain true to his native nature. You
may have a dog sweated, or rubbed with musk if you choose, his tail still
remains curled (# 236 Labdhapraņāśa).
Deceit is the only way to overcome an unscrupulous enemy.
Caste, gender or religion is no barrier to forming lasting bonds; against
tyrants. Unity is strength. A character in the Paṅcatantra observes:
A
host, though each member in it is weak, working united brings victory to pass.
Of simple straw a rope is woven; yet with it an elephant is bound (# 330; Labdhapraņāśa).
A fool and his gains are soon parted. An intelligent man can
overcome adversity by the use of his wit. The consequences of an ill-conceived
and hastily executed action could be death. He who takes [preemptive] action
before a thing comes to pass (i.e. anticipates and provides for the future) succeeds.
This compares favorably with the Paṅcatantra:
anāgatam
yah kurute sa śobhate. He who does not provide for what is to happen, comes
to grief (sa śocyate yo na karotyanāgatam
Kākolūkīyam # 192).
The actions and codes of conduct engaged in by historical
personages discussed were proper, beneficial, and necessary in the context of
the particular persons, periods, and places. They may not be so under different
conditions. Accordingly, in the post-Andamans phase Savarkar began to develop
an appropriate and relevant nīti comprised of practices and instruments
(tantras) to reawaken what he now called the Hindu nation while shelving
the dream of one world nation and government (that he had espoused in the
pre-Andamans phase) as an ideal to be realized to a future date. Inspired by
Savarkar proposed revised precepts (mantras) and practices (tantras)
pertaining to statecraft and polity of his nīti. His revised formula for
securing Hindu Muslim unity was 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 (Trehan 1991: 102). He nevertheless
did not cultivate hatred for the Christian or the Muslim and did not look down
upon any one of them with scorn and contempt. “I only oppose that section of it
vehemently, which is oppressive and violent towards another” (Savarkar 1950:
326).
Fazlul Huq, the chief minister of Bengal, gloated that
Muslim tigers will feast on meek Hindus. Savarkar retorted: Yes as humans,
Hindus are meeker than the Muslim tigers in terms of sheer physical prowess.
But remember Mr Huq: It is humans that have ruled the earth for millennia
confining beasts to the forests. It is the very human ring master that makes
the lions and tigers dance to his tune in the circus tent and perform acrobatic
feats for the entertainment of humans! Louis Fischer interviewed Savarkar in
1942. In the course of his interview Fischer asked: Why do you oppose the
Muslim demand for Pakistan? “Why do you oppose a free homeland for the Negroes [Nigrostan]
in the United States?” shot back Savarkar. “Because such a demand would be
anti-national,” blurted the surprised Fischer. “The same rationale applies to
our opposition to the creation of Pakistan,” replied Savarkar (Vartak 2003).
In his Pakistan or the Partition of India, Dr
Ambedkar took note of Muslim aggressive outlook on life and matters of culture,
religion, and society. The first trait he noticed was their strategy of
pocketing offered concessions and coming back with more demands; the second was
their skill in exploiting Hindu weaknesses and harassing them with such tactics
as insisting upon their right to slaughter the cows or the stoppage of music
when Hindu processions passed the mosque. The third was the resort to
‘gangsterism’ and riots in pursuit of political goals. The Congress policy, on
the other hand, was to appease the Muslims by political and other concessions (Ambedkar
1976). Indeed, Gandhi never concealed
his view that it was a matter of justice to give the Muslim minority whatever
it wanted. “Hindus should give to Muslims whatever they asked for,” he added
and that “only through such goodwill could unity be achieved” (Trehan 1991:
60). Congress ministries pandered to the Muslim demands and loaded them with
weightages, posts, and positions at the cost of the interests of the national
majority (Keer 286).
Historians R.C. Majumdar and Radha Kumud Mookerjee supported
Ambedkar’s findings. “A fear of wounding the susceptibilities of the sister
community,” wrote Majumdar, “haunts the minds of Hindu politicians and
historians. It prevents them from speaking out the truth and brings down their
wrath upon those who have the courage to do so.” In his Presidential address
delivered at the Akhand Hindustan Leaders’ Conference, held on October 7-8,
1944 lamented the misreading of national history and politics by Indian leaders
(see Trehan 1991: 45). Here Ambedkar and Majumdar seem to be one with Savarkar
in his analysis of the asymmetric nature of Hindu Muslim relations in the
political process and holding the Congress responsible for it. He traced the
Congress failure to its erroneous supposition that India was already a nation
in harmony without realizing the truth that it is not only the territorial
unity but religious, historical, and cultural unity that counts in the
formation of a national unit. The day the Congress led by Gandhi gave Muslims
to understand that swarajya could not be won unless and until they obliged the
Hindus by making a common cause with them, the Hindus rendered an honorable
unity, i.e. Indian national consolidation impossible (Savarkar 1945: 122).
To instill the martial spirit among Hindus Savarkar wrote
informed and insightful articles on the principles of military science using Medhātithi’s
commentary on the Manusmṛti as a reference point. When World War II
began Savarkar met with the Viceroy and sought from him a promise that Hindus
belonging to all castes would be offered commission into the defense services
whereas only certain castes, deemed to be martial, were admitted into the
military previously. Toward that objective, he also wrote biographies of leading
revolutionaries of his day. These included: Balmukund, Jitendranath Das,
Shashimohan Day, Shriram Raju, Vishnu, G. Pingle, Veermata Kshirodavasini, and
others. With the same intention, he paid rich tributes Savarkar paid rich
tributes to the fallen revolutionaries: Khudiram Bose, Madanlal Dhingra,
Kanhaiyalal, Chidambar Pillay, Anant Kanhere, Bacchunath Ayyasingh, Sukhdev,
Rajguru, Udhamsingh, Chaphekar Brothers. Once while visiting Panvel (then a
small town near Mumbai), he came to learn that the widow of Vasudeo Balwant
Phadke (he had led an armed rebellion against the British in the 1870s) lived
alone in the town. Savarkar paid her a courtesy visit. The widow later confided
that no other leader had extended such a noble gesture.
Savarkar was against sacrificing precious human life if it
could be spared and he certainly was not a masochist who derived morbid
gratification from self-inflicted pain and suffering a la Gandhi. Thus, he was
anguished by the death of Jitendranath Das in the prison at Lahore after going
on a hunger strike to protest against the treatment of political prisoners as
common criminals. In a statement given to a periodical entitled Shraddhanand
(May 5, 1929), Savarkar paid rich tribute to this supreme act of self sacrifice
but he did not want others to follow in the footsteps of Das because it was not
appropriate that precious life be wasted over a relatively minor issue thereby
weakening our overall strength. Like General Eisenhower he would rather inflict
maximum damage on the enemy forcing him to make ‘supreme sacrifices’
while minimizing damage to his own side. While occasional martyrdom courted by
some revolutionaries is certainly laudable wasting of precious human life
cannot be a recipe for victory in India’s struggle for freedom. For the same
reason, Savarkar always carried on his person a concealed weapon (jambiya)
for self protection. He also had engaged a permanent body guard (Mr Appa Kasar)
who served him faithfully for a number of years. To his fellow inmates in the
Andaman jail, Savarkar routinely exhorted to study political history, political
science and political economy because when India becomes free, we will need
scholars trained in these three disciplines to run the everyday affairs of the
government at various levels.
In his presidential address at the annual convention of the
Hindu Mahasabha in Ahemdabad in December 1937 Savarkar predicted that India
will attain its political independence in the near future but in the free,
undivided India Muslims are unlikely to live in peace and harmony with the
majority like the Christians, Sikhs, or other minorities. When the opportunity
arises they will work to establish a Muslim state in India by precipitating a
civil war or by collaborating with outside powers as they had done in 1919-1921
during the Khilafat agitation. True enough, a growing anti-Hindu trend began in
Kashmir in 1937 and Bengali and Oriya speaking Muslims began entering Assam in
large numbers with a view to tip the demographic balance there in favor of
Muslims. But Savarkar’s warning went unheeded.
On October 9, 1939 Savarkar met with Lord Linlithgo (Viceroy
of India 1936-1943) regarding the war effort and India’s possible role in it.
He demanded immediate dominion status for India provided there is any substance
in the slogan that the allied powers are fighting to safeguard democracy in the
world. Hindus must be granted representation in the political process in
proportion to their numerical strength. Furthermore, recruitment into the army
must be open to members of all Hindu castes. Indian troops must be used for
protection of India’s security and they must not be sent overseas to fight the
allied cause. Linlithgo was surprised by Savarkar’s foresight and knowledge of
military affairs and mentioned it to Ramaswamy Mudaliar, a member of his
advisory council. On April 23, 1939, Savarkar sent the following cable to
President Roosevelt:
If
your note to Hitler is actuated by disinterested action for safeguarding
Freedom and Democracy from Military Aggression pray ask Britain too to withdraw
her armed domination over Hindusthan and let her have free and self-determined
Constitution (Savarkar 1964 6: 542).
At a conference (code named Riviera) attended by the British Prime
Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Roosevelt, a document later known
as the ‘Atlantic Charter’ was drafted and was issued as a joint declaration on
14 August 1941. This statement was drafted and agreed upon while the allies
were fighting against Germany, Italy and Japan. The main purpose of the
‘Charter’ was to recruit the world’s support and sympathy for the allied war
effort. The charter proclaimed that all countries of the world have the right
to choose the form of government that each found suitable. The allies would
therefore help all those nations whose fundamental right to choose their
government has been taken away once the war was over. The Atlantic Charter was
meant to act as a blueprint for promoting democracy in the world and assure its
welfare after the war was won. Indeed, it later became the foundation for many
international treaties and organizations that currently shape the world (The
GATT for instance) and the post-war independence of British and French
possessions.
Within a week of the Charter’s inception (on August 20,
1941), Savarkar sent a cable to President Roosevelt seeking clarification if
the provisions of the charter applied to India. If not, India will consider the
charter a mere ruse. This cable drew worldwide attention and there were
questions in the British parliament to Prime Minister Churchill who was forced
to admit that the provisions of the charter were applicable only to countries
under the Nazi yoke. Savarkar then sent another cable to Roosevelt asking if he
agreed with Churchill’s interpretation. Roosevelt failed to reply. An article
in The Modern Review applauded Savarkar’s astute diplomacy in exposing
the true designs of the allied powers.
Subsequently in 1943-1944, two American envoys (William Phillips and
Lambton Berry) met with Savarkar. It is possible that Roosevelt wised up about
the evil designs of British colonial rule and possibly brought pressure on
Britain to grant independence to India after the war. In his presidential
address at the 22nd session of the Hindu Mahasabha held at Madura in
1940, Savarkar reminded his audience that such declarations provided an
occasion for Hitler to retort when he was asked by the British Prime Minister
William Chamberlain to free Poland that he would do so as soon as Great Britain
freed India. He then quoted an old adage (probably from the Pancatantra) that
“thieves alone can trace the footsteps of thieves best” (Savarkar 1964 6:
416).
In 1940 Savarkar had declared that “the sanest policy for us which
practical politics demand is to befriend those who are likely to serve our
country’s interests in spite of any ‘ism’ they may follow for themselves and to
befriend them only so long as it serves our purpose” (Savarkar 1964 6: 413). On
22 June 1940, Subhash Chandra Bose came to brief Savarkar on an agitation involving
the Black Hole monument in Kolkata that Bose was leading. Bose had hoped that
the agitation would draw Hindus and Muslims closer and had already visited M.
A. Jinnah in that context earlier that day. The ‘Black Hole of Calcutta’
referred to a small dungeon where troops of the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj
ud-Daulah, held British prisoners of war after the capture of Fort William in
1756. The British claimed that 146 of their men and women prisoners held there
died from suffocation, heat exhaustion, and crushing. A tablet erected on the
site of the Black Hole to commemorate the victims had disappeared around 1822
whereupon Lord Curzon commissioned a new monument. Its presence in Kolkata
became a nationalist cause célèbre when Bose began lobbying for its
removal supported by the Congress and the Muslim League.
Savarkar asked him: “Why do you want to waste time in the agitation to
remove this monument?” Instead of courting arrest and languishing in jail, a
person of your stature should go abroad and form an army out of the Indian
prisoners of war taken by Japan and attack the British from outside the India.
Bose however did not listen and went ahead with the agitation and was jailed
and kept under house arrest from where he made his escape. Bose eventually did what
Savarkar had asked by forming the Indian National Army (INA) out of the Indian
prisoners of war held by the Japanese. On 30 December 1943, the INA liberated
Andaman Islands and flew the flag of Free India. Bose paid respects to Savarkar
and his compatriots who had suffered in the Cellular jail (cited in Banerjee
1990: 135-136).
The wisdom of Savarkar’s policy on forming ad hoc alliances was
driven home later in 1962 when Chinese troops crossed the border into India
illegally occupying a small area. Indian leaders (including Nehru) were
clueless as to the proper course to follow. True to his earlier declaration, Savarkar
advised the government to accept the military aid from the USA. General
Cariappa was inclined to consider this option but Nehru ruled him out. Such a
move, the thinking went, would put India under American obligation. Savarkar’s
response was that all nations look first to their own security and prosperity
while dealing with international problems. They make or unmake pacts with this
end view alone. In politics no state remains under the obligation of another
for ever (see Trehan 1991: 55). In World
War II the Soviet Union had accepted American aid but that did not keep it
under American obligation for long. In a statement made in the Indian
parliament Prime Minister Nehru had observed that Aksai Chin, a small disputed
tract on the India China border, was commonly known as ‘no man’s land.’
Savarkar’s comment: If you that all along, why did you not turn it into ‘Hindu
[at least Indian] man’s land?
In an article published in the Shraddhanand in February 1928,
Savarkar warned the people of India about the plan that was afoot then to
detach the Muslim majority province of Sindh from the Bombay Presidency. But
Indians failed to recognize that seed of the future division of India was then
being sowed. Indeed, in 1932 the Communal Award accepted all the major Muslim
communal demands of the time. The Award was announced by the British Prime
Minister Ramsay McDonald in August 1932 whereby separate electorates were
granted to minority communities including the Depressed Classes (now known as
Dalits) in India. The Award was highly controversial and opposed by Gandhi, who
fasted in protest against it. It was supported by many among the minority
communities though, most notably by Dr Ambedkar. The Award created a Muslim
majority in the provinces of Bengal and Punjab through guaranteed reservations
that assured Muslims 33 1/3% of the seats in the central legislature. Later, in
1935 it created a Muslim majority province of Sindh by detaching Sindh from
Bombay Presidency (Trehan 1991: 63).
Commenting in Mahratta (May 29, 1942) on the visiting
Chinese Muslim Mission being lead by Mr. Woo to India, Savarkar expressed
concern over what he sensed was the primary purpose of the mission: to
establish closer Pan-Islamic contacts amongst Muslims of Asia. Mr. Woo had met
with leading advocates of the Pakistan movement and pledged the support of the
Chinese Muslims to their brethren in India to forge a Pan-Islamic line between
the Indian, Burmese, and Chinese Muslims. Savarkar invited Hindus to work for
establishing a united Hindu-Buddhist front stretching from Jammu to Japan
(Savarkar 6: 546).
The Constituent Assembly of India was set up as a result of
negotiations between the Indian leaders and members of the British. It was
elected indirectly by the members of the Provincial legislative assembly in
which the Congress party won an overwhelming majority while the Muslim League
managed to sweep almost all the seats reserved for Muslims. The Congress party
sweet-talked the people of India into voting for it. Nehru made a public declaration to the effect
that the idea of Pakistan was a ‘fantastic nonsense’ and Gandhi solemnly
pledged that Pakistan would be created only over his dead body. But Savarkar
warned the Indian electorate that “a vote for the Congress means a vote for Pakistan.”
The assembly first met in December 1946 while India was still under the British
rule and just as Savarkar had predicted, almost immediately the Congress
started negotiations for the division of India. The Muslim League demanded to
include the whole of Bengal and Punjab in the proposed Pakistan.
Alarmed by these developments; on May 23, 1947 Savarkar
issued a statement entitled “Before they vivisect India let us vivisect their
[proposed] Pakistan first.” It called for (1) immediate separation of Hindu
majority districts from Bengal and Hindu/Sikh majority districts from Punjab;
(2) expulsion of all Muslim trespassers from Assam at any cost to sandwich and
smother the proposed eastern Pakistan between two Indian provinces. In addition
he wanted the government of India to emphatically declare and manfully act upon
the rule that Muslim minority in India shall be given the same treatment as is
meted out to the Hindu minority in Muslim Pakistan in all respects such as
representation, services, and even rights of citizenship (see Savarkar 1964 6:
553, 557-558; Trehan 1991: 79). Savarkar next cabled the Bengal and Punjab
units of the Hindu Mahasabha to work for the division of the projected Pakistan.
Partly as a result of this action that the Hindu majority districts of Bengal
and Punjab were eventually identified, separated, and joined with the
post-partition India. Not surprisingly, Jinnah was deeply disturbed that his
plan of claiming undivided Bengal and Punjab for Pakistan had been foiled.
Napal being the world’s only Hindu nation, India should
maintain a friendly relationship with it. Indians leaders (who do not enjoy
political freedom themselves) should not interfere in its internal affairs and
refrain from sermonizing Nepal and its government about an ideal political
system. The politics of a subject race can be no guide to the exigencies of an
independent kingdom like Nepal (Savarkar 1945: 133). Savarkar was the only
leader of a major Indian political party that rejected the provisions of the
Cripps Plan in toto in 1942. The Cripps Plan had provided for the opting out of
the proposed Indian federation by any province if the people of that province
by a majority vote desired so. Savarkar saw in this principle of
self-determination the seeds of the future division of India. During the
meeting of the Indian leaders with Sir Stafford Cripps Savarkar asked Cripps if
the British parliament would allow the cessation of Ireland or Scotland from
Great Britain. When Cripps replied in the negative, Savarkar quipped why then
the double standard with respect to India? In a statement issued on April 21,
1942 criticized the Congress for its decision to formally recognize the
principle of self-determination. Such appeasement of Muslims will eventually
culminate in the recognition of the demand for Pakistan.
When in 1947, Pakistani irregulars infiltrated Kashmir,
Savarkar wanted the Indian army on the border immediately to protect Kashmir.
After Pakistan denied its involvement claiming that the infiltrators were
Afridi gangs, he had wanted the Indian government to warn Pakistan to stay out
and that the Indian troops will take care of the Afridis. Later, he pleaded
with Nehru urging him not to take the Kashmir question to the General Assembly
of the United Nations. Savarkar also had advised the government to settle the
large number of Hindu refugees streaming in from Punjab and Bengal in Kashmir.
Nehru disregarded both these pleas and even today India is paying dearly for
these lapses. On December 19, 1947 in a statement issued to the press Savarkar
expressed satisfaction that the overwhelming majority of the leading nations of
the world had recognized the claim of the Jewish people to establish an
independent Jewish state in Palestine (Savarkar 6: 558). Then in 1956 in a speech
at Jodhpur, Rajasthan he demanded that India should grant full recognition to
Israel. It took three long decades for the government of India to take this
necessary step.
Savarkar was unhappy with the growing trend to symbolize the
wheel at the center on India’s national flag as the wheel of dharma. It would
be more appropriate to see in it the wheel held by Shri Krishna (sudarśana
charka). When Dr Shyama Prasad Mookerji broke away from the Hindu Mahasabha
and founded the Bharatiya Jan Sangh in 1951, Savarkar predicted that in due
course the Jan Sangh will become indistinguishable from the Congress. In 1953
The Hindu Mahasabha, Ramrajya Parishad, and the Jan Sangh jointly stages
satyagraha for a formal integration of Kashmir in India. The government of
Kashmir prohibited entry of Indian citizens into Kashmir. Mookerji issued a
statement of his intention to ignore the ban and enter Kashmir. Savarkar warned
Mookerji that there was danger to Mookerji’s life if he courted arrest and that
the nation was in need of a live [not dead] Mookerji. But Mookerji ignored
Savarkar’s plea and paid for it by his life.
A secular state within a Hindu nation
In a statement released to the press on June 28, 1937
Savarkar readily granted the need for a secular state in a country like India. But
he would not tolerate discrimination against the majority Hindu community while
granting special privileges to minorities. The Hindu majority will not encroach
on the legitimate rights of any non-Hindu minority. But in no case can the
Hindu majority resign its right which as a majority it is entitled to exercise
under any democratic and legitimate constitution. A minority status cannot be
invoked to justify special privileges nor can a majority status be deemed a
ground for penalty (Savarkar 1964 6: 353; Trehan 1991: 99, 109). In his
presidential address at the 21st Hindu Mahasabha convention held in
Kolkata in 1939, Savarkar reiterated that the legitimate rights of minorities
with regards to their religion, culture, and language will be expressed
guaranteed: on one condition only that the equal rights of the majority must
not in any case be encroached or abrogated. Every minority may have separate
schools to train up their children in their own tongue, their own religion, or
cultural institutions and can receive government help also for these—but always
in proportion to the taxes they pay into the common exchequer. The same
principle must of course hold good in case of the majority too (Savarkar 1864
6: 367).
The same message was repeated in a speech delivered in 1937 in which Savarkar
declared, “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 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 percentage in the general population….
If such an Indian State is kept in view, the Hindu Sanghatanists will, in the
interest of Hindu Sangathan itself, be the first to offer their whole-hearted
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.”
This commitment was reiterated in a letter addressed to the Commissioner
of Police, Bombay from Arthur Road Prison, Bombay and dated February 22, 1949
in which Savarkar stated
I have been an advocate throughout my life of
Genuine Indian Nationalism. I always
emphasized that all citizens who owned loyalty
to the Indian State must be loved as fellow citizens and treated with equality
of rights and obligations to the state irrespective of caste,
creed
or religion, without the least distinction being made as Hindu or a Mohammedan
or
Parsee or a Jew. ‘One man one vote’ and
‘service to go by merit alone’ these two principles
will
be found endlessly repeated in all my writings and speeches made throughout my
political career for some 50 years in the past (cited in Noorani 2002: 146).
The Hindu Mahasabha under Savarkar’s leadership shared power with the
Muslim League in certain provinces. This was in tune with Savarkar’s policy of
responsive cooperation (sādhyānukul sahakārya; a policy that Lokmanya
Tilak had espoused earlier). On December 11, 1943, Fazlul Haq approached the
Governor and apprised him of his intention to form a new ministry and to invite
Dr. Shyama Prasad Mookerjee of the Hindu Mahasabha to accept a cabinet post in
the said ministry. In a statement issued in this regard, Dr. Mookerjee said
that communal amity and unity was the need of the hour in Bengal and a strong
and representative Government having the support of Hindus and Muslims was necessary
in this regard. Everybody should support the Ministry leaving caste and
religious hatred aside, stated Mookerjee. This step was consistent with
Savarkar’s policy to occupy Governmental posts to safeguard Hindu interests.
The soundness of this policy was proved on the very next day. Sarat Chandra
Bose, younger brother of Subhas Chandra Bose was placed under house arrest by
the British for his suspected links with the Japanese. When this issue was
raised in the Assembly the next day, Dr. Mookerjee in his maiden speech as
Minister gave an assurance that he would make all efforts to secure Bose's
release.
In pursuance of the same policy, the Hindu Mahasabha participated in the
Muslim League Ministry in Sind. When the League Ministry in Sindh passed a resolution
in favour of formation of Pakistan, the lone dissenting voice was that of the
Hindu Mahasabha minister. It is noteworthy that the so-called nationalist
Muslim Allah Bux, who was a Congress member, abstained when this resolution was
introduced in the Sindh Assembly. Thus, the Hindu Mahasabha under Savarkar
occupied positions of power whenever possible not to enjoy power per se but to
safeguard Hindu interests. It is noteworthy that Savarkar himself never
occupied a position of power. Savarkar had correctly predicted that India will
emerge victorious over Pakistan in the 1965 war but that the Indian forces will
be pulled back before the UN imposed a cease-fire order. He then urged Prime
Minister Lal Bahaddur Shastri to not go to Tashkent for signing the peace
treaty where he would come under tremendous pressure to make unreasonable
compromises by giving back all that was won on the battle field.
Concluding remarks
As we saw in the
initial section, during the pre-Andamans phase, Savarkar was prepared to
forgive the perceived wrongs of the past committed by Afghans, Persians, Turks,
and Mughals in order to create a better future for a united India. In the
introduction to The First Indian War of Independence-1857 he
stressed that a nation that has no consciousness of its past has no future. But
a nation must also develop its capacity to use the past for the furtherance of
its future. The feeling of hatred against Muslims may have been necessary in
the past but such a feeling would be unjust and foolish if nursed today simply
because it was the dominant feeling of Hindus then. One must distil the salient
principles of history rather than treat it as mere narrative (see Noorani 2002:
40).
In the presidential address to the Karnavati (Ahmedabad) session of the
Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha in 1937 Savarkar declared: The state in India will
not recognize any invidious distinctions whatsoever as regards the franchise,
public services, offices, taxation on the grounds of religion and race. It will
not take cognizance whatsoever of one being Hindu, Muslim, Christian or Jew.
All citizens of the Indian State will be treated according to their individual
worth irrespective of their religious or racial percentage in the general
population.” Again in 1938 he declared, “On stepping into the post independence
Indian Parliament, not a trace should remain of distinctions of being a Hindu,
Mussalman or a Parsee.”
Muslims, however, were unwilling to subsume their identity
within the broader Indian identity and continued to expect special privileges
and advantages for them. After the partition of India had become a fait
accompli and before Jinnah left India for Pakistan, he advised the Muslim
League leaders and their followers, who had ‘chosen’ to remain in India, that
they should remain ‘loyal’ citizens of India. According to Abul Kalam Azad,
this statement angered Muslims that remained in India because they felt that
Jinnah had deceived them and left them in the lurch. The fact is, these Muslims
had failed to realize the implications of abetting in the creation of Pakistan.
Supporters of the Muslim League, argued Azad, had been foolishly persuaded that
once Pakistan was formed Muslims (whether they came from a majority or minority
province) would be regarded as a separate nation and would enjoy the right of
determining their own future. These fools now realized that they had gained
nothing by the partition of India. In addition, they had, through their foolish
action, created anger and resentment in the minds of the Hindus (Azad 1988:
227; Trehan 1991: 81-82).
Savarkar saw nationalism to be but an inevitable step towards the
pan-human state. But before you make a case for universalism, you must make out
a case for survival until then as a national unit and social human unit (Trehan
1991: 102). A Western (American to be specific) convert to the Hindu dharma,
Jeffrey Long is in sympathy with the fear that underlies the Hindutva ideology.
There are Islamic, Christian, and secular forces, he notes, that are
avowedly antagonistic to Hinduism. But violence is not the answer to these
forces (Long 2008: 181). Long also faults Savarkar for reducing Hinduism to the
local concerns of an ethnic religion by equating Hinduism with India and a
single national group and thereby limiting its universalizing potential. With
due respect to Long, it must be pointed out that Savarkar did not deny the universal dimension of Hinduism. His claim,
rather, was that Hindu culture itself
is composite enough, without
having to be counted as one religion among many which constitute the composite
culture of India. Indian [Hindu] culture was one macrocosmically though
many microcosmically. In the words of Lipner, it was a polycentric phenomenon
imbued with the same life-sap. This polycentric culture is like the banyan
tree, which has many apparent trunks, but no clearly identifiable centre. Furthermore, Savarkar’s definition of
Hindutva is compatible with any conceivable expansion of Hindus beyond India as
for instance, is happening right now. The only geographical limits of Hindutva,
as such, are the limits of the earth.
Long’s critic of Savarkar therefore is a Hindu critique,
a critique that is based on a sense of what he considers inadequacy of Hindutva
to the universalist pluralist aspirations of the modern Hindu tradition (Long
2008: 182). Responding to Long’s
criticism of Savarkar; Professor Arvind Sharma has argued that the vast mansion
of Hinduism contains two portals of entry—one at the Eastern gate and one at
the Western, one ethnic and the other universal. While those born as Hindus
could live happily in India that Savarkar equated with Hinduism; those who come
to it via conversion could invoke its pluralism and universalism (see Sharma
2008: 246).
In sum, Savarkar would agree with Long’s contention that conceived
as a universal religion, Hinduism has great potential to be a model for
imagining a harmony and a unity-in-diversity of the religions and the people of
the world). Long, in turn, grants that Savarkar himself acknowledges this
potential in the final sentence of his Hindutva (Long 2008: 188):
A
Hindu is most intensely so when he ceases to be a Hindu and with
a
Shankar claims the whole earth for a Benares…or with Tukaram exclaims
…’My country! Oh brothers, the limits of the
universe—there the frontiers
of my country lie! (Savarkar 2003: 141).
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