KARNATAKA GOVERNMENT
DECIDES TO HONOUR SAVARKAR: A COLLABORATOR OF THE BRITISH RULERS & MUSLIM
LEAGUE
The Karnataka
government led by a senior RSS whole-timer, B.S.
Yediyurappa is going to honour Hindutva icon, VD Savarkar by naming two of the newly
built major flyovers in Bangalore and Mangalore after him. There was a huge
uproar against this decision of the RSS-BJP government as many pro-Kannada
organisations with opposition parties and liberal-secular organizations
questioned the logic to ignore so many freedom fighters, social reformers and
others from within the state. Since renaming ceremony was taking time the RSS
strong arm outfit, Bajrang Dal strung a banner reading “Veera Savarkar
Melsethuve (flyover)” in Kannada on the flyover at Mangalore. They also wrote
“Bajrang Dal” in saffron paint on the divider of the flyover.[i]
[https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/savarkar-triggers-flyover-fight-in-karnataka/cid/1778208]
It would be a sad day not only for Karnataka but the whole country if a
seasoned collaborator of the British rulers and Jinnah led Muslim League is
glorified in any way. Let's hear from the horse's mouth what Savarkar did as a
collaborator of the enemies of India.
Savarkar’s Hatred for the Tricolour
Savarkar, like the RSS, abhorred
every symbol of the Indian people’s united struggle against the British rule.
He refused to accept the Tricolour (at that time there used to be a charkha
or spinning wheel in the middle of it) as national flag or flag of the freedom
struggle. In a statement issued on September 22, 1941 for the benefit of Hindu Mahasabha cadres, he
declared,
"So
far as the flag question is concerned, the Hindus know no flag representing
Hindudom as a whole than the ‘Kundalini Kripanankit’ Mahasabha flag with the
‘Om and the Swastik’ the most ancient symbols of the Hindu race and policy
coming down from age to age and honoured throughout Hindusthan. It is actually
sanctioned and owned by millions on millions of Hindus today from Hardwar to
Rameshwaram and flies aloft on every Hindusabha branch office at thousands of
centres. Therefore, any place or function where this Pan-Hindu flag is not
honoured should be boycotted by the Hindu sanghatanists at any rate…The
Charkha-Flag [before the present national flag it used to be the one] in
particular may very well represent a Khadi-Bhandar, but the Charkha can never
symbolize and represent the spirit of the proud and ancient nation like the
Hindus."[ii]
[Bhide, A. S. (ed.),
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s Whirlwind Propaganda: Extracts from the President’s
Diary of his Propagandist Tours Interviews from December 1937 to October 1941,
na, Bombay, 1940, p. 470-73.]
What HM
and RSS cadres did to the freedom fighters who dared to carry Tricolour would
be clear from the following words of a well-known socialist leader N. G. Goray
who was witness to an incident in 1938 when the Hindutva cadres tore up the
Tricolour and attacked those who were carrying it:
"Who attacked the
May Day procession? Who assaulted men like Senapati Bapat and [Gajanan]
Kanitkar? Who tore up the national flag? The Hindu Mahasabhaites and the Hedgewar boys did it
all…They have been taught to hate the Muslims in general as Public Enemy Number
1, to hate the Congress and its flag…"[iii]
[Nauriya, Anil, ‘The
Savarkarist syntax’, The Hindu, September 18, 2004, Delhi.]
It is to be remembered here that the British rulers were persecuting the
freedom fighters who publically carried the Tricolour in the same manner.
BACKSTABBING NETAJI SUBHASH CHANDRA BOSE
When Netaji after escaping from India (January 16,
1941) was trying to secure foreign support for the liberation of the country
and trying to organise a military attack on the northeast of the country which
finally culminated in the formation of Indian National Army, it was Savarkar
who offered full military cooperation to the British masters. While addressing
23rd session of Hindu Mahasabha at Bhagalpur in 1941, he said:
"The war which has now reached our shores directly constitutes at
once a danger and an opportunity which both render it imperative that the
militarization movement musts be intensified and every branch of the Hindu
Mahasabha in every town and village must actively engage itself in rousing the
Hindu people to join the [British] army, navy, the aerial forces and the
different war-craft manufactories.” [iv]
[Savarkar,
V. D., Samagra Savarkar Wangmaya: Hindu Rashtra Darshan, vol. 6,
Maharashtra Prantik Hindusabha, Poona, 1963, pp. 460-61.]
To
what extent Savarkar was willing to help the British would be clear by the
following words of his:
"So far as India’s defence
is concerned, Hindudom must ally unhesitatingly, in a spirit of responsive
co-operation with the war effort of the Indian government [British] in so far
as it is consistent with the Hindu interests, by joining the Army, Navy and the
Aerial forces in as large a number as possible and by securing an entry into
all ordnance, ammunition and war craft factories…Again it must be noted that
Japan’s entry into the war has exposed us directly and immediately to the
attack by Britain’s enemies. Consequently, whether we like it or not, we shall
have to defend our own hearth and home against the ravages of the war and this
can only be done by intensifying the government’s war effort to defend India.
Hindu Mahasabhaits must, therefore, rouse Hindus especially in the provinces of
Bengal and Assam as effectively as possible to enter the military forces of all
arms without losing a single minute.” [v] [Ibid., p. 460.]
Savarkar spent
the next few years in organizing recruitment camps for the British armed forces
which were to slaughter the cadres of INA in different parts of North-East
later. The Madura conference of Hindu Mahasabha concluded with the adoption of
an ‘immediate programme’ which stressed “to
secure entry for as many Hindus recruits as possible into army, navy and the
air forces”.[vi]
[Ibid., p. 439.] He also informed them that through
the efforts of Hindu Mahasabha alone, one lakh Hindu’s were recruited in the
British armed forces in one year. It is to be noted that during this period RSS
continued inviting Savarkar to address the RSS youth gatherings for motivating
the latter to recruit into the British armed forces.
SAVARKAR
DECLARED INDIA IS NOT ONE NATION
The
documents available in the Hindu Mahasabha archives are shocking
and make it very clear that Savarkar, like the Muslim League, believed that
India is not one nation but consisted of two nations as claimed by Jinnah and
the Muslim League. While delivering presidential address to 19th Hindu Mahasabha session at
Ahmedabad in 1937, Savarkar declared:
“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…India cannot be assumed
today to be a Unitarian and homogenous nation, but on the contrary there are
two nations in the main: the Hindus and the Moslems, in India.”[vii]
[Samagra
Savarkar Wangmaya:Hindu Rashtra Darshan (Collected works of Savarkar in
English), Hindu Mahasabha, Pune, 1963, p. 296.]
SAVARKAR
JOINJED HANDS WITH THE BRITISH RULERS AND MUSLIM LEAGUE IN SUPPRESSING QUIT
INDIA MOVEMENT
He
not only kept aloof from the freedom struggle but also helped the British
rulers in suppressing any challenge to their interests. During 1942’s Quit
India Movement when whole country was facing brutal repression of the colonial
masters Savarkar declared:
“The Hindu Mahasabha holds that the
leading principle of all practical politics is the policy of responsive
co-operation. And in virtue of it, it believes that all those Hindu
Sanghatanists who are working as Councillors, Ministers, Legislators and
conducting any municipal or any public bodies with a view to utilize those
centers of Government power to safeguard and even promote the legitimate
interests of the Hindus without, of course, encroaching on the legitimate
interests of others are rendering a highly patriotic service to our Nation.
Knowing the limitations under which they work the Mahasabha only expects them
to do whatever good they can under the circumstances and if they do not fail to
do that much it would thank them for having acquitted themselves well. The
limitations are bound to get themselves limited step by step till they get
altogether eliminated. The policy of responsive co-operation which covers
the whole gamut of patriotic activities from unconditional co-operation right
up to active and even armed resistance, will also keep adapting itself to the
exigencies of the time, resources at our disposal and dictates of our national
interest.”[viii]
[Italics as in the original]
[V. D. Savarkar, Hindu Rashtra Darshan,
vol. 6, Maharashtra Prantik Hindusabha, Poona, 1963, p. 112.]
HINDU
MAHASABHA LED BY SAVARKAR RAN COALITION GOVERNMENBTS WITH JINNAH LED MUSLIM
LEAGUE
The Hindu Mahasabha under his sole
leadership ran coalition governments with the Muslim League in 1940s. Publicly
defending this collusion with the Muslim League, Savarkar in his presidential
speech to the 24th session of Hindu Mahasabha at Kanpur in 1942
declared:
“In practical politics also the
Mahasabha knows that we must advance through reasonable compromises. Witness
the fact that only recently in Sind, the Sind-Hindu-Sabha on invitation had
taken the responsibility of joining hands with the League itself in running
coalition Government. The case of Bengal is well known. Wild Leaguers whom even
the Congress with all its submissiveness could not placate grew quite
reasonably compromising and socialable as soon as they came in contact with the
HM and the Coalition Government, under the premiership of Mr. Fazlul Huq and
the able lead of our esteemed Mahasabha leader Dr. Syama Prasad Mookerji,
functioned successfully for a year or so to the benefit of both the
communities.”[ix]
[Samagra
Savarkar Wangmaya:Hindu Rashtra Darshan (Collected works of Savarkar in
English), Hindu Mahasabha, Pune, 1963, pp. 479-80.]
SAVARKAR WANTED NEPAL KING TO RULE INDIA IN CASE THE BRITISH DECIDED TO LEAVE INDIA
Savarkar even preached that it
was legitimate to have the King of Nepal as ‘Free Hindusthan’s Future Emperor’
if the British leave India. His advice to the British rulers was very clear:
"If an academical [sic] probability
is at all to be indulged in of all factors that count today, His Majesty the
King of Nepal, the scion of the Shisodias[sic], alone has the best
chance of winning the Imperial crown of India. Strange as it may seem, the
English know it better than we Hindus do...It
is not impossible that Nepal may even be called upon to control the destiny of
India itself.Even Britain will feel it more graceful that the Sceptre [sic]of
Indian Empire, if it ever slips out of her grip, should be handed over to an
equal and independent ally of Britain like His Majesty the King of Nepal than
to one who is but a vassal and a vanquished potentate of Britain like the
Nizam."[x]
[Italics as in the original]
[Bhide, AS, (ed.), Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s
Whirlwind Propaganda: Extracts from the President’s Diary of his Propagandist
Tours Interviews from December 1937 to October 1941, na, Bombay, 1940, pp.
256-57.]
Savarkar
may be a 'Veer' or brave for the Hindutva camp but fact is that he wrote more
than six mercy petitions and got remission of almost 40 years out of 50 years'
conviction. If RSS-BJP is so sure of Savarkar's patriotic credentials, let them
make these writings of Savarkar public so that people of Karnataka and rest of
the country can reach an objective conclusion.
Shamsul
Islam
Link
for Savarkar's shameful mercy petitions:
Link of a truncated version which appeared in The Indian Express, Delhi, dated June 11, 2020.
https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/a-contested-legacy-karnatakav-d-savarkar-flyover-6452922/
https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/a-contested-legacy-karnatakav-d-savarkar-flyover-6452922/
[i]
https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/savarkar-triggers-flyover-fight-in-karnataka/cid/1778208
[ii]
Bhide, A. S. (ed.), Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s Whirlwind Propaganda:
Extracts from the President’s Diary of his Propagandist Tours Interviews from
December 1937 to October 1941, na, Bombay, 1940, p. 470-73.
[iii]
Nauriya, Anil, ‘The Savarkarist syntax’, The Hindu, September 18, 2004,
Delhi.
[iv] Savarkar, V. D., Samagra Savarkar Wangmaya: Hindu
Rashtra Darshan, vol. 6, Maharashtra Prantik Hindusabha, Poona, 1963, pp. 460-61.
[v]Ibid., p. 460.
[vi]Ibid., p. 439.
[vii] Savarkar, V.
D., Samagra Savarkar Wangmaya: Hindu Rashtra Darshan (Collected works of
Savarkar in English), Hindu Mahasabha, Pune, 1963, p. 296.
[viii] Savarkar, V. D., Hindu Rashtra Darshan, vol.
6, Maharashtra Prantik Hindusabha, Poona, 1963, p. 112.
[ix] Savarkar, V.
D., Samagra Savarkar Wangmaya:Hindu Rashtra Darshan (Collected works of
Savarkar in English), Hindu Mahasabha, Pune, 1963, pp. 479-80.
[x]
Bhide, AS, (ed.), Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s Whirlwind Propaganda: Extracts
from the President’s Diary of his Propagandist Tours Interviews from December
1937 to October 1941, na, Bombay, 1940, pp. 256-57.]
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