'India first' had become the slogan for BJP during the 2014 general elections. But what does that mean really. For RSS and sangh parivar, India means a Hindu Rashtra, not the India we have today. Recently Narendra Modi visited the Cell in which Savarkar was jailed. An airport had been named after Savarkar by Advani. But what nobody wants to talk about is the begging mercy petition Savarkar had written to the British government, not once but several times. So now we have to think, when the Sangh says "India first" what does it mean? For Sangh, 'India' means 'Hindu Rashtra' and that is where their loyalties lie, they would do anything to attain that objective. They are not really interested in the constitution of India.
In May 1904, Savarkar started the Abhinav Bharat (Young India) Society drawing inspiration from Giuseppe Mazzini's Giovanni Italia (Young Italy) Society. While in England, he founded the Free Indian Society with a commitment to overthrowing British rule in India. After a member of the Free Indian Society killed an official in India Office (London), Savarkar was arrested and transported to the Andamans for life imprisonment. He reached the Andamans in 1910. He appealed for clemency in 1911, and again in 1913 during Sir Reginald Craddock's visit.
Savarkar was sent to the notorious Cellular Jail in the Andamans in 1911 for his revolutionary activity, Savarkar first petitioned the British for early release within months of beginning his 50 year sentence. Then again in 1913 and several times till he was finally transferred to a mainland prison in 1921 before his final release in 1924. The burden of his petitions: let me go and I will give up the fight for independence and be loyal to the colonial government. On one side there was Bhagat Sigh, who had requested the British government to send a military division to execute him and on the other side there was father of today's so called 'Hindu Nationalists' who was begging the British to let him free.
To be frank, Bhagat Singh was never respected by the leaders of Hindutva ideology. Here we should remember that though it was the British colonial powers who hanged them, there were at the time organisations like Hindu Mahasabha, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Muslim League in pre-1947 India which not only remained alien to the ideals of these revolutionaries but also maintained a criminal silence on their hanging.
It is both comic, ironical and shocking therefore that, of these three communal outfits, it is the RSS -- which consciously kept itself completely aloof from the anti-colonial struggle –that has, of late, laid claim to the tradition and contributions of these great revolutionaries. Literature is being produced and the discourse too seeks to appropriate them with false a-historic linkages to Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev.
In May 1904, Savarkar started the Abhinav Bharat (Young India) Society drawing inspiration from Giuseppe Mazzini's Giovanni Italia (Young Italy) Society. While in England, he founded the Free Indian Society with a commitment to overthrowing British rule in India. After a member of the Free Indian Society killed an official in India Office (London), Savarkar was arrested and transported to the Andamans for life imprisonment. He reached the Andamans in 1910. He appealed for clemency in 1911, and again in 1913 during Sir Reginald Craddock's visit.
Savarkar vs Bhagat Singh:
To be frank, Bhagat Singh was never respected by the leaders of Hindutva ideology. Here we should remember that though it was the British colonial powers who hanged them, there were at the time organisations like Hindu Mahasabha, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and the Muslim League in pre-1947 India which not only remained alien to the ideals of these revolutionaries but also maintained a criminal silence on their hanging.
It is both comic, ironical and shocking therefore that, of these three communal outfits, it is the RSS -- which consciously kept itself completely aloof from the anti-colonial struggle –that has, of late, laid claim to the tradition and contributions of these great revolutionaries. Literature is being produced and the discourse too seeks to appropriate them with false a-historic linkages to Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev.
Both Hedgewar (RSS chief 1925-40) and Golwalkar (1940-73), were opposed to the united freedom movement as its goal was an all-inclusive India. Golwalkar denounced the freedom struggle (Bunch of Thoughts, 1966, RSS publication) as "territorial nationalism" which "had deprived us of the positive and inspiring content of our real Hindu Nationhood and made many of the ‘freedom movements’ virtually anti-British movements". It was this ideological commitment to building Hindu rashtr in India that apart from Hedgewar who went to jail as Congressman, Golwalkar, Deendayal Upadhyaya (prominent RSS cadre since 1937) and LK Advani (RSS activist since 1942) never participated in the freedom struggle." Click here.
There is ample proof available in the documents of the RSS that establish the reality that the RSS denounced movements led by revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh, Chandrashekar Azad and their associates. Here is a passage from Bunch of Thoughts—collection of speeches and writings of second RSS sarsanghchalak MS Golwalkar— treated as a holy book by the RSS cadres—decrying the whole tradition of martyrs:
“There is no doubt that such men who embrace martyrdom are great heroes and their philosophy too is pre-eminently manly. They are far above the average men who meekly submit to fate and remain in fear and inaction. All the same, such persons are not held up as ideals in our society. We have not looked upon their martyrdom as the highest point of greatness to which men should aspire. For, after all, they failed in achieving their ideal, and failure implies some fatal flaw in them.”
Golwalkar goes on to tell the RSS cadres that only those people should be adored who have been successful in their lives. “It is obvious that those who were failures in life must have had some serious drawback in them. How can one, who is defeated, give light and lead others to success?”
Thus, according to Golwalkar’s philosophy of life, since Bhagat Singh and his companions did not succeed in achieving their goal, they did not deserve any respect too. According to his formula the British rulers would be the natural object of worship as they won and were able to kill revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh. It is difficult to find a statement more insulting and denigrating to the martyrs of the Indian freedom movement than this. Click here.
Text of the Clemency Petition will make you hang your head in shame, if you are a real patriot:
Text of Savarkar’s mercy petition to the British
The following 'Mercy Petition' has been reproduced from RC Majumdar's book PENAL SETTLEMENTS IN ANDAMANS (pp. 211-213) published by the Department of Culture, Government of India, in 1975. Interestingly, RC Majumdar is regarded by the Hindutva camp as a true Hindu historian. (Shamsul Islam).
Petition from V D Savarkar (Convict No. 32778) to the Home Member of the Government of India, dated the 14th November, 1913.
“I beg to submit the following points for your kind consideration:
(1) When I came here in 1911 June, I was along with the rest of the convicts of my party taken to the office of the Chief Commissioner. There I was classed as "D" meaning dangerous prisoner; the rest of the convicts were not classed as "D". Then I had to pass full 6 months in solitary confinement. The other convicts had not. During that time I was put on the coir pounding though my hands were bleeding. Then I was put on the oil-mill - the hardest labour in the jail. Although my conduct during all the time was exceptionally good still at the end of these six months I was not sent out of the jail; though the other convicts who came with me were. From that time to this day I have tried to keep my behaviour as good as possible.
(2) When I petitioned for promotion I was told I was a special class prisoner and so could not be promoted. When any of us asked for better food or any special treatment we were told "You are only ordinary convicts and must eat what the rest do". Thus Sir, Your Honour would see that only for special disadvantages we are classed as special prisoners.
(3) When the majority of the casemen were sent outside I requested for my release. But, although I had been cased (caned?) hardly twice or thrice and some of those who were released, for a dozen and more times, still I was not released with them because I was their casemen. But when after all, the order for my release was given and when just then some of the political prisoners outside were brought into the troubles I was locked in with them because I was their casemen.
(4) If I was in Indian jails I would have by this time earned much remission, could have sent more letters home, got visits. If I was a transportee pure and simple I would have by this time been released, from this jail and would have been looking forward for ticket-leave, etc. But as it is, I have neither the advantages of the Indian jail nor of this convict colony regulation; though had to undergo the disadvanatges of both.
(5) Therefore will your honour be pleased to put an end to this anomalous situation in which I have been placed, by either sending me to Indian jails or by treating me as a transportee just like any other prisoner. I am not asking for any preferential treatment, though I believe as a political prisoner even that could have been expected in any civilized administration in the Independent nations of the world; but only for the concessions and favour that are shown even to the most depraved of convicts and habitual criminals? This present plan of shutting me up in this jail permanently makes me quite hopeless of any possibility of sustaining life and hope. For those who are term convicts the thing is different, but Sir, I have 50 years staring me in the face! How can I pull up moral energy enough to pass them in close confinement when even those concessions which the vilest of convicts can claim to smoothen their life are denied to me? Either please to send me to Indian jail for there I would earn (a) remission; (b) would have a visit from my people come every four months for those who had unfortunately been in jail know what a blessing it is to have a sight of one's nearest and dearest every now and then! (c) and above all a moral - though not a legal - right of being entitled to release in 14 years; (d) also more letters and other little advantages. Or if I cannot be sent to India I should be released and sent outside with a hope, like any other convicts, to visits after 5 years, getting my ticket leave and calling over my family here. If this is granted then only one grievance remains and that is that I should be held responsible only for my own faults and not of others. It is a pity that I have to ask for this - it is such a fundamental right of every human being! For as there are on the one hand, some 20 political prisoners - young, active and restless, and on the other the regulations of a convict colony, by the very nature of them reducing the liberties of thought and expression to lowest minimum possible; it is but inevitable that every now and then some one of them will be found to have contravened a regulation or two and if all be held responsible for that, as now it is actually done - very little chance of being left outside remains for me.
In the end may I remind your honour to be so good as to go through the petition for clemency, that I had sent in 1911, and to sanction it for being forwarded to the Indian Government? The latest development of the Indian politics and the conciliating policy of the government have thrown open the constitutional line once more. Now no man having the good of India and Humanity at heart will blindly step on the thorny paths which in the excited and hopeless situation of India in 1906-1907 beguiled us from the path of peace and progress. Therefore if the government in their manifold beneficence and mercy release me, I for one cannot but be the staunchest advocate of constitutional progress and loyalty to the English government which is the foremost condition of that progress. As long as we are in jails there cannot be real happiness and joy in hundreds and thousands of homes of His Majesty's loyal subjects in India, for blood is thicker than water; but if we be released the people will instinctively raise a shout of joy and gratitude to the government, who knows how to forgive and correct, more than how to chastise and avenge. Moreover my conversion to the constitutional line would bring back all those misled young men in India and abroad who were once looking up to me as their guide. I am ready to serve the Government in any capacity they like, for as my conversion is conscientious so I hope my future conduct would be. By keeping me in jail nothing can be got in comparison to what would be otherwise. The Mighty alone can afford to be merciful and therefore where else can the prodigal son return but to the parental doors of the Government?
Hoping your Honour will kindly take into notion these points.” Click Here.
Petition from V D Savarkar (Convict No. 32778) to the Home Member of the Government of India, dated the 14th November, 1913.
“I beg to submit the following points for your kind consideration:
(1) When I came here in 1911 June, I was along with the rest of the convicts of my party taken to the office of the Chief Commissioner. There I was classed as "D" meaning dangerous prisoner; the rest of the convicts were not classed as "D". Then I had to pass full 6 months in solitary confinement. The other convicts had not. During that time I was put on the coir pounding though my hands were bleeding. Then I was put on the oil-mill - the hardest labour in the jail. Although my conduct during all the time was exceptionally good still at the end of these six months I was not sent out of the jail; though the other convicts who came with me were. From that time to this day I have tried to keep my behaviour as good as possible.
(2) When I petitioned for promotion I was told I was a special class prisoner and so could not be promoted. When any of us asked for better food or any special treatment we were told "You are only ordinary convicts and must eat what the rest do". Thus Sir, Your Honour would see that only for special disadvantages we are classed as special prisoners.
(3) When the majority of the casemen were sent outside I requested for my release. But, although I had been cased (caned?) hardly twice or thrice and some of those who were released, for a dozen and more times, still I was not released with them because I was their casemen. But when after all, the order for my release was given and when just then some of the political prisoners outside were brought into the troubles I was locked in with them because I was their casemen.
(4) If I was in Indian jails I would have by this time earned much remission, could have sent more letters home, got visits. If I was a transportee pure and simple I would have by this time been released, from this jail and would have been looking forward for ticket-leave, etc. But as it is, I have neither the advantages of the Indian jail nor of this convict colony regulation; though had to undergo the disadvanatges of both.
(5) Therefore will your honour be pleased to put an end to this anomalous situation in which I have been placed, by either sending me to Indian jails or by treating me as a transportee just like any other prisoner. I am not asking for any preferential treatment, though I believe as a political prisoner even that could have been expected in any civilized administration in the Independent nations of the world; but only for the concessions and favour that are shown even to the most depraved of convicts and habitual criminals? This present plan of shutting me up in this jail permanently makes me quite hopeless of any possibility of sustaining life and hope. For those who are term convicts the thing is different, but Sir, I have 50 years staring me in the face! How can I pull up moral energy enough to pass them in close confinement when even those concessions which the vilest of convicts can claim to smoothen their life are denied to me? Either please to send me to Indian jail for there I would earn (a) remission; (b) would have a visit from my people come every four months for those who had unfortunately been in jail know what a blessing it is to have a sight of one's nearest and dearest every now and then! (c) and above all a moral - though not a legal - right of being entitled to release in 14 years; (d) also more letters and other little advantages. Or if I cannot be sent to India I should be released and sent outside with a hope, like any other convicts, to visits after 5 years, getting my ticket leave and calling over my family here. If this is granted then only one grievance remains and that is that I should be held responsible only for my own faults and not of others. It is a pity that I have to ask for this - it is such a fundamental right of every human being! For as there are on the one hand, some 20 political prisoners - young, active and restless, and on the other the regulations of a convict colony, by the very nature of them reducing the liberties of thought and expression to lowest minimum possible; it is but inevitable that every now and then some one of them will be found to have contravened a regulation or two and if all be held responsible for that, as now it is actually done - very little chance of being left outside remains for me.
In the end may I remind your honour to be so good as to go through the petition for clemency, that I had sent in 1911, and to sanction it for being forwarded to the Indian Government? The latest development of the Indian politics and the conciliating policy of the government have thrown open the constitutional line once more. Now no man having the good of India and Humanity at heart will blindly step on the thorny paths which in the excited and hopeless situation of India in 1906-1907 beguiled us from the path of peace and progress. Therefore if the government in their manifold beneficence and mercy release me, I for one cannot but be the staunchest advocate of constitutional progress and loyalty to the English government which is the foremost condition of that progress. As long as we are in jails there cannot be real happiness and joy in hundreds and thousands of homes of His Majesty's loyal subjects in India, for blood is thicker than water; but if we be released the people will instinctively raise a shout of joy and gratitude to the government, who knows how to forgive and correct, more than how to chastise and avenge. Moreover my conversion to the constitutional line would bring back all those misled young men in India and abroad who were once looking up to me as their guide. I am ready to serve the Government in any capacity they like, for as my conversion is conscientious so I hope my future conduct would be. By keeping me in jail nothing can be got in comparison to what would be otherwise. The Mighty alone can afford to be merciful and therefore where else can the prodigal son return but to the parental doors of the Government?
Hoping your Honour will kindly take into notion these points.” Click Here.
Even after reading the language and tone of this letter, Sangh fans still try to justify Savarkar. They say he was actually fooling the British into freeing him, so that he could carryout his work as before. But the fact of the matter is, after Savarkar got out of the jail, he started working for the British and stayed away from all freedom struggles and activities. Savarkar and other Hindutva leaders vehemently started spreading the idea of 'Two Nation Theory' which was later picked up by Jinnah. Again, the partition of India was a British conspiracy to keep India fighting within itself, so that it would never emerge as a global power. So, it would not be surprising to say that Savarkar and other Hindutva leaders were working on British agenda of dividing the country, like the Muslim League. Not so 'veer' afterall.
Read:
- Guilty Men of 2 Nation Theory.
- Savarkar was the first to propose 2 Nation Theory: Mani Shankar Aiyyar.
- Savarkar supported the 2 Nation theory in Ahmedabad Hindu Mahasabha in 1937, followed by Jinnah 3 years later.
- Bhagat Singh and Savarkar: 2 petitions tell us the diffference between Hind and Hindutva.
- Hindutva Gang's Hatred for Martyrs Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev and Rajguru.
- Bhagat Singh's Book may leave the BJP red faced.
- Constructing RSS Role in Freedom Struggle.
- A Lamb, Lionised.
- Savarkar's Mercy Petition- A.G. Noorani.
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