“Behold! We enter this sacrificial fire today The first instalment of our debt of love we pay!
- Savarkar.
The excessive strain that was taxing the physical capacity of Mr. Savarkar at last broke down his health. He was attacked by high fever which developed into acute bronchitis. His developed friends and followers nursed him more tenderly than a mother would do and ultimately on medical advice removed him to sanatorium under the charge of an efficient Indian Doctor in Wells. There even while he was confined to bed he lay not idle. He began his work on the History of Sikhs and wrote articles for the Talwar and other revolutionist papers. A passage from the opening article of the Talwar is worth quoting here as it throws a flood of light on the revolutionist mentality. “We feel no special love for secret organizations or surprise and secret warfare. We hold that whenever the open preaching and practicing of truth is banned by enthroned violence, then alone secret societies and secret warfare are justified as an inevitable and indispensable means to combat violence by force. Whenever the natural process of national and political evolutions is violently suppressed by the forces of wrong, then revolution must step in as a natural reaction and therefore ought top be welcomed as the only effective instrument to re- enthrone Truth and Right. But otherwise where constitutional means that enable a people to rule themselves as suits their rightful interests best, are within reached as now in the case of England or France or America, there any attempt at secret revolutionary organization and activity and war should be held condemnable and must not be resorted to. As soon as such a peaceful and constitutional path is thrown open to us in our nation that would lead to the destined goal of our people, we would be the first to set our sternly against all secret revolutionary agitation. India must be Independent: how devoutly we wish that we could arrive to that consummation by peaceful and constitutional ways alone. But your violence has rendered it impossible. You rule by bayonets and under these circumstances it is mockery to talk of constitutional agitation where no constitution exists at all. But it would be worse than a mockery, even a crime, to talk of revolution and freest development of a nation. Only because you deny us a gun and we pick a pistol. Only because you deny us light that we gather in darkness to compass means to knock out the fetters that hold our mother down.”
However specious and unbalanced or otherwise this line of reasoning may be, it explains faithfully the working of the revolutionary mind.
Within a fortnight of his going to Wells, one evening he retired to his bed rather early as the doctor would not allow him to continue to undergo the strain of long conversation. Just then he picked up a evening papers to have a stray look at the latest news. There to his surprise he found this telegraphic message: - Ananta Kanhere, a chitpavan Brahman youth shot the Collector of Nashik to avenge the sentence of transportation passed on Ganesh Damodar Savarkar.”
Next morning an editor of a well-known English Weekly who was also staying in that sanatorium handed another piece of news of Mr. Savarkar which informed him that several of his friends in Nashik as well as his youngest brother Narayan were arrested under charges of murder, conspiracy and waging of war.
That youngest brother was the same boy of 17 or 18 years of age who had been held in custody and was strongly suspected of throwing the bomb at the Viceroy. He had only a couple of days before been released as nothing could be found to substantiate his complicity with the bomb outrage and arrived at Nashik. He met his lonely sister-in-law to her great delight, passed a day with her and before another morn rose, was faced again by the dreadful spectacle of an armed police party with a warrant to arrest him. He was snatched away. The distressed girl was once more left alone and unbefriended in this wide world.
The news of this latest assassination found the English and the India press simply mad with rage. The rabid but influential dailies openly demanded that the man at the bottom of all this nefarious revolutionary activity should immediately be made to pay the penalty of all these crimes. Everyone knew who was hinted at. But some papers going further actually mentioned Savarkar as the man and wanted to know why he was still free Savarkar’s friend and followers naturally got alarmed at this outburst of English fury and pressed Savarkar to leave England and cross over to France. The leaders in Paris too wired to him to leave England at once. Savarkar refused to budge an inch. At last the Executive Council of the Abhinava Bharat and health were most essential for the progress of the great cause they all had at heart, they most pressingly requested him to go over to Paris forthwith. They sent a gentleman to accompany Mr. Savarkar to France. III, harassed, unwilling to leave his comrades and friends behind in the thick of the fight Savarkar came down to London and was heartily welcomed there by the society. A secret meeting was convened in his honour. Most glowing and most affectionate tribute were paid by the leaders to him for his marvellous activities and sacrifice and sincerity and a hundred and one qualities of head and heart that enabled him at so early an age—for he was then 25 to transform the world of easygoing dandies that the Indian students in England generally were, into a powerful band of self-sacrificing youths dedicated to a great cause, who their reckless daring and sincerity had become a terror that seriously disturbed the rest of two Governments— the English as well as the Indian.
This was the last meeting of the Abhinava Bharat that Savarkar attended in England. He took leave of them all with a heart and parted as keenly feeling the separation of his friends then, as he done at the time he left his family at Nashik on the eve of his departure for England.
He was enthusiastically welcome at Paris by all those Indians there. His presence there naturally shifted the centre of revolutionary activity from London to Paris. There he stayed with that famous Paris lady Madame Cama. She was an old worker in the Indian cause. She had done yeoman work at the time of Dadabhai’s election for a seat in the Parliament. She thereupon got slowly disappointed of the moderate school of politics and joined the Home Rule League. She delivered several lectures in America add avowed her belief in a peaceful revolution in India. But the high-handedness of the Curzonian days and the rise of the revolutionary school led Mr. Savarkar in London soon confirmed that patriotic lady in revolutionary tenets. She soon threw herself heart and soul into the movement and did all she could to advertise the cause of Indian independence in Europe. Once while she was in Germany there was a meeting of the German socialists to take place. She was invited there. She took with her a beautifully designed tri-coloured flag of the party of Indian independence. The meeting cordially pressed her to speak on Indian questions. She rose. Every one was struck by the picturesque Indian Sadi she wore, the noble and commanding countenance she bore, the spirited soul that informed all her movements.” She is an Indian Princess!” the gazing crowds muttered. She began to speak and after a few remarkable sentences suddenly took out that little flag designed for Abhinava Bharat, unfurled it and waving it enthusiastically aloft said: “this is the flag of Indian independence. Behold, it is born! It is already sanctified by the blood of martyred Indian youths. I call upon you gentlemen to rise and salute this flag of India - of Indian independence.”
This was doubtless the first occasion on which an Indian dared to publicly unfurl a flag of national independence. Nothing could have emphasized the national idea behind that flag than the curious fact that it was a Paris and a lady who thus unfurled it before the eyes of the world.
For the first few weeks Mr. Savarkar busied himself in organizing Indians in Paris and infusing a new life into that small but influential colony of Indians. But when the work there was over he began to feel ill at ease to live there couped up. In England new Indians youths poured in by every steamer and so the propagandist work was ever on the increase. In addition to this feeling of having one’s energy circumscribed and cabined for want of larger opportunities in Paris, every mail brought distressing news about the development of the Nashik trial regarding the assassination of the Collector. In the course of the trial dreadful statements and revelations were made by the accused as to the harrowing tortures they were subjected to by the Police which were emphatically denied by the latter. Savarkar had his friends and old comrades and his youngest brother amongst the accused. The stories of untold sufferings of them all naturally told very seriously on his mind. They who had been standing by him through thick and thin throughout his life, his chums and bosom friends and brothers beloved disciples while they were now facing such formidable sufferings for actions and ideals which he in the main had goaded them on to, should he leave them now to rot in dungeons and face the gallows and keep himself at a safe distance in the gay capital of France! Was it manly!
This was the momentous question that faced the conscientious youth.
But on the other hand, was it not his duty to spare himself if but there he could serve the cause of Indian independence better than by a rash sacrifice of his life which was surely bound to be the case if he deliberately stepped in India in spite of the most reliable information that he would be arrested as soon as he touched the Indian shores? His most trusted friend pressed him thus. Mr. Shamji told him: “you are a general and must not rush to the firing line with the rank. “But the noble and brave youth, at times as sensitive as a girl, seemed to feel the compliment to him derogatory to those who were in the firing line and replied:‟ But it is only by fighting first by their side in the firing line that I can prove my worth of being exalted to the position of a general: otherwise every one would think himself, by a deceptive notion of one’s self- importance to be as indispensable, as a general and thus claim to remain at the Headquarters. Then who would fight? Will not, moreover, this kind of argument serve the cowards as a handy shield to hide their fear?”
True it was that his going directly to India was doubtless folly, as that would only serve the ends of the foe, for it was admitted by everyone, even by the enemies. That he would be arrested as soon as he landed in India. But this was not the case so far as England was concerned. People, even some of the revolutionists, had, until then, a belief that the English law would not tolerate the extradition of any person for purely political charges. The old tradition and usual boasts of the British writers that as soon as slaves touched British waters their fetters dropped. That Orsini, the Italian revolutionists who shot at Napoleon III, as well as a host of Russian, French, Chinese, and other revolutionists ever found England a place of refuge made Indians generally feel that even if arrested Savarkar were tried by the British Court the want of direct evidence was likely to defeat the Government in its purpose of crushing him altogether. There was also nothing definite to prove as conclusively as in the case of the Indian Government that the English Government had issued any warrant to arrest him or even meant to do that. Even after Curzon Wyllie’s assassination, Mr. Savarkar was left free, for no evidence powerful enough to convict him came forth. The new incident of Jackson’s assassination could not make matters very seriously worse as he was actually in England when the event took place at Nashik, and nothing showed that he had any connection with Mr. Kanhere, who was quire unknown to him. Then, if in spite of this all he persisted in leaving his guns in England and seek safety in Paris only on the strength of a suspicion of being arrested, would not that serve others also as a sufficient excuse to run away to a safer land and get panic- struck? Then who would work in England that extremely fruitful field for revolutionary propaganda? And if no one of those leadership who remained there crossed the channel out of an imaginary or merely probable fear of arrest, what right Mr. Savarkar would have to blame them or order them to remain steady at their posts facing a danger from which he was the first to run away?
The spirited youth could not tolerate this false position he was placed in work he must have. If not in India, he would go to England to resume it. That would stop demoralization of the revolutionists in England for some his co- workers were actually thinking of leaving London for the continent as he done—he would not lay himself open to the charge of living in ease and comfort and away from the danger zone while his chums and brothers were undergoing fearful miseries in cells and dungeons in India, and if at all arrested in England he would be able to advertise the cause of Indian independence all over the world far more effectively than even the trial of Dhingra could do.
Reasoning thus but still hesitating to take the last fatal step, he, on a fine morning, went out for a walk to take fresh and open air as the doctors advised him regularly to do to guard him from any further bronchial troubles. It was a sunny morn, the skies were clear, the beautiful roads so shady, so hospitable, so reviving, were dotted here and there by small ponds where the swans, and other water birds gaily quacked and cackled, and the water lilies bloomed. There Mr. Savarkar lay reclined on the lawn for a while. Then he took up an Indian paper and looked through the news column. There he found that the first trial of the Abhinava Bharatists of Nashik was over and Mr. Karve and others were sentenced to death. He scanned the names again to find if his younger brother was one of them; was surprised to find his name omitted. He got up. The swan still quacked and cackled gaily at his feet; the water lilies gracefully danced in the morning breeze, the air was refreshing.
“But,‟ as a sudden voice as if audibly demanded in a censorious tone - but what about them who are standing even now under the shadow of the gallows in India? Wouldst thou continue to enjoy these morning-walks and this fresh air and the sight of these beautiful water lilies and gay swans; while thy followers and friends and brothers are totting in cell deprived of light and food, fettered and forced to bear untold hardships—canst thou enjoy this all? The contrast was too grim! The sensitive youth shrank within himself at its sight and felt himself as a sinner if he continued any longer to lie idly touring in the luxurious parks of Paris.” I must have work! If not India I must go to England. I must risk even as my followers have done and show that I cannot merely sacrifice but even suffer. If I get arrested, well that would be the real test of mettle, I have bragged of being Pledged to face imprisonments, exiles, tortures, death in the cause of the Independence of my Motherland. Now is the time to test myself if I could bear a part of these calamities and still stand unmoved and faithful to my Faith. Youngsters who took lessons at my feet have braved the gallows and kept their pledge of fighting even unto death; should their trusted teacher and guide and friend and philosopher keep running away from shore to shore and leave them all lurch shielding myself to work greater wonders? The first great wonder that I must work is to prove my capacity and ability to work wonders by standing by guns and if the worst comes to the worst face arrests and tortures and still stand unshaken and immoveable and if possible try to frustrate the toes by effecting my release or stay out all their tortures or in the end die fighting. If I survive in spite of risking and come out unscathed from the ordeal then I might hold myself justly entitled to spare me as a general without the least danger of demoralizing either myself or my followers. Well if I don‟t survive I shall have kept my word, my pledge of striving to free India even unto death and leave a glorious example of martyrdom which in these days of mendacity and cringing political slavery is one thing wanted to fire the blood of my people and to rouse and enthuse them to great deeds. A great martyrdom: some grand example of utter sacrifice and willing suffering: and India is saved. No amount of cowardly tactics in the name of work can whip her back into life. I will risk, will myself pay the highest price—then alone I shall have right to exhorted others to risk and suffer and pay.”
Caught up in this furious mental storm Mr. Savarkar scarcely knew how he reached his lodgings. He summoned his friends, threw the piece of the news before them, argued in the above strain and though he could not convince them yet succeeded in silencing their opposition. To furnish the last goading touch there came a couple of letters from his trusted friend—one of them from no less a person than Mr. V.V.S. Aiyer, the vice-president of Abhinava Bharat, from London in which he wrote; he expected Mr. Savarkar back to London shortly. Mr. Savarkar decided to go. A hearty and loving send-off was given to him by the Indians in Paris where he had won for himself not only the admiration and trust of followers but personal affection of almost every one of them. Most jarring elements fell in a line and became fitted in a harmonious whole at his touch. Everyone who came in contact with him, even the English detectives and the editors of papers that most virulently attacked his work could not but admire and used to feel a sort of personal attachment to him.
At last the fatal step was taken. Nodding acknowledgement and appreciation of the most cordial and loving farewell waved on to him by the Indians on the station frantically flying their handkerchiefs and banners and tiny flags till the train that took him away from them was within sight. Mr. Savarkar left Paris, left France and boarded the steamer that was to re-cross the channel. Turning towards his companion he remarked: behold I take this step with a full knowledge that I shall in all probability be arrested one of these days. “But then?” inquired his companion. “Then I shall try my best to prove to myself that I can suffer as well as work. Up till now I have worked to the utmost of my capacity, now I will suffer to its utmost. For suffering is under our present circumstance bound to be far more fruitful than mere work. In fact reasoned suffering is work: only subtle because intense.
He landed on the English soil. He took a train to London. Although he expected arrest sometime or the other in England he did not expect it there and then. But as the train neared London he found himself more closely watched than was usual. The train stopped. He peeped out of the compartment-windows just before alighting down and to his surprise found a troop of detectives in plain clothes rushing towards carriage and shouting! There’s he, there’s he! That is Savarkar! He stepped down on the platform and they fell on him: he resisted and demanded who they were and if they had a warrant to arrest him. They held him fast and rudely handing informed him that he would know all a little later on in the waiting room: there the warrant was read out and he was formally taken in custody.
The news of this dramatic arrest spread like wild fire throughout London. That night he slept in the Police lock-up. He said to himself: “There! You are called upon to face that terrible fate which when it befell others, you deemed as a fortunate reward of their labours and a test of their patriotic worth and sincerity. Well, face it now as behaves a brave man.” And strange to say he felt quite relived at the thought that after all he had risked and no longer even his worst enemies could attribute to him any cowardly designs, to shirk from dangers which he goaded others to face. He soundly slept. Only the horrible cold of the stony walls of the English lock-up and want of warm covering disturbed him once or twice.
We have mentioned time and again in this sketch that ours is not the task of justifying or condemning any of Mr. Savarkar’s opinions or actions here. Here we are concerned merely to relate what actually took place, and so leaving the readers to firm their own opinions as to the expediency of the step Mr. Savarkar took in re- crossing the channel we hasten on to narrate the culminating episode of this romantic story.
Next day after his arrest he was produced before the Magistrate. The court was packed with spectators. As soon as Mr. Savarkar was escorted into the prisoner’s dock, the crowd burst into cheers. He was charged and remanded and sent to the Brixton Jail.
The limits of this sketch do not allow us to receive the details of his life in that prison, nor of the case for his extradition. Nor of the daring conspiracies to effect his rescue which some of his followers meditated, nor how the Irish and French and German people and in fact all Europe and America watched the development of the case and on account of it came to take a keen interests in Indian political struggle; or how the Portuguese, the Chinese, and Egyptians and Irish and other papers wrote warm and appreciative articles on Savarkar’s life and doing and the cause of Indian Freedom. Enough to say that the English Courts ordered his extradition to India and an appeal to the privy Council failed to upset it. The brave band of Indian Revolutionaries stood firm and daily interviewed Mr. Savarkar in the jail, raised funds to conduct his case and rendered all assistance they could to lighten his imprisonment.
When all this show was over and Mr. Savarkar was soon going to be extradited, he managed to smuggle to India a letter to inform his sister-in- law of all that had happened. He deliberately titled it as his last will and testament. For he know that going to India to be tried meant either death or transportation for life. No other alternative was possible. So then that was perhaps going to be the last letter in which he could plainly deliver the message to his sister-in- law who only the year before had to bear the shock of her husband’s being transported for life, then his youngest brother whom she brought up as her child was snatched away from her and now Vinayak for whose return to India she was anxiously looking forth was to inform her that he too was arrested, was standing at the foot of the gallows and was in no case ever to meet her again. The following free translation of that last letter will show how Mr. Savarkar acquitted himself of this most excruciating and painful duty:-
MY WILL AND TESTAMENT
I
It was the month of Vaishakh: The sky above and the terrace underneath were washed and quivered in the delightful moonlight. The dear little creeper of jai, daily fondly watered by Bal blushed and bloomed in fragrant flowers.
They were the days of summer vacation and friends and comrades, all the dear and near ones had gathered under our roof. Fame waited upon that noble band of youths and chivalry surrounded them with a halo of transparent purity and young brilliance. Their hearts were welling up with fresh love and they breathed an atmosphere suffused with noble breezes of high aspirations and chivalrous resolves. Young and tender creepers cling there to noble and aspiring trees and the townsman lovingly called that grateful garden a “Dharmashala.”
Thou served the meals; the dishes used to be juicy and inviting all the more for thy serving. The moon was delightful above and we all friends and families sat long, now musing, now lost in stimulating conversations.
Now we listen to the moving story of the Princely Exile of Ayodhaya or of the stirring struggle that set Italy free. Now we sang the immortal exploits of Tanaji or of Chitore or of Baji and Bhau and Nana. The anxious analysis that with tearful eyes recounted the cause of the down fall of our distressed Mother; the keen and watchful synthesis that planned daring schemes of Her ultimate Deliverance; the ceaseless activity that laid bare the wounds of our Mother and stirred and roused and fired the imagination of hundred of highly mettled youths to high resolves:
Those happy days, that dear company, those moonlit nights, the romantic aspirations, the chivalrous resolves and above all that Divine Ideal that informed and inspired them all and made us take up our cross and follow it! Don‟t thou remember it all?
Don‟t thou remember the stern vows and hundreds of noble youths initiated into the ranks of His Forces? The youths pledging themselves to fight and fall as Baji fell, the young girls to watch, enthuse and die as the of Chitore died?
Nor was it blindness that goaded us on to that Faith! We entered in it under the full blaze of the searching light of Logic and History and Human Nature knowing full well that those who have life must lose it, we took up our cross and deliberately followed Him! Having first called to the mind those consecrating oaths and stern vows so solemnly taken by us with that band of dear comrades and, chums, cast thou an eye on the Present! Now even a dozen years have rolled by: and yet so much is already accomplished! Cheerful indeed is the outlook!
II
The whole country is roused throughout its length and breadth! She has cast off the beggar’s bowl and put Her hand on the hilt of Her sword! Stern worship are pouring in their thousands into His Temple and the sacrificial Fire too has begun to rise in angry leading flames on His alter.
The test has come, oh ye! Who have taken the stern vows and pledged your solemn words to see the sacrifice accomplished: Who is, say! Ready to fall the first victim and immolated himself if in this roaring fire that Good may triumph over the forces of Evil?
No sooner did Shree Rama challenge his volunteer itself and pray Here are we Oh Lord! Honour us by sacrificing us first those blazing flames!
The stern vows we took to fight under Her banner in order to win Her Freedom back even at the cost of our lives have thus been fulfilled. What a relief! Blessed indeed are we that He should have given us strength to burn down the Self in to ashes before our very eyes. We have served the cause and fighting fell. This was all we aimed at!
III
We dedicated to Thee our thoughts; our speech and eloquence we dedicated to Thee, Oh Mother! My lyre song of Thee alone: My pen wrote of thee alone, Oh Mother!
It was on Thy altar that I sacrificed my health and my wealth. Neither the longing looks of a young wife vainly waiting for my return, nor the peals of laughter of dear children, nor the helplessness of a sister-in-law stranded and left to starve, could hold me back at the call of Thy Trumpet!
My eldest brother, so brave, so sternly resolute, and yet so softly loving, was sacrificed on Thy altar. The youngest one - so dear, so young - he too followed him into the flames; and now here am I, Oh Mother! Bound to Thy sacrificial Pillar! What of these! Had we been seven instead of only three brothers, I would have sacrificed them all—in Thy cause! Thy cause is Holy! Thy cause I believed to be the cause of God! And in serving it I knew I served the Lord!
Thirty crores are Her children! Those amongst them who, possessed of this Divine rage, die in Her cause shall ever live! And our family tree, Oh sister! Thus uprooted, shall strike its root deep bloom immortally. IV
And what even if it does not bloom and like all other mortal things withers and gets mixed up with the dust of oblivion! We have fulfilled our pledges and striven suppressing self to secure the Triumph of Good over Evil. To us that is enough, sacrifice is success.
Whatever it pleased the Lord to bestow on us have we consecrated to Thee today! And if ever it pleases Him to bestow on us aught else, that too would certainly be laid at Thy feet alone!
Scanning thus Thy thoughts, discriminating thus, continue, dear Vahini, to uphold the traditions of our family and stand faithfully by the cause. The divine Uma practicing severe austerities in the snow-clad Himalayas: the girls of Chittoor, with young smiles playing on their lips, mounting blazing flames—these are Thy ideals! Thou art a hero’s better half! Be Thy life as supremely heroic as to prove that radiant courage and spirit’s strength which the weaker sex of Hind displayed are not yet dimmed or diminished.
This is my last word to Thee, my will and my testament. Good-bye, dear Vahini, Good-bye. Convey my best love to my wife and this:
That it was certainly not blindness that goaded us on to this Path! No! We entered on it under the full blaze of the searching light of Logic and History and Human Nature; knowing full well that a Pilgrim’s progress leads through the valley of Death, we took up our Cross and deliberately followed Him!