I
Modern civilization is th» atcome of scientific research and progress. Science and Der io^racy are two great potential forces in the modern wo) d Democracy defines the shape and aims of social and political endeavour. It strives for a good, just, equitable and progressive life. Good and progressive life demands an equal and proportionately just enjoyment of all the material and cultural resources and possession. Those possessions and resources are brought within the reach of men by science which controls the laws and forces of Nature and bends (hem to the services of men. While bringing about this change, science emancipates the mind of man from the bondage of superstition and ignorance. Thus science plays a dominant part in the reconstruction of every country’s life and economy, and solves its crucial problems of food, clothing, shelter, security, and peace.
Savarkar holds that the greater the domination of superstition the lesser is the tendency of the people towards science. So he raised his mighty pen against superstition from which flowed Voltaire’s satire and emanated the force of Luther ! Voltaire venerated nothing while Savarkar, like Swift, did his job with devastating candour. Voltaire smashed the ancient idols ; Savarkar swept them into a corner as historical and cultural monuments for record and research. Voltaire disfigured the idols, Savarkar debarred thern.
Savarkar ’s outlook is absolutely modern and scientific. He shows the fallacy and hollowness of time-worn and scripture- born arguments. He denounces the ideologies that describe the machine as a device of the devil invented to spite the glory of God and to strike a blow at the influence of religion and make man feeble, mechanical, helpless and heartless, leading him to his final doom. Savarkar pierces the Kripan of his reason through this false propaganda of ignorance. So he is
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to Maharashtra what eighteenth century great European reformers were to Europe.
About the God of Man and the Lord of the Universe, he has peculiar views. According to him we live in this world, but the Universe has nothing to do with us. The belief that what the Lord of the Universe likes is good and what lie likes must be beneficial to the progress of Man, is useless, because it is not true. The forces in the Universe are to a little degree for Man. but to a greater extent they are against him. What man can do at the most is to learn the laws of the Universe as best as he can, and turn them to his benefit and welfare. This is, he sums up, the real worship of the Universe.
In his view whatever contributes to human good is good, what is derogatory to the progress of humanity is bad. The definition of morality should be framed, he says, in reference to the common good of mankind. If God is kind enough to take a man out of danger, and is all pervading, who first throws a virtuous man into the flames of danger, he asks. Who sinks steamers full of men, children and women despite heartfelt prayers ? Who sets conflagration to the woods and roasts the birds, reptiles and other creatures like fishes ? Savarkar says why does God make the wicked so powerful as to be in a position to harass the good ? If God is omniscient and most kind, does he not know the innocence and purity of that good man beforehand ? Why does he at all test the virtuous man through cruel and fierce ordeals ? In this respect Savarkar is more agnostic than Ingersoll, and more balanced than Agarkar, the giant rationalist of Maharashtra.
Savarkar feels sorry that Superstition should hold its sway in our land even during the twentieth century. He observes : “ We have allowed the Britishers to crush everything that was with us, but not that precious possession of ours ‘ Our credulous superstition ’ ! ” “ Let an earthquake occur, public prayer is our remedy. Let a patriot suffer from sickness, we go to attend a crowded prayer-meeting. Let a pestilence ravage our land, and we kill goats in sacrifice to ward off the calamity. It was quite all right when we did not know the causes of such things, but to stick to these superstitions even
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when science has revealed the causes of such calamities is simply absurd,” wrote Savarkar some years ago.
Savarkar asks the Hindus to follow the cause and effect theory tiiat is never disturbed by the thought of Divine pleasure or displeasure. He points out to the people that water boils at a certain temperature and God never interferes in this process ! Oxygen and Hydrogen combined in proper proportions, are bound to yield water any day of the year whether God wills it or not ! He proceeds : “ With the aid of science, even Godless Fnssia is actually floating castles in the air in the form of aeroplanes and giant super-fortresses.” “ What actually matters is scientific accuracy and not Astrological superstition. Astrology cannot save what .science has doomed and where safety is assured by science, Astrology cannot endanger it,” he observes, in his brilliant article entitled, ‘ Machine is a boon to Mankind.’
Savarkar tells the people that it is time for them to realize that ‘ Sacrifice ’ cannot bring rains, nor can it avert a famine. He appeals to the Hindus to discard the superstitious and religious aspect clinging to their usages regarding maternity and asks them to send their women to well-equipped, well- lighted, modern maternity homes instead of galling them in dark, dingy and smoky rooms. He suggests that the corpses should be carried in a car in a decent manner and burnt with electricity.
Such a lover of science was bound to condemn the anti- machine attitude of Gandhism with its charkha fads. To Savarkar a telescope is a human eye with its capacity of vision increased a thousand times ; a telephone is but a human ear with an enormous increase in its power.
“ Machine has made man stay beneath water, rise high up in the sky. Machine has made man far-reaching, far-seeing, far-speaking and far-hearing. Machine has conferred upon man blessings which no prophets could give or no penance could secure. Mcuikind owes its present civilization entirely to the use of machine, and thus machine far from being a curse, is a wonderful boon which has bestowed supernatural powers upon this hiunan race ! ” observes Savarkar. He appeals to the nation that it is the duty of every thinking man to press
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the cause of science in every department of life. Without it, no nation can hope to survive the present stage, he adds.
To Savarkar science by itself is not responsible for the evils of Capitalism or the destructive orgy of modern war technique. It is the fault of the ways of distribution, lust for domination, and greed for exploitation. Electricity can light a bulb or detonate a bomb for the destruction of a city. Savarkar says that the evil should be checked. In short, not warfare but welfare of humanity should be the ultimate goal of science.
Savarkar stands for science and absolute science. He stands for TODAY and not for the blind traditions of yesterday. He appeals to the Hindus to test all their ancient holy works on the touchstone of science. He writes ; “ We do not regard the ancient works as all-pervading, omniscient and perfect by themselves. The Smritis and the Vedas we love reverentially, not as omniscient and unchangeable works, but as historical books and as the landmarks in the great and glorious journey of the human race.” He asks the Hindus, therefore, to test the knowledge in the ancient holy works, their laws and learnings on the touchstone of science and to follow fearlessly what contributes to the good of the nation.
To Savarkar no animal is Divine. Even the cow is meant for man ; not man for the cow. Not cow-worship but cow- protection is our national asset. He denounces the viewpoint of the Hindu leaders of the past, who, for saving the lives of a handful of cows, lost their kingdoms, their human rights, and their all. He, therefore, observes that if it is inevitable in a grave crisis to live upon beef and save human lives in India, the Hindus should also do it. The prosperity of a nation does not depend upon its capacity for penance and yoga, love of justice, or sense of virtue. History is replete with innumerable instances, he writes, which show that the wicked, cruel, unjust, and inhuman kings, conquerors, democracies and republics have smothered the weak kings and powerless democracies, though the victims were just, human and non-aggressive. Discipline, dry gunpowder, the range of guns, the edge of swords and an unflinrbing will are the factors that protect the rights and liberties of a nation. Justice and injustice have no relation to victory or defeat. Victory and defeat are quite different from justice and
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injustice. If victory and defeat have at all any relation with any other thing, it is ^‘alour, observes Savarkar. But this worship of strength, power and discipline, Savarkar say.s, should not be used for aggressive and greedy aims. He slates that justice, if weak, is futile and lame. It goes under. Injustice, if powerful, tramples upon it.
These rational views of Savarkar have impressed many pei’sons and leaders of socialist and communist leanings. They acknowledge this Savarkar to be the rationalist leader of Maharashtra. In fact, in the domain of realism, rationalism and revolutionism Savarkar has surpassed Ranade, Tilak, Agarkar and Dr. Ketkar, the giant thinkers of Maharashtra. Sri S. K. Kshirsagar, an eminent and fairly unbiased literary critic in Maharashtra, observes that Maharashtra produced two great leaders of ‘ Thought.’ They were Savarkar, and Dr. Ketkar, the compiler of Marathi Dnyanakosh. “ Savarkar’s matchless heroism,” he writes, “ and ideal patriotism had won a name and fame even before the transportation of Tilak to Mandalay. But Savarkar’s all-pervading political philosophy became known after Tilak’s death. Though Tilak was revolutionary in action, his thoughts on history, social philosophy, and poli- tics were not as deep-rooted, fundamentally revolutionary and volcanic as those of Savarkar.” ’ When a leader is accepted, Kshirsagar goes on, people have to change their entire line of thought, and Maharashtra learnt this for the first time in history from the leadership of Savarkar. Telling that Savar- kar was the first and foremost ‘ leader of thought ’ of Modern Maharashtra who gained a wide following, Kshirsagar further remarks that had Savarkar’s followers been truer to his philosophy than to its mere glorification, a far greater cult than that of the Sikhs or the Arya Samaj would have sprung up cdl over India in the form of Savarkarism. The critic’s assessment is rather a little pessimistic and less detached. Pioneers of a great cause, precursors of a revolution and prophets of a new order have never prospered in their own age !
^ K. B. Kshirsagar, Suvarnatula, p. 129.
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II
As a man of letters Savarkar has no equal in Maharashtra. There never was a greater genius born since the days of the author of Dnyaneshwari in the land of the Mahrattas. Like a cloud, Savarkar is myriad-sided. He is a volcanic writer, a heroic author, a renaissance scholar, a historian in action, a dramatist, a novelist and an epic poet whose genius earns him a place among the first few greatest geniuses of our Motherland. His creative genius is versatile and has the force and flow of the Ganges and the effluence of a volcano. There is grandeur of the Gaurishank2u-, the sweep of an eagle, pro- fundity of the ocean and the flash of lightning in all his writings. The pen and tongue of no other Indian author and orator have been so entirely devoted to the nation’s cause as those of Savarkar. His literature fills the reader with hope and courage. It inspires the patriot, stimulates the thinker and drives the soldier to fight for justice, liberty and welfare of humanity. What is more, his is the only pen that has suckled a line of martyrs, an unparalleled phenomenon in Indian literature ! To Savarkar nothing is better, higher and holier than this noble human work of uplifting his fellowmen in this holy Hindusthan.
Sri G. T. Madkholkar, an ex-President of the Marathi Literary Conference, well-known critic and at present editor of the Tarun Bharat, Nagpur, in one of his memorable articles remarks that during the last seventy-five years, Maharashtra produced eight writers worth the name who possessed great imaginative power, viz. Chiplunkar, Paranjpe, Shripad Krishna, Achyutrao Kolhatkar, Kelkar, Gadkari, Atre and Khandekar. Of these, he says, Chiplunkar and Paranjpe are the only two writers whose imagination is of the classic type. Savarkar, he says, belongs to this classic type. The critic goes on ; “ The imagination of Savarkar is not as playful and charming as the butterfly ; it has the sublime sweep of an eagle. It has not the playfulness of a spring ; it has the depth of the sea. It has not the delicacy of a creeping flowering- plant ; it has the blazing power of lightning.” One more quality and by no means a less important quaUty of Savarkar’s imagination has escaped the notice of this eminent critic. It
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is that Savarkar’s imagination is not devoid of realism. Savarkar’s imaginative power is not aimless and unbridled. It soars to the height of the Everest, but is not lost in the clouds ! It has wings powerful enough to come down to the earth. In this Savarkar outshines his two rivals, Chiplunkar and Paranjpe.
In the domain of propaganda by literature no Indian writer excels Savarkar. Pointing ‘it that the literary productions of Savaikar are dominatea . >• vigour, sublimity and idealism, Sii Madkholkar writes ; . a -arkar’s idealism in both these
respect.s — complete indepeudr ice of India and the resurrec- tion of the Hindus — is to be called uncommon for the simple reason that none else has so fearlessly advocated the cause of independence and nobody has so comprehensively preached for the resurrection of the Hindu race. It seems that his fighting temperament is not prepared to take note of the limi- tations, possibilities, or proprieties. The result is that w’hat- ever ideal he advocates assumes so intensely propagandistic and challenging a form that his writings are surcharged with the spirit of a battle-cry.” In this, Sri N. C. Kelkar agrees with Sri Madkholkar. Describing Savarkar as a man of art, Kelkar says : “ Delicacy, so inherent in art, is not apparent in Savarkar. Like the American author, Upton Sinclair, or Norris, Savarkar possesses all the force of a propagandist and is a straight hitter. He could hardly be excelled as a propa- gandist by anyone else in Maharashtra ! Whatever subject he chooses, may it be the purification of the Marathi language, or the purification of the converts, the reform of the script, or the reformation of the society, he will come out like one pouncing for a battle-field with sword in hand.” Kelkar proceeds : “ A Spartan general advised his soldier, ‘ if your sword is shorter than that of your rival, always march a step in advance.’ But Savarkar’s sword is longer in the first instance and he himself stands a step in advance of others.” Kelkar concludes : “ All the writings of Savarkar are like leaps through arches fixed with knives and blazing torches turned inside.”
Presiding over a literary function in Bombay in 1943, a renowned novelist of Maharashtra remarked that Savarkar’s pen had the force of the combined pens of the trio : Agarkar,
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Chiplunkar and Tilak. And indeed it is so ! Chiplunkar. Agarkar and Tilak, all were spirited writers. All were virile. They all had a ready pen. But while Agarkar wrote with his dry intellect like a giant. Chiplunkar wrote like a proud Pope, and Tilak wrote like a leader-general. Savarkar, how- ever, wrote like a learned rationalist and a warrior-prophet ! Savarkar is master both of thought and word. His writings ripple with human emotions and masculine force. He over- whelms you with a well-drilled army of arguments. He thrusts the kripan of reason through the shield of falsehood, treachery, superstition and hypocrisy. But the most un- rivalled characteristic of Savarkar’s excellence is that he carries his great learning easily and writes with genius and judgment. His perspicuity is peculiar ; his insight rare ! No other pen has caused such a social upheaval with the violence of spring-tides as did the volcanic pen of this man. He has lashed his social opponents with a hard rod of rationalism and crushed their opposition. His rationabstic articles on ‘ The Machine,’ ‘ God or Gunpowder,’ ‘ God of Man and Lord of the Universe,’ ‘Woman’s place in Manusmriti,’ ‘Woman’s Beauty and Duty ’ and his biting pungent articles on ‘ the Cow ’ will easily rank him amongst the greate.st social reformers of the world.
During his internment at Ratnagiri besides the several articles mentioned above, he wrote his famous book ‘ Hindu Pad-Padashahi ’ which is a history of the Rise and Fall of the Mahratta Empire. Read in conjunction with Ranade’s Rise of the Maratha Power, this book gives you the full nationa- listic and broad view of the great national movement of the Mahratta Hindus. It was a righteous war for the liberation of the Hindus against the theocratic patriotism, fanatic fury, volcanic greed and foreign domination of the Muslims. In this book Savarkar depicts in his authoritative tone the glorious spectacle of the rising Mahrattas, their insatiable central desire, and their inordinate love for re-establishing for the Hindus Swadharma and Swaraj, the God-given rights of Man. The book reveals Savarkar’s master-intellect, true insight, stately diction, great thought, and honest pride.
Here is an interesting parallel ! Both Savarkar and Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru wrote history. Both are great personalities.
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Nehru wrote for fame and glory. Savarkar wrote for the nation. Both wrote thar histories with vigour, vivacity and told their sl’iries nobly and splendidly. While Nehru is a man of immense reading Savarkar is a man of profound knowledge. Savarkar wrote with astounding originality and much philo- sophy while Nehru wrote with little originality and no philo- sophy. Nehru lavishes praise on his heroes and lashes at others. Savarkar inspires the nation and hammers out false gods. But Nehru and Savarkar, the historians, differ on the vital issues of the Indian History. In his Glimpses of World History Nehru gets a perv erted vision of Shivaji’s action in kiUing Afzulkhan. Neliru’.s angle of vision could misrepresent the most vital crisis in the life of the greatest Indian of his age. That angle of vision expressed surprise in his Discovery of hidia that Jayachand is looked upon almost as a traitor, that Hinduism was a national religion, and that Pratap regarded Akbar, the hero of Pandit Nehru, as an alien. To Savarkar, the historian, Jayachand is synonjrmous with a traitor, Akbar a symbol of foreign domination and Pratap a nation-builder. Have you heard Savarkar, the historian, on Chitor, Panipat, and 1857 ? Have you come across any History of England that does not contain the words Trafalgar and Waterloo ? Have you come across any History of India without the men- tion of Chitor ? Behold, it is Nehru’s Discovery of India.
Another great book Savarkar wrote during his internment is My Transportation for Life. It is the most convincing and inspiring work which depicts his jail life in the Andamans. If five books that will last as long as the Marathi language lasts, are selected, this stately and inspiring book will be one of them along with Dnyanadeva’s Dnyaneshwari, Tukaram’s Gatha, Tilak’s Gita Rahasya and Apte’s novel But who pays Heed ? Leading critics in Mahai’ashtra are of opinion that this book of Savarkar would occupy a prominent place among the great classics of the world. Again a great parallel. Pandit Nehru wrote a great autobiography. In his mundane way, Nehru’s autobiography is vigorous and glorious, but greatly pompous and partly spiteful.
Savarkar’s My Transportation for Life, a part of his incom- plete autobiography, is splendid, inspiring, ingenuous and stately. Nehru is bristling with views and vanity, while
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Savarkar is bleeding with a serene thought and majestic heart. If the full epic autobiography of Savarkar and the great roman- tic life story of M. N. Roy had appeared in the field by now, India would have shone in the domain of world auto- biographies with two immortal autobiographies. This Savarkar ’s book was translated into Gujarati and somehow was proscribed by the alien Government egged on by native machinations. And though on the advent of the Congress Ministry the inspiring book escaped the literary genius of Sri K. M. Munshi, the then Home Minister of Bombay, it wa.s released by Sri Morarji Desai in a straightforward, patriotic and fearless manner when he became the Home Minister of Bombay.
As a dramatist, Savarkar did not care so much for a plot or stage effect. Here the playwright lives the life of his ‘ self speaking and acting through his characters. His characters move with emotion and reason. Humour is some- times uncommon to genius, and Savarkar is no exception to it. Still all the three plays of Savarkar written during his internment are wonderfully effective. The Usshap paves the way and struggles for the well-being and welfare of the Depressed Classes and strives to bury untouchability. Written on the background of Lord Buddha’s life, Sanyasta Khadga — the Forsaken Sword — is a devastating commentary on the doctrine of absolute non-violence, and preaches that relative non-violence is a virtue. This play removes the web of absolute non-violence, and ends in showing that not the saint, but the sword protects the hearths and homes of a nation against the aggre.ssive forces in the world. Some of the characters from this drama non-violently enough do not ‘ cut ’ jokes, because the word ‘ cut ’ implies violence ! Dr. N. B. Khare as a staunch Congressman saw this play staged in Nagpur in the early thirties. As the play advanced and the guns of philosophy of the struggle for existence began to boom, Dr. Khare grew animated and to the amazement of the audience sprang upon the stage with dramatic suddenness and shouted ; “ Friends, countrymen, our country at present needs some one to preach this philosophy.” This drama ends in a tragedy. Clear was the object ! A slave country must accustom itself to the spirit of tragedy. Uttarakriya, the
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third play of Savarkar, deals with the post-Panipat period of the Mahratta history.
Savarkar wrote two novels, the Moplah Rebellion and the Transportation. The first is short, succinct and sweet with a subtle charm and satire. Originally published in Babarao Savarkar’s name — ^for Savarkar was then passing his days in internment — , the novel was acclaimed to be the best from the viewpoint of the ideal theme for a novel, by a front rank Marathi columnist, although he expressed his belief that the novel was written by Babarao Savarkar, which was not a fact. As the colummist w as a critic of Savarkar and often ungenerous, his opinion about the novel should be doubly acceptable. The second novel has a thrilling background of the magic of the Andamans, and according to some film journals, it would be a great and thrilling screen version, if reproduced.
IV
As for the role of women in life, Savarkar has definite views to offer. He believes that there is a fundamental and natural difference between man and woman. Their duties are different. So their education, too, must necessarily differ. Reformer as he is, he does not like women to obey the dictates of old useless customs.
Savarkar regards female education indispensable to the uplift of a nation ; but by female education he does not necessarily mean university degrees, although he has no objection to their obtaining the degrees without disregarding their primary duty to the home, children, and the nation. He holds that a system of education must be drawn up on new lines, and women should be given some sort of specialized training congenial to the temperament of women. A woman should be a ministering angel rather than a masculine Amazon or a Virago. She should imbibe the quality of her proverbial modesty and grace rather than mere eloquence or proficiency in mathematics. Women are the solace and comfort of heartlis and homes. The larger the number of good healthy mothers, he observes, the stronger and healthier will be the nation. Therefore, a woman’s education should enable her to enrich
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the nation with a generation stronger, more beautiful, and more patriotic than the past. The Russian woman is on an equal footing with man. Yet, does it mean, he asks, that Stalin delivers a child instead of his wife ?
To Savarkar life is an oblation. According to him a woman should look beautiful with her natural charms and try to keep it with good aids to beauty. In addition, he has something to say to a beauty about her duty ! Beauty is handed over to her, he warns, as a strict sacred trust. And that trust is eugenics. A beautiful woman who fails to fulfil this conditi(;n becomes morally guilty of a breach of trust. A nation that strives to have daughters more beautiful than their mothers and sons stronger than their fathers necessarily adds to artistic culture handed down to it through heritage ! Is this not the angle and approach of a realist, a rationalist, and a reformer ? Years after Savarkar wrote this, we find today England, France and other European countries propagating these very doctrines to arrest the decrease in population in their countries and to avoid the consequential downfall and decay of the virility of their nations.