I
The ideal and ideology which Savarkar laid down and propagated is called the Hindu Sanghatan ideology or Hindu Nationalism or Savarkarism. Although a natural development, an outgrowth and a manilestation of the various views and tenets upheld by several Hindu nationalists jointly, severally or individually, the ideology is put into a form and finally formulated and codified into an integrated doctrine of social and political outlook on life by Savarkar. Savarkar is there- fore to this Hindu ideology what Newton is to the Law of Gravitation or Marx to Socialism. Each of them applied his own logic to the diverse views and brought unity in diversity.
According to Carlyle, the merit of originality is not novelty ; it is sincerity. To him ‘ the believing man is the original man What is absolutely original ? Some say originality is but a pair of fresh eyes. Milton and Shakespeare wrote nothing new. Milton borrowed his description of Paradise, of Satan and many other parts of his Paradise Lost from St. Avi’tus who wrote the Expulsion from Paradise, Milton borrowed largely also from Du Bartas.- Conceding that Shakespeare found nearly all his material in the writings of others and that he was indebted to others for most of the stories of his plays, in his lecture on Shakespeare, Ingersoll states that * the question is not, Who furnished the stone, or Who owned the quarry ? but, Who chiselled the statue ? " " The originality of the philosophy of Marx has often been questioned as it is said he owed his theory of abolition of private property to Mably ; he borrowed his labour theory from Locke and Adam Smith or Ricardo and the theory of exploitation and surplus value and historical materialism from
1 Carlyle, Lectures on Heroes, pp. 118-19.
“Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, pp. 576-77.
^ Ingersoll, Lectures And Essays^ p. 91.
224 SAVARKAI? AND HIS TIM}’. S
others. But none denies that Marx is the sculptor of socialism. So, too, though there have been great Hindu leaders of pronounced Hindu thought before Savarkar or existed even in his day, none of them advocated all the principles or singly fought for thorn. They were stone-masons to this ideology, but the sculptor was Savarkar. In modern times Vivekananda. Tilak, Lajpat Rai and Hardayal were looked upon as great Hindu leaders of Thought, who .spoke and wrote about Hindu thought. Vivekananda was a great philosopher, who devoted his lifetime and great talents to the unfolding of the Hindu pliilosophy and propagated it without political bias or a desii’e to win worldly gain to Mollier India. Nevertheless, he was of opinion that a nation in India must be a union of those whose hearts beat to the same spiritual tune.’ His ideal for India was “ an Islamic body with a Vedantic heart.” -
Conscious of the separatist tendencies of the Muslims, Lajpat Rai, a staunch Hindu leader, held that Hindus were a nation in themselves because they represented a type of civilization all their own. Hardayal wrote in the Pratap of Lahore in 1925 ; “ I declare that the future of the Hindu Race, of
Hindusthan and the Punjab, rests on these four pillars — (1) Hindu Sanghatan, (2) Hindu Raj, (3) Shuddhi of Moslems, and (4) Conquest and Shuddhi of Afghanisthan and the Frontiers. So long as the Hindu Nation does not accomplish these four things, the safety of our children and great-grand- children will be ever in danger, and the safety of the Hindu Race will be impossible.” * Tilak, a representative leader of Hindu Thought, had neither the time nor an opportunity to apply his mind to the geographical iiationalism of his day. The only seer, who was conscious of this ideology in some way, was Dayananda. But unlike Savarkar, he perhaps held that there was no knowledge beyond the Vedas ; besides, Dayananda was more a social than a political force.
Sri Bhai Parmananda w’as a strong advocate of the concept of the Hindu Nation. Swami Shraddhananda and Bhai Parmananda were kin to Lajpat Rai just as Hardayal was kith to Savarkar ; but none was kin to Savarkar. There were
’ Swami Vivekananda, Lectures From Colombo To Ahnora, p. 306.
“ My Motherland Series, Sri Ramkrishna Paramahamsa, p. 16.
^ Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, Tlimights on Pakistan, p. 123.
HINDU MANIFESTO OR SAVARKARISM 225
promoters of Hindu solidarity and advocates of the removal of untouchability in Maharashtra and in other provinces too, before Savarkar. They did their work in their own way according to the demands of their times and needs as saviours of Hindusthan. There were champions of Hindu nationalism amongst the contemporaries of Savarkar. But the ideas of the social reform of Savarkar’s pi’edecessors and the politics of his contemporaries found a rare combination in Savarkar. Savarkar held definite thoughts with regard to the rejuvena- tion of Hindudom. His -ipproach to the Hindu-Muslim problem, the doctrine of iibsolute non-violence in thought, word and deed, and the foreign policy distinguishes him from all other leaders ; and his radical views about social regenera- tion and revolution, political concepts and precepts of a nation, economic policy, problem of the national script and Lingua Franca, and his ideas about a World Commonwealth or Humanism form the Hindu Manijesto of a social and political system for the Hindus in an outspoken, concise and virile foim, sustaining their struggle for existence and enabling them to contribute to the peace and prosperity of the world. No wonder then that Savarkar’s monumental work entitled Hindutva was acclaimed by Swami Shraddhananda as a message given at the dawn of a new age ; and Savarkar’s famous presidential speech at Ahmedabad giving the fundamental principles of the Hindu Nation was hailed by Bhai Parmananda as the Bible of Hindu Sanghatan.
What is Hindutva
The word Hindu is the heart of that ideology, and Hindusthan its geographical centre. According to Savarkar
“ every person is a Hindu who regards and owns this Bharat Bhoomi — this land from the Indus to the seas, as his Father- land and Holyland — the land of origin of his religion and the cradle of his faith.”
226 SAVABKAB AND HIS TIMES
Therefore it follows that the followers of Vedism, Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism and all Hill-tribes are all Hindus. Around this life-centre moves Hindutva which Savarkar defines as not only the spiritual or religious history of our people, but the history in full pervasion. Hinduism is only a derivative, a fraction, a part of Hindutva. Hindutva is not, he observes, particularly theocratic, a religious dogma or a creed. It embraces all the departments of thought and activity of the whole being of the Hindu race. Forty centuries, if not more, he states, liad been at work to mould it as it is. Prophets and poets, lawyers and lawgivers, heroes and historians, have thought, lived, fought and died just to have it spelled thus.*
What is Sanghatan? and Why?
This movement is called Hindu Sanghatan and means organization for the solidarity and strength of the Hindu Nation. But what constitutes a nation ?
What Constitutes a Nation?
A nation is a group of mankind which is bound together by some or all of these common ties such as common religion and culture, common history and traditions, common literature, and consciousness of common rights and wrongs, occupying a territory of geographical unity, and aspiring to form a political unit. When a nation realizes this ambition, it becomes a State. A nation may be without a State. A State is a governmental unit and it may have more than one nationality under its rule. By ‘ nationality ’, Mr. C. B. Fawcell, the author of Frontiers — A Study In Political Geography, understands the group of qualities which characterize the people of any one nation. French nationality, he says, is that group of qualities which distinguish the French from other European people.-
Eminent Authors on the Principles
The principal elements instrvunental in the formation of a nation are a common past, a common tradition and a will to live together. Renan defines a nation as a social group whose solidarity has been established by the sentiment of the sacrifices made in the past and of those it is still ready to make in the future.
-
Savarkar, Hindutva, p. 3.
-
C. B. Fawcell, Frontiers — A Study In Political Geography, p. 5.
HINDU MANIFESTO OR SAVARKARISM 227
In his essay on Nationality he observes that “ a nation is a living soul, a spiritual principle. . . . One is the common possession of a rich heritage of memories ; the other is actual consent, the desire to live together, the will to preserve worthily the undivided inheritance which has been handed down.” Renan proceeds ; “ The nation Uke the individual is the outcome of long past, of efforts and sacrifices, and devotion.” Prof. Harold J. Laski lays it down that it (nationality) implies a sense of special unity which marks off those who share in it from the rest of mankind. “ That unit is the outcome of common history, of victories won and traditions created by a corporate effort. There grows up a sense of kinship which binds men into oneness. They recognise their hkeness, and emphasize their difference from other men.” ^ Dr. Holland Rose writes that “ nationality is at its height a union of hearts once made, never unmade — a spiritual conception unconquerable, indestruc- tible.” * “ In reality,” observes Garner, “ a nation is not a portion of society politically organised, that is, it is not a State, but in its perfect form it is a portion of a society definitely separated from the rest of the world by natural geographical boundaries, the inhabitants of which have a common civilization, common customs, traits of character and traditions.” Mr. Israel Zangwill in his Principle of Nationalities discusses some of the factors that constitute a nation, viz. unity of religion, unity of language, possession of common traditions of suffering and of joy. By tradition he means songs, legends, stories attached to heroes, etc. “ A nationality,” states Durkheim, the Belgian Sociologist, with admirable brevity, “ is a group of which the members, for racial or merely historic reasons, wish to live under the same laws and form a State.” G. P. Gooch, an eminent historian, in his Nationalism dealing with some factors that constitute a nation, observes : “ But the strongest of all is the identity of political antecedents ; the possession of a national history and consequent community of recollections ; collective pride and humiliation, pleasures and regret, connected with the same incidents in the past.” ^
1 Harold J. Laski, Grammar of Politics, pp. 219-20.
2 Quoted in the Principle of Nationalities by Israel Zangwill, p. 28.
® G. P. Gooch, Nationalism, p. 7.
228
SAVARKAR AND HIS TIMES
Savarkar on Nation
All these tenets acknowledged as the authoritative exposi- tion of nationalism vindicate Savarkar’s stand that in Hindusthan the Hindus are a nation, and other people are communities and numerically, therefore, minorities. Savarkar observes that “ the ancient and modem history of the Hindus is common. They have friends and enemies in common. They have faced common dangers and won victories in common. One in national despair and one in national hope, the Hindu.^^ by an admirable process through assimilation, elimination and consolidation are welded together during the aeons of common life and common habitat.” Above all, the Hindus art' bound together, continues Savarkar, by the dearest lies, most sacred and mo.st enduring bonds of a common Fatherland and common Holyland. Verily the Hindus, states Savarkai’, as a people differ most markedly from any other people in the world than they differ among themselves. All tests whatever of a common country, race, religion, language that go to entitle a people to form a nation, entitle the Hindus vdth a greater emphasis to that claim.
Savarkar declares that the festivals and cultural forms of the Hindus are common. The Vedic Rishis are their common pride, their Grammarians Panini and Patanjali, their poets Bhavabhuti and Kalidas, their heroes Shree Ram and Shree Krishna, Shiva ji and Pratap, Guru Govind and Banda are a source of common inspiration. Like their ancient and sacred language, the Sanskrit, states he, their scripts also are fashioned on the same basis and the Nagari script has been the common vehicle of the sacred writings since centuries in the past.
India is dear to us, further observes Savarkar, because it has been and is the home of our Hindu Race, the land which has been the cradle of our prophets and heroes, and Gods and Godmen. Otherwise, he goes on, land for land, there may be many a country, as rich in gold and silver on the face of the earth. “River for river, the Mississippi is nearly as good as the Ganges and its waters are not altogether bitter. The stones, trees and greens in Hindusthan are just as good or
HINDU MANIFESTO OR SAVARKARISM 229
bad stones and trees and greens of the respective species else- where. Hindusthan is a Fatherland and Holyland to us not because it is a land entirely unlike any other land in the world, but because it is associated with our History and has been the home of our forefathers wherein our mothers gave us the first suckle at their breast and our fathers cradled us on their knees from generation to generation,” asserts he.
To Savarkar the Hindu na n is an organic growth and no paper-make make-.shift. It is noi a mushroom growth. It is not a treaty nation. It was not cu t’’ order. It is not an outlandish make-shift. It has grown out of this soil and has its roots struck deep and wide in it. It is not a fiction, he proceeds, invented to spite the Moslems or anybody in the world. But it is a fact as stupendous and solid as the Himalayas that border our North.
Indian and Hindu Nationalisms
The Indian National Congress believed and upheld the territorial nationalism which they called Indian Nationalism. To them a nation meant peoples living on a common land. Whoever came to India, the Arabs, the Jews, the Russians, the Germans, the Portuguese, the Greeks, they formed a nation together with the Hindus, because these new-comers also lived in India. “ Congress committed the serious mistake,” states Savarkar, “ at its very start of overlooking this fundamental, social and political principle that in the forma- tion of nations, religious, racial, cultural and historical affinities count immensely more than their territorial unity.” What they called Indian Nation Savarkar called the Indian Stale, because he believed that the Hindus could form a State with other minorities.
Savarkar found nothing objectionable in the ideal of Indian Nationalism which was in fact, says he, a noble one suited to the Hindu mentality with its synthetic trend, always prone to philosophy with a universal urge. It is also true, he believes, that the ideal of politics itself ought to be a human State, all mankind for its citizens and the earth for its Motherland. But is territorial unity the only constituent of a common Nationality ? He replies that not territorial unity, but the
230 SAVAHKAR AND HIS TIMES
religious, racial and cutural unity is what counts most in the formation of a national unit. The idea of territorial nationality alone was envisaged by the Congressites, who in general preferred to be totally ignorant of Muslim history, theology and political trend of mind. Savarkar observes that “ Moslems in general and the Indian Moslems in particular have not yet grown out the historical stage, of intense religiosity and the theological concepts of State. Their theological politics divide the human world into two groups only — ^the Moslem land and the enemy land. All lands Avhich are either inhabited entirely by the Moslems or ruled over by the Moslems are Mo.slem lands. To any other land no faithful Moslem is allowed to bear any loyalty.” Their Holy- land is far off in Arabia. Their mythology and godrnen, idea.s and heroes are not the children of this soil. Consequently, their names and their outlook smack of foreign origin. Their love is divided. Their love for India as their motherland is but a handmaid to their love for their Holyland outside India. “ The territorial patriots wanted the Hindus to cease to be Hindus at least as a national and political unit. Some of them actually gloried in disowming themselves as Hindus at all. But the Moslems remained Moslems first and Moslems last and Indians never ! ” says Savarkar.
After the fiasco of the Khilafat, the Muslims exploded the Congress myth of territorial nationalism by migrating to Moslem lands. Greece, Palestine and even Hungary and Poland have thousands of Moslems amongst their nationals. China has crores of Moslems. And still the country of the Poles continues to be Poland, of the Grecians Greece. There the Moslems did not dare to distort them, but are quite content to distinguish themselves as Polish Moslems or Grecian Moslems or Chinese Moslems. But the Indian Moslems never identified their aspirations with the national aspirations of Hindusthan. Gokhale had realised that the ‘ seventy millions of Mohammedans were more or less hostile to the national aspirations,” * and warned Devi Sarojini Naidu that the Hindu-Moslem Unity would never come in their lifetime.® Sir Pherozeshah Mehta had warned the British Government
J Prof. S. R. Parasnis, Namdar Gopal Krishna Gokhale, p. 74.
2 G. A. Natesan & Co., Sarojini’s Speeches and Writings, p. 26.
HINDU MANIFESTO OR SAVARKARISM 231
against the unjust Muslim claims.’ Lala Lajpat Rai had fully realized the danger of the separatist tendencies of the Muslims and Dr. Annie Besant had foretold h. her Future of Indian Politics as early as 1922 that the p’ m? -y allegiance of Muslims was to Islamic countries, not to o ir lotherland,” and warned in her memorable words : “ In tl i iking of an Independent India, the menace of Muslim ruic las to be considered.- As late as 1941, Dr. Ambedkar expr^’.-sed the same kind of grave doubt about Moslem allegiance t( India when he said, “ Islam can never allow a true Muslim to adopt India as his Mother- land and regard a Hindu as his kith and kin.” ■'
So far as the Hindus are concerned, says Savarkar, there can be no distinction nor conflict in the least between their commimal and national duties, as the best interest of Hindudom are simply identified with the best interests of Hindusthan as a whole. The truer a Hindu is to himself as a Hindu, holds Savarkar, he must inevitably grow a truer national as well. The Hindus are the bedrock on which the Indian Independent State could be built. He asserts : “ A
Hindu patriot worth the name can’t but be an Indian patriot as well. To the Hindus Hindusthan being the Fatherland and Holyland, the love they bear to Hindusthan is boundless. That is why they predominate in the national struggle that is going on for the overthrow of the British yoke. Even the buried bones in the Andamans would assert this fact.” Savarkar further declares that “ we Hindus must have a country of our own in the solar system and must continue to flourish there as Hindus — descendants of a mighty people.” Hence their solidarity, unity and strength should be kept intact. So Shuddhi for him has not only a religious, but also a political, national and a secular meaning. If the population of the Hindus dwindles and the strength of the other faiths out- numbers them, there would be a serious threat to the building of peace and prosperity, nay, to the very existence of Hindusthan.
Savarkar beUeves in the resurrection of the Hindus, who have stood by the graves of empires and civilizations that
- Sir V. N. Chandavarkar, Presidential Address at Calcutta, p. 6.
2 George S. Artindale, The Mahratta, dated 22-7-1942.
2 Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, Thoughts on Pakistan, p. 333.
232
SAVARKAR AND HIS TIMES
prospered in other parts of the world. He believes that there is some such virility and staying power inherent in the Hindu race as find few parallels in the annals of the world. There- fore, he observes, that amidst the terrible struggle for existence, which is incessantly going on in (he creation, survival of the fittest is the rule. The Hindus survived the national cataclysms because they were found the fittest to survive.
Justifiable Nationalism
To those who say that the concept of the Hindu Nation is parochial, Savarkar asks whether or not the concept of an Indian Nation itself is parochial in relation to the Human State. “ Why are you an Indian patriot and not an Abyssinian one, and go there and fight for their freedom ? Some Englishmen born in this territory are and may continue to be Indians. Can, therefore, the overlordship of these Anglo- Indians be a Swaraj to the Hindus ? Aurangzeb and Tipu, too, were hereditary Indians. Did that mean that the rule of Aurangzeb or Tipu was a Swaraj to the Hindus ? No ! Although they were territorial Indians, they proved to be the worst enemies of Hindudom, and therefore a Pratap, a Shivaji, a Guru Govindsingh or the Peshwas had to fight against the Muslim domination and establish a real Hindu Swaraj,” thus argues Savarkar.
“ In fact, the Earth,” Savarkar observes, “ is our Motherland and Humanity our nation. Nay, the Vedantist goes further and claims this Universe for his country and all manifestations from the stars to the stone his own self. O brothers, the limits of the Universe — ^there the frontiers of my country lie, says Tukaram. Why then take the Himalayas to cut us off from the rest of mankind, and deem ourselves as a separate nation as Indians and fight with every other country and the English in particular who after all are our brothers-in- humanity ! ” The fact, says Savarkar, is that all patriotism is more or less parochial and communal and is responsible for the dreadful wars throughout human history.
But according to Savarkar there is an acid test for distinguishing a justifiable nationalism or communalism from
HINDU MANIFESTO OR SAVARKARISM 233
an unjust and harmful one. So long as, states he, a nation or a community tries to defend the just and fundamental rights of a particular nation or a people or a community against Ihe unjust and overbearing aggression of other human aggregates and does not infringe on the equal and just rights and liberties of others, it cannot bo condemned or looked down upon simply because the nation or community is a smaller aggregate in itself. But when a nation or community treads upon the rights of .sister nations or co iivunities, he continues, and aggressively stands in the wr. o’ forming larger associations and aggregates of mankind, its nationalism or communalism becomes condemnable from a human point of view.
nationalism, says Savarkar, when it is aggressive ia as immoral in human relations as is communalism w’hen it tries to suppress the equitable rights of other communities and tries to usurp all to itself. But when Communalism is only defensive, it is as justifiable and human as an equitable nationalism itself. The Hindus, Savarkar reiterates, do not aim at usurping what belongs to others. They do not want any special privileges, but they will not allow themselves to be exploited.
Muslims and Minorities
Savarkar was for Hindu-Muslim unity and contemplated a non-seclarian State for India. He held that it w’as as suicidal as ridiculous to borrow hostilities and combats of the past only to fight them out into the present, because Shivaji and Aurangzeb had done it.^ But he justified the past struggle of the Rajputs, the Sikhs and the Mahrattas to overthrow the Mogul rule as he considered, “ as long as the Muslims lived in India in the capacity of alien rulers, so long, to be willing to live with them as brothers was to acknowledge national weakness.” ^ So he was never prepared to accept the Muslim domination or their demand for vivisection of India. He contemplated that kind of unity which would go to create an Indian State in which all citizens irrespective of caste, creed, race or religion were treated all alike on the principle of ‘ one
1 Savarkar, Foreword to Hindu-Pad-Padshahi.
2 Savarkar, The Indian War of Independence of 1857, p. 75.
234 SAVARKAR AND HIS TIMES
rnan one vote.’ In this view Savarkar was not far away from the realistic approach of Gokhale, Pherozeshah Mehta, Dr. Annie Besant or Dr. Ambedkar. But Savarkar did not want the majority to go on its knees to the recalcitrant minority. Therefore, he considered that seeking unity on the part of the majority was losing it. To those who believed that the third party, i.e. the British Government, was the hindrance to the Hindu-Muslim unity, he asked, “Who set Muhammad Bin Quasim, Mahomed of Gazni and Aurangzeb to lay India waste with a mad fanatic fury ? Were they the creations of the third party, the Britishers ? ” He warned the Hindu- Muslim unity-hankerers that the real question at the root of the Muslim opposition, displeasure and problem was not a word here or a song there. The Muslims cherished secret designs to disintegrate the Indian State and to create a State within a State or subvert the national State and m the end wanted to brand the Fatherland of the Hindus and other non-Muslim sections in Hindusthan with the stamp of self-humiliation and Muslim domination. He, therefore, denounced this attitude and declared to the non-Hindus and especially to the Muslims : “ 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.”
Savarkar further explained his attitude towards the minorities in general. The Parsees, he stated, amongst the other minorities were by race, religion, language and culture most akin to the Hindus. They had been loyal to India and had made her their only home. They had produced some of the best Indian patriots and revolutionaries like Dadabhai Naoroji and Madame Cama. He, therefore, said that the Parsees would be incorporated into the common Indian State with perfect equal rights and trust.
The Christian minority, Savarkar observed, was civil, had no extra-territorial political designs against India, was not linguistically and culturally averse to the Hindus and therefore could be politically assimilated with the Hindus. Only conversion, he added, should be made voluntary and on a legitimate basis.
HINDU MANIFESTO OR SAVARKARISM 235
As to the Jews in India, he said, they were too few and had given no political or cultural troubles and were not in the main a proselytizing people. They willed, he continued, to be friendly towards the Hindus who had sheltered them when homeless, and could be easily assimilated in a common Indian
Thus the problem of minorities was not at all the problem of all minorities, but the problem of only one minority— the Muslim minority.
And so tar as tbe Muslim community was concerned, Savarkar said, every equitable treatment which an Indian citizen could claim on an equality of footing with others in respect of language, religion and culture, could be given to them, but they should be held as suspicious friends for at least some years to come for their extra-territorial designs.
Nationalism and Humanism
Savarkar believes that nationali.sm is but an inevitable step towards the goal of Humanity and Pan-Human State. Thirty years ago he wrote that he believed in a universal State embracing all mankind and where all men and women would he citizens working for the fruits of the earth, the sun and the land which constitute the real Motherland and Fatherland of Man. In fact he said, the world was our country and humanity was our religion and patriotism. In his youth he wrote that history was to be studied to weld humanity into a World Commonwealth. But while the process and struggle, he said, was going on for welding humanity into a World Common- wealth, the weak people had gone under and the fittest had survived. “ Therefore,” he warned the Hindus, “ before you make out a case for unity, you must make out a case for survival as a national or a social human unit.” ’ This made him devote all his energy to Hindu Nationalism as he believed that Hindu consolidation was a step inevitable in the realiza- tion of the ideal of a Human State or a World Common- wealth. Savarkar stressed this point in a recent letter to Guy A. Aldred, editor of The Word, Glasgow. He said : “ I hold that although Mankind must march on through nationalism and federalism, through larger and larger statal incorporations
’ Savarkar, Foreword to Hindu-Pad-Padshahi.
236 SAVARKAR AND HIS TIMES
to their ultimate political goal, yet t&e goal is not and cannot be nationalism but Humanism, neither more nor less. The ideal of all Political Science and Art must be a Human State.” “ The Earth is our real Motherland, mankind our Nation and a Human Government based on equality of rights and dutie.s is or ought to be our ultimate political goal.” This was a message sent by Savarkar to the World Fellowship Institution at Conway, which had chosen him for presiding over their Annual Session in 1944, which he could not do for reasons of health.
Thus being a realist and rationalist Savarkar warned the Hindus in these words ; “ As long as the law of evolution that lays down the iron command ‘ that the weak and the cowards are always the victims of the strong and the courageous ’ is too pensistent and dangerously imminent to be categorically denied by the law of righteousness whose mottos shine brilliantly and beautifully — ^but as the stars in the heavens do, — so long the banner of nationality will refuse to be replaced by that of Universality.^ Savarkar declared in unmistakable terms that as long as the whole world was red in tooth and claw and the national and racial distinction so .‘Strong as to make men brutal, so long if India had to live at all a life whether spiritual or political according to the light of her soul, she must not lose the strength born of national and racial cohesion.- Therefore, Savarkar again emphasizes :
“ As long as every other ‘ Ism ’ has not disowned its special dogmas, whichever tend into dangerous war cries, so long no cultural or national unit can afford to loosen the bonds, especially those of a common name and a common banner that are the mighty sources of organic cohesion and strength.”* He substantiated his point by citing the failure of Buddhism. Though a universal religion without any the least ulterior end in view, it could not, Savarkar observed, eradicate the seeds of animal passions or of political ambitions. He, there- fore, asked the Hindus to be on their guard against the Mumbo Jpmbo of Universalism and non-violence which crush the
1 Savarkar Hinduiva, p. 30.
2 /bid., p. 19.
2 Ibid., p. 67.
HINDU MANIFESTO OR SAVARKARISM 237
faculty even of resisting sin, crime and aggression, nay, kill the very sense of wrong and the power of resistance.
Savarkar n ylfs the Hindus to take Universalism cautiously.
He observes : “ What was the use of a universal faith that instead of soothing the ferociousness and brutal egoism oi the nations only excited their lust by leaving India detencelesa and unsuspecting?”* Nevertheless, describing the glory and grandeur of Buddha, he .says: “But as it is. thou art ours as truly as Sbri Rama or ‘^bri Krishna, or Shri Mahaveer had been, and as thy words were but echoes of yearnings of our sou, t\vy vision^:, dreams oi our taco ; eveiv
so, i£ ever ibe law ot rigliteousuess rules triumplrant on ihls our human plane, then thou wilt find that the land t\va\ cradled thee, and the people that nursed thee, will have contributed most to bring about the consummation if indeed the fact of having contributed thee has not proved that much already.’” - What heaps of books and lakhs of preachings on Buddlia could not expound, Savai’kar did in a paragraph !
So from the point of nationalism, humanism and univer- salism, Savarkar gives his immortal message to the Land of Karmay the land of the Vedas, the land of Rama, Krishna, Buddha, Mahaveer, Vikramaditya, Shalivahan, Pratap, Shivaji, Guru Govindsingh, Banda, Dayananda, Vivekananda and Tilak : “ Therefore, ye, O Hindus, consolidate and
strengthen Hindu nationality : not to give wanton offence to any of our non-Hindu compatriots, in fact to any one in the world but in just and urgent self-defence of our race and land ; to render it impossible for others to betray her or to subject her to unprovoked attacks by any of those ‘ Pan-isms ’ that are struggling forth from continent to continent ! ’’ “ As long as other communities in India or in the world,” Savarkar concludes, “ are not respectively planning India first or mankind first, but all are busy in organising offensive and defensive alliances and combinations on entirely narrow racial or religious or national basis, so long, O Hindus, strengthen if you can those subtle bonds that like nerve-threads bind you in One Organic Social Being. Those of you who in a suicidal fit try to cut off the most vital of those ties and dare to disown the name Hindu will find to their cost that in doing so they
’ Savarkar, Hindutva^ p. 21. - Ibid., p. 30.
238 SAVABKAR AND HIS TIMES
have cut themselves off from the very source of our racial Life and Strength.” *
“Thirty crores of people with India for their basis of operation, for their Fatherland and for their Holyland, with such a history behind them, bound together by ties of a common blood and common culture, can dictate their terms to the whole world. A day will come when mankind will have to face the force. Equally certain it is that whenever the Hindus come to hold such a position whence they could dictate terms to the whole world — those terms cannot be very different from the terms which the Gita dictates or the Buddha lays down. A Hindu is most intensely so, when he ceases to be a Hindu ; and with a Shankar claims the whole earth for a Benares — Varanasi Medini — or with a Tukaram explains ‘ my country ? Oh brothers, the limits of the Universe — there the frontiers of my covmtry lie,’ ” sings the vedic soul of Savarkar.^
n
Relative Non-Violence and Absolute Non-Violence
The peace and prosperity of mankind is the central aim of Savarkarian philosophy. To Savarkar what is conducive and whatever contributes to the human good is moral, justifiable, desirable, and just. To it relative non-violence is a virtue and absolute non-violence is not only sinful, but immoral. Savarkar, therefore, hates the monomaniacal principal of absolute non-violence. A lione.ss besmeared with a deer’s blood suckling her cubs at her breast is his nature’s picture. He believes that man could not have saved himself from complete extinction had he not succeeded in adding strength of artificial arms to his natural arms. He tells you that the lesson is branded on every page of history down to the latest page that nations which, other things equal, are superior in military strength are bound to survive, flourish and dominate while those which are militarily altogether weak are politically subjected or cease to exist at all. Who will doubt this truth ?
I Savarkar, Hindutva, pp. 116-17.
^Ibid., p. 117.
HINDU MANIFESTO OR SAVARKARISM 239
In fact, says Dr. Dean Inge, history is to remain a dismal oniugation of the verb ‘ to eat ’ in the active and passive. Hindu soul aims at equality not only between human beings, u,t abo equality amongst all beings. Therefore HindusVban nreached and practised that strained water be given for horses InA even corn-throwing centres be opened in the oceans so that big fishes should not swallow little ones. But while Buddhism was at its meridian, the Huns and the Shaks came
down like an avalanche upon India and trampled under their feet Hindu families, their thrones, and their Gods. Pointing this to the Hindus, Savarkar tells them that the Holy land of their love was devastated and sacked by hoards of barbarians, so inferior to them in language, religion, philosophy, mercy and all the soft and human attributes of man and God ; — ^but superior to them in strength alone — strength that summed up its creed, in two words — Fire and Sword ! In trying to kill killing India got killed and at last found that palm leaves at times are too fragile for steel. But during the days of Vikramaditya and Shalivahan valour accomplished what formulas had failed to do. Therefore, Savarkar concludes : “ We denounce the doctrine of absolute non-violence not because we are less saintly, but because we are more sensible ! ” The truth of this doctrine was demonstrated later on in practice by the protagonists of the doctrine of non-violence in the measures adopted by them in Hyderabad, Kashmir and elsewhere.
Savarkar is one with the greatest of world thinkers in this view. The controversy between the cult of absolute non-violence and the principle of relative non-violence is age-long. All the saviours of humanity have supported the principle of relative non-violence. In Hindusthan, Manu’s immortal epigraphic command that an aggressor must be killed instantly, stands out distinctly. The great Shakespeare lays down that arms are fair when the intent of bearing them is just. Thomas Paine denounced the Quaker cult during the American War of Independence. “ I am thus for a Quaker,” says Paine, “ that I would gladly agree with all the world to lay aside the use of arms and settle matters by negotiation, but unless the whole world wilb, the matter ends and I take my musket and thank heaven He has put it in my
240 SAVARKAR AND HIS TIMES
power. . . . We live not in a world of angels. The reign of satan is not ended, neither can we expect to be defended by miracles.” At another time he declai*es : “ Wherefore, if you really preach from conscience and mean not to make a political hobby-horse of your religion, convince the world thereby proclaiming your doctrine to our enemies for they likewise bear arms. . . . Preach repentance to your king and warn him of eternal ruin … ye would not spend your invectives against the injured and insulted only, but like faithful ministers, cry aloud and spare none.” ^ President Masaryk asked Tolstoy, the Russian apo.stle of the doctrine of absolute non-violence, why should a peace-loving man void of evil intent be slain and not the man of evil purpose who kills. SavarkiU’ in his immortal work The Indiav War of Independence of 1857, observes : “ When Humanity will reach the goal of universal justice, of ultimate beatitude, when the millennium preached by the incarnations, by the Messiahs, and by religious preachers will be an accomplished fact on earth, when the resignation taught by Christ in the glorious words ‘ Whosoever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also ’ will be impracticable — ^because, there will be no one to hit on the right cheek, in such a divine age, if anyone revolts, if anyone sheds a drop of blood, if anyone even whispers the word revenge, then at once, the sinner by this act, by his very utterance, would be eternally damned. For, when truth reigns in every heart, revolt must be a heinous sin. When everyone abhors killing, to shed a drop of blood must be a sin.” -
Savarkar continues in his rational approach to this problem : “ But so long as that divine age has not arrived, so long as the highly auspicious end remains only in the lines of saintly poets and in the prophecies of the divinely inspired, and so long as, even to nxake that state of universal justice possible, the human mind has to be busy eradicating sinful and aggressive tendencies, so long, rebellion, bloodshed and revenge cannot be purely sinful.”
Savarkar believes that revolt, bloodshed and revenge have
1 Watts & Co., Some of Paine’s Masterpieces, pp. 35-36.
2 Savarkar, The Indian War of Independence of 1857, p. 273.
- Ibid.
HINDU MANIFESTO OR SAVARKARISM 241
often been instruments created by nature to root out injustice and introduce an era of justice. He proceeds : “ And when justice uses these terrible means for her salvation, the blame of it does not lie on justice but on the preceding cruel injustice, the power and insolence of which called forth the means. We do not hold the justice which gives the death sentence responsible for bloodshed, but rather the injustice which is taken to the gallows.’’ Savarkar brilliantly concludes : “ Therefore the sword of Brutus is holy. Therefore, the Waghanakh of Shivaji is sacred. Therefore, the bloodshed in the revolutions in Italy is of fair fame. Therefore, the beheading of Charles I is a just deed. Therefore, the arrow of William Tell is divine. And the sin of brutality falls heavily on the heads of those who committed the provoking injustice.” ^
Savarkar also believes that had the world no fear of revolt, bloodshed and revenge, the earth would have bent under the devil-dance of unchecked robbery and oppression. “ If oppression were to be secure,” he observes, ‘‘from the fear that Nature would, sooner or later, create the avenger of temporary injustice, the whole world would have swarmed today with Tsars and Robbers ! But because every Hiranya- Kashipu has his Narasimha ; because every Dushshasana has his Bheema ; because every evil-doer has his avenger, there is still some hope in the heart of the world that injustice cannot last.” -
But in India when Savarkar was passing his days in internment the political leaders had made a hobby-horse of the doctrine of non-violence and offered their advice to the insulted, enslaved and the butchered Hindus, supporting indirectly Nietzsche who believed that the resignation of Christianity was meant for the defeated and the down- trodden ! In no enslaved country humbled to dust, the doctrine of absolute non-violence has ever been discussed in so dry, dull, futile and longwinded a manner as has been done on the advent of Gandhian leadership in India ! This futile discussion and reiteration of this doctrine bankrupted the wit, baffled the brains, benumbed the revolutionary fervour, and
1 Savarkar, The Indian War of Independence of 1857 y p. 274.
2 Ibid.
16
242 SAVARKAR AND HIS TIMES
seduced the hearts of the Hindus, softening their limbs and stiffening the bones of the enemies ! Leader after leader blew hot and cold in the same breath while dealing with this doctrine. Some clianged sides, abjui-ed their faith, revoked their statements, and condenmed their former patriotism and even previous life. Devi Sarojini Naidu, who sang of the Gandhian doctrine in her later life, had shouted from the Lucknow Session of the Indian National Congress in 1916 : “ It may seem a kind of paradox that I should be asked to raise my voice on behalf of the disinherited manhood of the country, but it is suitable that I, who represent the other sex, that is, the mothers of the men whom we wish to make men and not emasculated machines, should raise a voice on behalf of the future mothers of India to demand that the birth-right of their sons should be given back to them, so that tomorrow’s India may be once more worthy of its yesterday. . . . The refusal of the privilege, that gifted privilege and inalienable right to carry arms, is to insult the very core of their valiant manhood ! ” '
Such was the realistic tone of politics of Tilak’s India. But these very leaders and patriots like Sarojini Naidu became parrots and perched on the cult of absolute non-violence of Gandhism and made a paradox of their politics by thrusting down the throats of youths the opiates of absolute non-violence in season and out of season. The effect was tremendous and terrible. For a time the revolutionary urge cooled down in the country to a great extent, and people lost even the sense of resisting crime and aggression and at last the emasculated Hindu nation feU an easy prey to the organized and furious Muslim violence, and was torn to pieces ! The lambs resolved to lead a vegetable life, but the wolves were not concerned with their pious resolution ! It was Savarkar alone who raised his mighty voice against this suicidal doctrine and applied most of his herculean energy to the task of warning the leaders and the Hi|ndus against the impending holocaust that was soon to overtake them. Savarkar’s was a peculiar Maharashtrian approach. Even the great Maharashtrian saint, Tukaram, sings in a fit of practical righteousness :
• G. A. Nate^n & Co., Sarojini^s Speeches & WriHngSt p. 7B.
HINDU MANIFESTO OR SAVARKARISM 243
“ Kill the scorpion, the despiser of the worship of God, if it enters the shrine ; give tit for tat. No mercy to the wicked.”
Revolutions: Why and How
Savarkar’s thoughts on the how and why of a revolution are noteworthy.
“ A revolution is evolution in leaps.”
“ Revolutions are not r. alated by fixed laws. They are not accurately working rs d ines like clocks and watches. They have their own way o. marching. They can only be regulated by a general principle ; but they brusli away minor rules by their very shock. Revolution has only one watch- word — ‘ Dash on ! ’ All sorts of new and unthought of circumstances might arise during its progress ; but one must stop, one must overcome them and press forward.” *
“ There is no other life-killing poison to a revolution than indecision. The sooner and the more sudden the spreading of a revolution, the greater are its chances of success. If delay is made after the first start and breathing time is given, the enemy gets time to guard himself ; those who rise prematurely lose confidence, when they see no one joining them ; and a clever enemy, profiting by the past, puts obstacles in the way of those who want to rise later. Therefore, to give the enemy time between the first rising and the spreading of a revolution is always harmful to the revolution.” “
“ The destruction of individuals, of society and of Kingdoms is caused as much by anarchy as by foreign rule, as much by the absence of any bond as the presence of cruel bonds. If any revolution forgets this sociological truth it generally kiUs itseK in the end. . . . That revolution which destroys injustice and oppression is holy. But when a revolution roots out one kind of injustice and oppression and plants, at the same moment, the seeds of another kind, it becomes at once unholy and the seeds of destruction accompanying that sin soon put an end to its life. . . . The moment the foreign power is destroyed, in order to guard the country from the evils of anarchy, a constitution liked by the majority of the people
1 Savarkar, The Indian War of Independence of 1857, p. 159.
2/Wd., p. 128.
244 SAVARKAR AND HIS TIMES
should be at once established and that constitution should be obeyed with reverence by all. In short, the rule should be revolution outside and constitution within, chaos outside and cosmos within, sword outside and law within.” '
On Foreign Policy
Savarkarism advocates that Indian foreign policy should hinge on a very practical stand, on the principle of serving, safeguarding and promoting the national self-interest, Savarkar avers that it should not depend on isms. The sound principle, he observes, in politics lays it down that no form of Government or political ‘ ism ’ is absolutely good or bad under all circumstances to all people alike. He, therefore, thinks it inadvisable to dictate to Germany, Japan, Italy or Russia to choose a particular form of Government. Democracy itself demands that the will of the people must prevail in choosing their own Government. Naturally he holds that all those nations that are friendly or likely to be helpful to the Hindu Nation would be friends and allies of Hindusthan. To him, no academic and empty slogans of Democracy or Nazism or Fascism can be the guiding principle to India’s foreign policy. He says we should never hate or love Fascists or Bolshevists or Democrats simply on the ground of any theoretical or bookish reasons. There was no reason, he said, to suppose that Hitler was a human monster because he passed off as a Nazi or Churchill was a demi-God because he called himself a democrat. Savarkar wants Hindusthan to maintain a policy of neutrality towards all nations in the world in respect of their internal affairs or mutual relations with each other.
All nations look first to their own security and prosperity while dealing with international problems. They make or unmake pacts with this end alone in view. Let alone the history of pacts and treaties which Britain made with Indian Princes, what great nations have stood by their pledges ? By an agreement the U.S.A. was pledged to protect Korea. In 1905 Japan swallowed Korea and U.S.A. was the first nation to recognize the Korean conquest ! France and Columbia
^ Savarkar, The Indian War of Independence of J857, pp. 348*49.
HINDU MANIFESTO OR SAVARKARISM 245
know how U.S.A. stood by the pledges given and agreements made wi.h them. The world knows the fate of Nine-Party Treaty of Brussels to stop Japanese Aggression. They orated and adjourned. The history of the Treaty of Rapallo, the Treaty of Berlin, the Treaty of 1933 and the dramatic end of the Non-Aggression Pact of 1939 between Germany and Russia is stunning and shocking. Why, in the last week of December 1948. President Truman declared that contracts were not sacred to Soviv’ Government. Savai’kar believes that a powerful centralised -tate of Hindusthan will contribute effectively to build up an endurable and enduring peace for the world because her role is neither selfish nor aggressive.
Economic Problem
As regards the economic problem, Savarkar’s approach is at once rationalistic and nationalistic. Savarkar is not an orthodox Hindu, so also he is not a believer in mechanical and orthodox socialism. He is not one with Manu or Marx. According to him man has got a stomach, but stomach is not the man. The Cliristian maxim that man does not live by bread alone appeals to him. Savarkarism believes in the spiritual truth that racial, cultural, national and several other aspects also go to constitute the human nature. Therefore, he believes that the attempt to interpret all human history and human activities in economical terms alone is altogether one-sided and amounts to maintaining that man has no other urge in him to live but hunger.
Savarkarian outlook on life holds that besides hunger — the problem of bread — ^man has other appetites as fundamental as that, sensual, intellectual, sentimental, some national, some acquired, some personal, some social, and his Being is complex ; so also is his history. Savarkarism considers that the solution suggested to the effect that the economical community of interests provides the only and the best solvent of all religious, racial, national and other antipathies that divide mankind in the world is as superficial as simple. The fact that in Europe, Savarkar asserts, the very races and nations wherein the prophets of this school arose and preached their doctrines and where giant efforts were made to
246 SAVARKAR AND HIS TIMES
revolutionize all human institutions and recast them into this economical mould alone ; religious, racial and national differences have been assuming formidable proportions and have been persisting to assert themselves in Germany, Italy, France, Poland, England, Spain, etc. in spite of centuries of the most intense propaganda to insist on an economical community of interest, is enough to prove that you cannot altogether eliminate all religious, racial or national factors at a stroke, at a thought ! ^
Those who advance the easy argument ‘ If but you persuade all to unite on the economic plane and to forget every other superstitious difference as the racial, cultural, etc. ’ forget themselves, argues Savarkar, that the very ‘ but ’ in their argument rebuts the practical utility at any rate, apart from its theoretical soundness. Consequently he warns the Hindus that they must in no case delude themselves with the belief that the economic programme alone will ever suffice to solve all cultural, racial and national dangers that threaten them throughout India. Taking into consideration the special circumstances obtaining in India and the stage of social progress, he thinks, the only school of economics which will suit our requirements in the immediate future is the school of Nationalistic economy and styles his economic policy as the national co-ordination of class interests. This immediate programme of national co-ordination of class interests is being practised in free India in foto by leaders like Pandit Nehru who were extolled to the skies for many years in the past as
- super ’ Socialists. What Savarkar defined in 1939, Pandit Nehru and others realized in 1948 !
Ill
Savarkar’s India
In short, under the set of circumstances obtaining in India and in the context of the present world set-up, the following ideal is to be realized in the immediate future.
Note . — For quotations cited above without references, please refer to Savarkar’s Presidential Addresses at Karnavati, Nagpur, Calcutta and Madura.
HINDU MANIFESTO OR SAVARKARISM 247
(a) In Savarkar’s India all citizens would have equal rights and obligations irrespective of caste, creed, race or religion provided they avow and owe an exclusive and devoted allegiance to the State.
(b) All minorities would be given effective safeguards to protect their language, religion, culture, etc. but none of them would be allowed to create a State within a State or to encroach upon the legitimate rights of the majority.
(c) The fundamental rights of freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, of worship, of association, etc. would be enjoyed by all citizens alike ; whatever restrictions would be imposed on them in the interest of the public peace and order or national emergency would not be based on any religious or racial considerations alone but common national grounds.
(d) One man one vote would be the general rule irrespec- tive of caste, creed, race, or religion.
(e) There would be joint electorates.
(f) Services would go by merit alone.
(g) Primary Education will be free and compulsory.
(h) Every minority would have separate schools to train their children in their own tongue ; their religious and cultural institutions would receive Government help also for these, but always in proportion to the taxes they pay into the common exchequer.
(i) The residuary powers would be vested in the Central Government.
(j) Nagari would be the national script, Hindi, the Lingua Franca and Sanskrit, the Devabhasha of India.
n
(1) People would first of all welcome the machine age. The handicrafts would, of course, have their place and encouragement. But national production would be on the biggest possible machine scale.
248 SAVARKAR AND HIS TIMES
(2) As the peasantry and the working classes form literally the chief source of national wealth, health, and strength, every effort would be made to reinvigorate them and the villages which are their cradle. Peasants and labourers would be enabled to have their share in the distribution of wealth to such an extent as would enable them not only to live with a bare margin of existence, but with the average scale of a comfortable life free from wants. Nevertheless, it would be remembered that they being a part and parcel of the nation as a whole, would share common obligations and re.sponsibilities and therefore would only receive their share in such a way as would be consistent with the general development and security of national industry, manufacture and wealth in general.
(3) As the national capital is under the present circum- stances mainly individual and indispensable for the development of National Industries and Manufactures, it would also receive due encouragement and recompense.
(4) The interests of both the capital and labour would bo sub-ordinafed to the requirements of the nation as a whole.
(5) If an industry is flourishing, the profits would be shared in a large portion by the labourers. But on the contrary, if it is a losing concern, not only the capitalist, but to a certain extent even the labourers would have to remain satisfied with diminishing returns so that the National Industry as such would not altogether be undermined by the over -bearing attitude of the selfish class interests of either the capitalists or the workers.
(6) Every step would be taken by the State to protect national industries against foreign competition.
(7) The key industries or manufactures and such other items would be altogether nationalised if the National Government could afford to do so and could conduct them more efficiently than private enterprise.
(8) The same principle would apply to agriculture. Govern- ment would take over the land and introduce State
HINDU MANIFESTO OR SAVARKARISM 249
culti’’ ation if it could serve to train up the peasant class as a whole with the use of big machines and would cultivate on a large and scientific scale.
(9) All strikes and lockouts which are obviously meant or inevitably tend to undermine and cripple National Industries or production in general or are calculated to weaken the economic strength of the nation as a whole would be referred to State arbitration and settled or in serious cases quelled
(10) Private property would be in general held inviolate. In no ease there would be on the part of the State any expropriation of such properly without reasonable recompense.
Thus Savarkar’s India would be a democratic State in which the countrymen belonging to dilTcrent religions, sects or races would be treated with ijerfect equality and none would be allowed to dominate others or would be deprived of his just and equal rights of free citizenship, so long as every one discharges the common obligation which one owes to the State as a whole.
Hindusthan, the Motherland and Holyland of the Hindus, from the Indus to the Seas would be an organic undivided State. The appellation of this Bhai’at Bhooini would remain as Bharat or Hindusthan.
In Savarkar’s India none would dare convert Hindus by fraud or force. Everywhere the Indians would be respected as citizens of a great nation. In that India relative non-violence would be regarded as virtuous.
The Hindus would be a castelcss society, a consolidated, modernised and up-to-date nation. Their marriage customs would be secularised and voluntary inter-caste marriages would be freely performed. Hindu corpses would be burnt with electricity.
In Savarkar’s India science would lead all material progress and things, and would annihilate superstitions There would be a total liquidation of landlordism. All the land would belong to the State by and by. All key industries would be nationalized. Agriculture would be mechanized. India would
250 SAVARKAR AND HIS TIMES
be self-sufficient in respect of food, clothes, shelter, and defence.
Savarkar’s India would have unbounded faith in a World Commonwealth as his political philosophy conceives that the Eai’th is the Common Motherland and Humanism the patriotism of man, but his India would not go under during the process which leads to the welding of Humanity into a World Commonwealth. In international politics Savarkar’s India would help to build world peace and prosperity.