Today, Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid tributes to Veer Savarkar on his birth anniversary. Savarkar was born in 1883 in Maharashtra. ‘Respectful tributes to Veer Savarkar, the hardworking son of Maa Bharti, on his birth anniversary,’ PM Modi said in a tweet in Hindi.Modi also shared a photo montage on Veer Savarkar with his own and former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s voiceovers talking about the qualities and contributions of the freedom fighter.
Savarkar was way ahead of his times. He wanted to dismantle the entire caste system for which he even undertook a massive reform movement. He had constructed a to-all-castes temple called Patit Pavan Mandir in Ratnagiri. Babasaheb Bhim Rao Ambedkar even lauded this endeavour. He defined Hindutva to all of us, which is inclusive and all-accepting.Savarkar also discussed abolishing the caste system and untouchability, saying, “To achieve social revolution, we must first strike at the birth-based caste system and bridge the differences between the various castes” (Samagra Savarkar Vangmay; Part 3, page 641). On July 6, 1920, Savarkar wrote to his brother Narayanrao, “I feel the need to rebel against caste discrimination and untouchability as much as I feel the need to fight against foreign occupation of India.” In 1931, Savarkar wrote a song about the re-entry of untouchables into temples. It translates as “Let me see God’s idol, let me worship God.” It is said that tears streamed down Savarkar’s cheeks as he wrote the song.
Whenever there’s a discussion on Veer Savarkar’s legacy, the left-wing followers bring up the mercy petition drafted by the pioneer of Hindutva to the British government for pardoning/shortening his sentence. Most Left-Wing supporters fail to realise that Veer Savarkar’s prison wasn’t a hotel styled luxurious “prison” that Nehru was sent to in his mid-political career.The beauty of Savarkar is that he never hides his letters, petitions, conditions; on the contrary, in his autobiography ‘My Transportation for Life’, he explains frankly and in great details the political strategy behind them all. So, let no one crow that they ‘unearthed’ or researched them from the National Archives’, New Delhi, or Andaman’s Documents and ‘exposed’ them by publishing it!
