Savarkar and Gandhi, some parallels

Our ancestors, Gandhi wrote in Hind Swaraj (1909), “established Rameswar in the south, Jagannath in the east and Haridwar in the north as places of pilgrimage. They knew that worship of God could have been performed just as well in their own homes.

But they saw that India was one undivided land, so made by nature. They therefore argued that it must be one nation.” And Savarkar in Hindutva (1924): “Behold the ramparts of nature. The Himalayas have converted this vast continent into a cosy castle. This Indian Ocean, with it bays and gulfs, is our moat. A country, a common home, is the first essential of stable, strong nationality”.

Gandhi and Savarkar shared the platform at a meeting of Indians in London in August 1909 on the occasion of Dussehra, the festival marking the victory of righteousness represented by Rama.

A powerful blow against the growth of territorial nationalism cutting across religious creeds was struck by the British when they sponsored a Muslim delegation, led by the Aga Khan, to wait on the Viceroy.

At their meeting with Minto in 1906 they told him that democratic institutions of the western model did not suit India. They wanted that Muslims should be given special weightage in the Central and provincial councils. Minto readily agreed.

A two-nation theory was implicit in the provision of separate electorates for Muslims in the Indian Councils Act of 1909. This theory invented by the British ignored the fact that, as Gandhi was to point out later to Jinnah, the overwhelming majority of Indian Muslims (and Indian Christians) are descendants of Hindu converts. The two nation theory, and the demand for Partition based on it were unfortunately supported by the Communist Party of India.

One of its theoreticians, Dr. G Adhikari, justified the demand for Pakistan as reflecting the aspiration of Muslim nationalities for self-determination. It is therefore odd that Communists now spearheading the anti-Hindutva campaign should accuse Savarkar of echoing the two-nation theory, even as it is ridiculous for them to blame Savarkar for staying away from the Quit India movement (Communists actively opposed it at the time).

The brutal repression of the agitation against Curzon’s partition of Bengal in 1905 (to create a Muslim majority province) led to the revolutionary movement which Savarkar joined. Savarkar’s traducers have ridiculed him for recanting revolutionary violence after being transported to the Andamans and put to savagely hard labour.

Not a masochist deriving morbid gratification from pain, Savarkar wanted to be released within the Andaman Island, or to be sent to an Indian jail. He justified his abandonment of revolutionary methods by citing the annulment of Bengal’s partition in 1911 and some reforms that had been set in motion.

Mahatma Gandhi had no comparable justification for the 180-degree turn he made in 1944 from the position taken by him during World War II that the Congress should adhere to non-violence as policy if not as creed.

Gandhi, who had been released from detenion in the Aga Khan’s palace, wrote on 27th July 1944 to Viceroy Wavell urging release of the members of the Congress Working Committee and made the following offer: “I am prepared to advise the Working Committee to declare that in view of the changed conditions, mass civil disobedience envisaged by the resolution of August 1942 cannot be offered and that full cooperation in the war effort should be given by the Congress, if a declaration of immediate Indian independence is made and a national government responsible to the Central Assembly be formed subject to the proviso that, during the pendency of the war, the military operations should continue as at present but without involving any financial strain on India.” (Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi: Vol. 77, P.425). This was a bizarre sequel to the Satyagraha organised by Gandhi in 1940-41 ’against all war or this war’.

The Mahatma’s offer of cooperation in the war effort (no longer required) was ignored by the Viceroy, even as Savarkar’s ‘mercy petitions’ had been ignored. It was at the urging of C.F. Andrews and Gandhi among others that Savarkar had been brought back to the mainland in 1921 and, after being confined in Ratnagiri jail for three years, granted limited freedom of movement within the district on condition of keeping out of politics. Savarkar applied himself to the removal of untouchability and securing the admission of depressed class children to schools; he also opposed Muslim and Christian proselytising activity. When restrictions were lifted in 1937, Savarkar became president of Hindu Mahasabha.

It was too late to stem the drift towards Partition which began with Gandhi’s support to the pan-Islamist cause of Khilafat in 1919, the ‘Quit India’ movement which removed Congress leaders from public life while the Muslim League grew with British patronage, and culminated in Gandhi’s fourteen calls on Jinnah in September 1944.

The League won virtually all the Muslim seats in the elections held in 1945-46. Civil war was launched by Jinnah with his call for ‘direct action’, to which Muslims in Calcutta responded in August 1946 with large-scale killing of Hindus. This led to a chain reaction across the country, and Gandhi who had said that Partition would be like vivisection of his own body acquiesced in Congress acceptance of the Mountbatten plan.

So did Savarkar, who was left with no option. This was the final and tragic parallel between Gandhi and Savarkar, two great men who entertained a grand vision of India’s unity but lived to see it disrupted.