5 min readAug 3, 2025 10:29 AM IST
First published on: Apr 4, 2025 at 06:51 PM IST
Indian approaches to history are marked by besetting sins. The battle is largely dominated by the need to find heroes and villains. These biographical battles might be interesting if they were concerned with genuine biographical insight and knowledge. Instead, they are often fought to preserve the iconic status of certain figures or condemn them whole scale. All complexity of history is reduced to one question: Whose side is the figure on? The complexity of historical judgement is entirely subordinate to preserving or damning icons. But the second complexity is that historical judgement is very hard-won. Most human actors are operating under great uncertainty, in a field where there are lots of other actors, whose own intentions are opaque, often even to themselves. When is a particular historical character making a tactical compromise? Or when are they surrendering their core beliefs? Is a retreat from the first best option morally condemnable, a betrayal or a sign of prudence?
Arun Shourie is clear on these questions. Savarkar is a villain. And he always falls on the side of vice. Shourie does what he has so often done in the past: read original sources deeply and thoroughly to make a compelling case for the prosecution. Savarkar does not escape the full force of Shourie’s forensic wrath. He uses Savarkar’s own words to indict the man. The book begins gently, with Savarkar on caste and religion, the radical Savarkar who cuts through all the humbug of established religion and caste, using his forensic powers to deconstruct all the shastras. This is the Savarkar that could have been the harbinger of a potentially progressive modernity. But then Shourie slowly plunges the knife in, deconstructing Savarkar in the same way in which Savarkar deconstructs the puranas.
The cumulative effect is to indict Savarkar of a whole range of vices. Savarkar is a coward. Shourie acknowledges the brutality Savarkar had to endure in his incarceration. But for Shourie that is not enough to save his mercy petition from exemplifying cowardice. This is one of those judgements that is excessively harsh; a judgement on the historical line between prudence and cowardice should not be this easy. But Shourie is on firmer ground in a subtler kind of cowardice that Savarkar displays in his later career; his political manoeuvring always leaves room for plausible deniability and running from the consequences of his own actions. Savarkar is, most of the time, economical with the truth, if not an outright liar. He exaggerates his own heroic exploits, especially the story of his attempted escape. He consistently falsifies histories, even inventing historical characters to buttress his argument. His personality is constituted by resentment through and through. Savarkar, on this reading, is a bigot, not a realist. His admiration for Hitler is due to an affinity with his project and ideas, not just the realist calculation that Germany might be able to help India. But Savarkar was also sympathetic to Zionism.
The final charge in this litany is that Savarkar was a collaborator with the British. Shourie has a long discussion of Savarkar’s discussion with Linlithgow. He charges Savarkar with seeking power, willing to barter the demand for independence in exchange for a share of power. It is also clear that Savarkar, after Muslims, hates the Congress more, and is willing to use the British to undermine Congress. And he consistently plays a double game: the radicalism of his public pronouncements is matched by his private attempts to ingratiate himself with the British. And to top it all, Savarkar is happy to ally with Fazlul Haq. This section is well-documented. But I think it establishes more that Savarkar is playing with a very limited hand and trying everything to enhance his power. But it does not quite establish collaboration. For Savarkar, seizing the opportunity to be part of the state is consistent with his philosophy, to amass as much power as he possibly could, in circumstances where he is not a popular leader. It is also consistent with the idea of defeating his principal enemies, no matter what it takes. And if Congress is the enemy, so be it.
In fact, the one thing that comes across in Shourie’s account is Savarkar’s monomania in which confronting Muslims and the Congress is higher priority than anything else. His ruthlessness is not brilliant and deep realpolitik. It is an amoralism that is born of an obsession to convert Hinduism into an ethnic identity. In fact, Shourie’s account shows how little Savarkar understands politics. He was a talented man, brilliant writer, learned in his own way. But his only achievement was to never let his talent get in the way of his own prejudices and obsessions. Shourie appeals to rescue Hinduism from Hindutva. Some might raise an eyebrow at Shourie’s own changes in position on Hinduism. But that is besides the point. The one thing critics of Savarkar miss is a deeper diagnosis of why his odious and resentful ideology has become the dominant ideology of modern India. Indicting Savarkar or appealing to Hinduism will not do that work for us.
Mehta is contributing editor at The Indian Express
Savarkar (extreme right) and his family (Source: Wikimedia Commons) 
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