5 min readMar 28, 2023 02:30 PM IST
First published on: Mar 26, 2023 at 09:25 PM IST
It is a dig that seems to infuriate the BJP like no other. On Sunday, the ruling party hit out at Congress leader Rahul Gandhi for saying that his name was “not Savarkar”. Gandhi made the comment at a press conference in New Delhi on Saturday when asked if he would apologise for the remark that got him disqualified as Lok Sabha MP the day before.
“My name is not Savarkar. I am a Gandhi. I won’t apologise,” Rahul said when asked about the BJP’s demand for an apology for the remark that a court in Surat has ruled as defamatory. The “my name is not Savarkar” jibe was a reference to the mercy petitions that V D Savarkar, an icon of the Hindu right-wing, wrote to the British government while imprisoned in the Andamans.
In a series of tweets, BJP leader and Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting Anurag Thakur said Rahul could never be Savarkar as the Hindutva ideologue was known for his determination. Thakur wrote, “Dear Shri Gandhi, you can never be SAVARKAR even in your best dreams because being Savarkar requires strong determination, love for Bharat, selflessness and commitment. @RahulGandhi You can never be… ‘SAVARKAR’ (Read in Caps).”
Taking a dig at Rahul’s visits abroad, Thakur said Savarkar “neither spent six months in a year holidaying abroad nor did he seek intervention from foreign powers”. When Savarkar went to England, he “blew the bugle of war against the British to free Mother India from slavery”, said the minister. Thakur claimed that such was the respect for Savarkar’s patriotism that none other than Bhagat Singh went to Ratnagiri in Maharashtra and arranged for Savarkar’s book India’s First War of Independence to be translated and circulated in Punjab.
Thakur claimed that well-known leaders and thinkers at the time were in awe of Savarkar’s patriotism and courage, adding that the Congress in its Kakinada session in 1923 passed a special resolution “in favour of Savarkar”.
The Union Minister said the government led by Indira Gandhi, Rahul’s grandmother, released a documentary on Savarkar to acknowledge his “valour, sacrifice, and selfless service to the nation”. Thakur posted the image of a letter, dated May 20, 1980, in which Indira Gandhi wrote, “Savarkar’s daring defence of the British government has its own important place in the annals of our freedom movement.” The letter was written to Pandir Bakhle, the secretary of a trust set up in Savarkar’s memory.
“Think. In honour of the great personality Veer Savarkar, his grandmother used to do all this,” wrote the Union Minister. “None of the great men of that era would have said wrong things about him. Today, Rahul Gandhi says all these things. He is not insulting Savarkar but insulting his grandmother, Netaji Bose, Bhagat Singh, and even Gandhi ji.”
Thakur also posted another image of a postal stamp issued during Indira Gandhi’s tenure as a tribute to Savarkar. “Only a person who does not understand all this can insult Savarkar, from whose books Bhagat Singh made notes in his diary before his execution,” said the minister.
At a press conference in Delhi, BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi also criticised Rahul, saying the Congress leader can never “even in his dreams” match the level of “patriotism and bravery that V D Savarkar had shown during India’s freedom struggle”.
This is not the first time Rahul Gandhi’s comments on Savarkar have riled the BJP. During the Maharashtra leg of the Bharat Jodo Yatra last November, the Congress leader read from a mercy petition that Savarkar wrote to the colonial government and said that in the letter the Hindutva ideologue called himself an “obedient servant of the British”. The comments drew backlash from the BJP and some in the ruling alliance of the BJP and the Shiv Sena led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde said the yatra should not be allowed to proceed.
Savarkar's daring defence of the British government has its own important place in the annals of our freedom movement, Anurag Thakur said.(File) 
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