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The inauguration of the new Parliament building on Sunday coincided with the birth anniversary of Hindutva ideologue V D Savarkar, the symbolism not entirely lost on the Congress whose senior leader Jairam Ramesh tweeted: “On this day, May 28th: Nehru, the person who did the most to nurture Parliamentary democracy in India, was cremated in 1964. Savarkar, the person whose ideological ecosystem led to the killing of Mahatma Gandhi, was born in 1883.”
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, meanwhile, hailed Savarkar, saying his personality exuded strength and his fearless and self-respecting nature could not tolerate the “mindset of slavery”.
Savarkar was a divisive figure during his time and continues to be one decades after passing away. Former Prime Minister Chaudhary Charan Singh, whose death anniversary is on Monday, once found himself in the middle of sharp questioning from the Opposition about celebrating Savarkar’s birth anniversary.
Charan Singh, who formed the first non-Congress government in Uttar Pradesh in 1967, became UP CM for the second time on February 18, 1970, in alliance with Congress (R) headed by Indira Gandhi. That year, on May 27, a day before Savarkar’s birth anniversary, Bhartiya Jan Sangh leader Krishan Swarup from Badaun asked in the Assembly whether the government was planning to celebrate Savarkar’s birth anniversary and whether any committee was going to be constituted. Then Minister of Information Genda Singh replied there had been no such proposal.
When Swarup kept raising the issue, Charan Singh said he had earlier received the request from the Jan Sangh leader and that had already responded with his views. In the letter to Swarup, Charan Singh had written that his suggestion was a good one but that it was not possible to plan the celebrations in such a short period. When Swarup asked if the government could celebrate Savarkar’s birth anniversary from the following year (1971), the CM said, “As far as Savarkar’s sacrifices are concerned, it is beyond any doubt. There is no doubt that we all have taken much inspiration from him in our youth. Several others also had sacrificed. The question is the birth anniversary of how many (such people) will be celebrated at the government level? Everyone made supreme sacrifices. The government can help if any non-governmental body does this work. But, as of now, we have not considered this.”
When Jan Sangh MLA Nityanand Swamy, who later became Uttarakhand’s first chief minister, asked if Charan Singh would propose celebrating Savarkar’s birth anniversary in his personal capacity, Chief Minister reiterated, “I told you about the problem. There are many great people and perhaps Savarkar is in the category of the greatest, but I spoke of the government’s difficulties. I have no problem celebrating it but the question is of the whole country, not only of our state. Then demands will be raised about Rani Lakshmibai and Tatya Tope etc.”
There was a massive protest in 2003 when Savarkar’s oil painting was installed in the Central Hall of the old Parliament building. At the time too, several parties boycotted the event.
When current UP CM Yogi Adityanath opened a picture gallery in the Legislative Council in January 2021, one of the oil paintings was that of Savarkar. Adityanath’s grand guru Mahant Digvijaynath had been the state president of the Hindu Mahasabha when Savarkar was heading the organisation nationally.
