People's Democracy

THERE seems to be an impression that leftists, particularly the writers of People’s Democracy are opposed to an airport being named after Savarkar only because he apologised to the British and moreover that their opposition is confined to somehow preventing this renaming, and that they have not bothered to take into account and counter his defense of the apology. Also, that they are being somewhat peevish in insisting on this move being dropped, because a broadmindedness on the matter in the form of studied indifference would have allowed the matter to die its natural death, as many such proposals of renaming do once public attention lapses.

Further questions being posed are: Can a right reactionary leader be a patriot? Are all nationalists necessarily progressive? Soon roads may be named after Chiang Kai Shek in China, so what is the big deal in all this renaming, should we bother about it at all? The symbolic value of such naming is already a matter of diminishing returns. The Congress was going about renaming things after members of one family after all, and is this very much different? And then there is the matter of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose who looked for collaboration with Germany and Japan, and of whom the communists of India had a different view once, but are defending him today. Why then is the privilege of revaluation being denied to the hero in question, and why are they so affronted at any comparison between him and Savarkar? Besides, there is also the matter of our belief in different nationalities as components of the Indian Union, therefore why this bowing down in the face of popularity of the Bengali icon and not the Marathi one?

There is a need to consider these questions with some seriousness, if only to equip ourselves better for the ‘debate’ on Savarkar. There is a need to also underline that the naming of the Port Blair airport after Savarkar is not simply a matter of a name for the airport. It is part of a considered strategy of the Hindu right wing to transform into nationalists its own sectarian leaders who had nothing to do with the national movement and who were sectarian enough to destroy the unity of the people along religious lines and through a politics of hate and prejudice. It is an attempt to erase memories of collective struggles to substitute them with sectarian struggles, and as part of a larger strategy has great bearing on how Indian people envisage their nation and their goals in life.

Therefore, while the People’s Democracy has carried the details of his apology in some detail --because the record needed to be set straight in the light of RSS claims—it has also emphasised all along that he continuously collaborated with the British after his release, and consistently worked against the popular anti-British movements in the 1930s and 1940s. (March 25, 2001; May 19, 2002, June 2, 2002). There have been references also to his book Hindutva, his definition of the Indian nation and his anti-Muslim tirade, which, incidentally, are better known than his apology.

As for taking into account Savrkar’s own defense of his apology, not even his own admirers took that seriously. As the Frontline article reproduced in the People’s Democracy (May 19, 2002) shows, most sympathetic biographers of Savarkar simply ignore the conditions he agreed to in his petition, or present his release as result of "helpful winds blowing in his direction", or as in the case of Avaidyanath, refuse to believe that he gave such a statement at all. What is the logic in the Left taking it seriously, when his entire politics and writings speak for themselves?

No doubt many more details could have been given on his view of Indian history as reflected in his Six Glorious Epochs In India’s Struggle for Freedom, which finds its reflection in the Vidya Bharti texts and government textbooks in BJP ruled states and now in National Curriculum Framework It is simply not correct that the Leftists have been concerned only with his apology to the British.

Savarkar’s Six Glorious Epochs is a construction and elaboration of the Hindu communal view of Indian history, and a justification for treating Muslims and Christians as foreigners and traitors. His Hindutva underlines the themes of Hindu fascist politics, spews hatred against the minorities, cloaks sectarian politics by calling it nationalism, identifies Indian culture with Brahmanical Hindu culture, and calls for the militarisation of Hinduism and Hinduisation of the military—all of which are central to Sangh Parivar politics today.

One could go into much greater analysis here, but it is more important for the moment to deal with whether right reactionaries like him qualify for the status of nationalist and patriot. Our answer can only be an unqualified "NO", not only because of the ideas espoused in the two books, but for his entire vision and goals for this country, and his abject collaboration with the British.

There are no doubt nationalists and nationalists, and there is a great distinction between the nationalism of the nations in the making in Europe in the sixteenth century, the popular sovereignty and liberty, equality, fraternity bases of the French revolution inspired notions of nations as constituted by its people, and the right wing nationalism expressed in its most extreme form by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. But even these regimes in their search for racist glory and political rule of the utter privileged minorities in their country were not collaborating with foreign powers against the political sovereignty of their own country. ‘Veer Savarkar’ does not fulfill even this minimum criterion. His entire politics is directed towards collaborating with the British during the national movement.

Before independence nationalism could only have an anti-colonial character, as it did in all other parts of the world where nations were born and forged in struggles for freedom from the colonial yoke. The RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha, under the leadership of Savarkar, in this context tried to turn people away from its anti-colonial moorings to fighting a section of their own people. It defined the nation in terms of a mythical past against mythical enemies, and used imaginary wounds and wrongs that had little grounding in fact to create ‘enemies’ within the growing movement, and created a marginalised political stream that broke away from the nationalist movement to adopt the same divide and rule policy that the British were initiating within the country, thereby undercutting the progressive basis of Indian freedom struggle.

In this they were very different from ideologues like Tilak and others whose strategy for mobilisation on religious symbols, which must be criticised, was nevertheless geared to uniting people within an all-encompassing anti-colonial movement. And Chiang Kai Shek when forced at the crux joined the United Front with Communists against the Japanese. He did not join Japanese Imperialism against the national liberation struggle.

As for the matter of the Bose vs. Savarkar, the comparison is unjust. Bose, by the force of circumstances, but also by choice, sought a strategic alliance with Germany and Japan against the British. He mistakenly believed that the axis forces genuinely stand for decolonisation. It is certainly not the same thing as supporting and propagating fascist ideology, racial theory, and clearly pro- imperialist and anti-national collaborationism, as Savarkar did. Moreover, Subhash Bose did not stand for tearing apart the secular fabric of Indian society or for concocting and falsifying the sources of Indian civilization, again as Savarkar did. Nobody would accuse Subhsh Bose of harbouring a desire to reduce religious minorities, particularly Indian Muslims, to a status of non-citizenship. He was not the progenitor of fascist ideology in India that Savarkar was. The distinction is evident in the distinction today between the politics of Lakshmi Sahgal, an important figure in the INA and the RSS leaders who are followers of Savarkar. All said and done the phase of Bose’s life referred to was the consequence of a certain historical juncture and circumstance, and not of a fundamentalist and deep rooted opposition to the well springs of the Indian freedom movement and its goals and aspirations. One cannot, therefore, transform the issue into one of Bengali nationality vs. Marathi nationality, where drawing a distinction between Bose and Savarkar is presented as a preference for Bengali flavour or concession to Bengali bhadralok chauvinism.

A belief in regional pluralism and nationality aspirations or the multi national basis of Indian nationhood should not require one to promote all parochial and chauvinistic localisms, regionalisms, and identity claims that run counter to the democratic aspirations of the larger body of the nation. Experience of recent decades has shown that not all such claims are desirable and just. The Sangh Parivar’s promotion of Kashmir, Jammu, and Ladakh as separate entities is a case in point, apart from the more formidable question that is not Marathi nationality aspirations better represented/served by Jotiba Phule or Pandita Ramabai? Why Savarkar?