Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.  This name has become synonymous with “British Conspirator”, “Apology”, “Coward” and “Compromise”.  The echo chambers work overtime to repeat the fact that Veer Savarkar wrote a mercy petition to the British so he could be released from the cellular jail of Andaman by pledging his loyalty to the British Government.  Facts can often become distortions when they are not presented as a whole or are presented without real context.  Savarkar’s name is taken with the same fervor by both those who embrace his principles and by those who treat him as the villain of India’s independence movement with the latest revival of Savarkar’s name coming from Rahul Gandhi as he rejects apologizing for his “All Modis are thieves” jibe that has led him to face a 2-year imprisonment judgment.  Through this article, we make an attempt to see if Savarkar really was the compromising villain that he is projected as, and understand the backdrop of his mercy petition.

The Kaala Paani Dungeon

Savarkar was the president of the Hindu Mahasabha when he was sentenced to 50 years imprisonment at the cellular jail of Andaman – infamously called “Kaala Paani”.  There is a reason behind this punishment being dreaded, for unlike the jails that Nehru or Gandhi was confined to – where their perks went beyond just a comfortable bed to include chairs, writing desk, newspapers, books, visitors, caretakers, exchange of letters, windows, and a well-ventilated room to move around sans any form of physical pain, Savarkar’s cell at Kaala Paani had nothing but a ventilator at the height of 10 feet with no access to any of the perks that Nehru and Gandhi enjoyed.  The cellular jail of Kaala Paani could break even the toughest revolutionaries such were the conditions and the torture that they faced. Try spending a day at kalapaani with Savarkar.  He survived against all odds fencing the most severe physical pains, solitary confinements, and all possible methods deployed to break his spirit. 

The “Charkha” Effect

Gandhi’s principles of “Non-violence” and “Truth” were gaining acceptance among people in the society in pre-independent India. Revolutionaries and freedom fighters who believed in the method of snatching freedom from the hands of the British were scorned by the followers of Gandhi.  “Hunger-strike” and Satyagraha (peaceful protest) were the means that Gandhi deployed to coerce not just the British into accepting demands from time to time, but also those who were ready to assert themselves in face of crimes against humanity.  An apt example of this coercion is the way in which Gandhi urged the affected people to suffer in silence in the Moplah violence aftermath. It may be thus concluded that Gandhi’s doctrines were mere tools to slay the Kshatriya within and drain the life out of the fighter spirit of an individual.

 Was Savarkar “the most dangerous man India has produced”?

The British termed Savarkar “the most dangerous man India has produced”.  The conditions that Savarkar faced at Kaala Paani were brutal and had he switched sides and become loyal to the British, his life would have been easier.  If their belief of “cowardice” of Savarkar rests on the mercy petition that he submitted to the British, then it is wise to also consider the fact that Savarkar, as a barrister, made use of all the legal options available to him to improve his condition in Kaala Paani. Here are details on all mercy petitions. This in tandem with the fact that Savarkar did not ask for any favors at the expense of other prisoners, and on the contrary represented their ill-treatment in front of the Jail commission.  It should also be noted that the mercy petition was not submitted by Sarvarkar alone, in fact, many revolutionaries of the Indian independence movement submitted mercy petitions to the British.  Motilal Nehru wrote a mercy petition in 1923 to British Government for his petrified son Jawaharlal to get out of Nabha jail in just two weeks of ‘harsh conditions’. Ram Prasad Bismil also wrote a mercy petition to the British. Does that discount all of his work and efforts in the freedom movement?  Gandhi wrote to the British number of times pleading to let him fight on their side when he was in South Africa. What does that make him? Why is Savarkar singly slandered in the name of a mercy petition?  

Gandhians fail to explain where Gandhi’s principle of non-violence disappeared when Indian Soldiers were made to become a part of the British army in World War – II, or when Gandhi supported the Khilafat movement which resulted in the gory Moplah violence.  Such incidents force one to think if the principles of “non-violence” and “truth” really can withstand the anvil of practicality. Gandhians batting to embrace non-violence when faced with extreme and brutal viciousness caused not only the oldest civilization to lose its vivacity and pride but also its sacred lands to the horrors of partition. Despite the damage that Gandhian principles did to India, to date, Savarkar gets ridiculed as a coward. Why? Is it because Savarkar stated that ‘disarmed-disorganized-disunited’ Hindus can never fight the British or their ‘second enemy’ the non-Hindus?

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