137 years ago in Bhagur, was born the progenitor of the organized Indian revolutionary movement, a profound intellectual, a prolific writer, a social reformer, a proponent of language purification, a poet of eminence and an inspiration to numerous other freedom fighters.
Swatantryaveer Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.
He became a saviour to the Hindus who were being misled to support extremely pernicious projects such as the Khilafat with manifestly false promises of achieving independence in a year.
In any other country, such a man would not merely be celebrated and revered, but also considered for a Cabinet post, if not the post of Prime Minister. This being India, however, this freedom fighter had to spend time in jail twice in the very country he sought to free. He is evilly ignored by mainstream historians whose books on history have so abominably become canonical, when they shouldn’t have, and whose books have frankly become outdated for modern sensibilities.
He is understood to have sent a prescient policy letter to the government emphasizing, inter alia, on (1) Fixing borders of India (2) Economic prosperity for the security forces, law enforcement employees and those in the teaching profession.
Not only was his letter not responded to, it was evidently not followed in spirit. We face the consequences to this date.
Clearly, we achieved independence administratively, but mental colonialism continues to plague us to this date. Even today, vested interests do not hesitate to abuse him in the choicest of expletives. They defame him and call him a British apologist merely because he had written petitions while in the Cellular Jail. Perchance, they lack the intellectual calibre to discern the nuances in those petitions. They call him communal when he was just being practical.
This short tract is titled, “Which way to freedom?” Truth be told, we have a lot to do in numerous spheres to be truly free. So far as the intellectual space is concerned, the books written by Savarkar pave the way to true freedom and provide a start. In re this, true freedom can only be achieved when the celebrity status of mainstream historians is annihilated and they are treated merely as historians telling only one version of historical events to the masses, and who have hitherto only indoctrinated the people.
