Heroes are the people whose acts are exemplary and guiding light to Society. A person can be here to One but a villain to another, then identification is a difficult one. A person who keeps humanism, nationalism, societal interests, and personal ones in chronological order can be called a Hero. India got independence in 1947 After a struggle of nearly 200 years. our history is filled with figures who contributed immensely to this independence. But we were made to forget more than to remember. India’s independence struggle wasn’t a straight road and uneven paths were not given due importance.
In this article, an eminent personality and grassroots worker who lived his youth years in Andman jail, Vinayak Damodar Das Savarkar will be discussed.
Veer Savarkar was a freedom fighter Who fought cast suppression and English suppression single-handedly. He was a barrister by profession but was not able to practice throughout life and struggled for sustenance. His early days of ‘Abhinav Bharat’ laid for youth participation in the struggle.
There was a beautiful building that was newly constructed when a reward for that marvelous work was to be given, it was awarded to contractors while masons and other workers were left stranded. Savarkar was one of the masons of the entity called India that is Bharat.
His thoughts were labeled as parochial, communal, and treacherous by the British but when we look at his predictions, he was spot on.some sophisticated persons who never gauged the grassroots sentiment Or true sentiment labeled him as the originator of the ‘two-nation theory.’ He was not in active politics for nearly three decades (1909-37) but somehow led to the ‘two-nation theory’, it is more comical than Mr. Bean’s face. His promotion of caste equality during his city arrest of Ratnagiri is unparalleled. Being from a so-called high caste, his effort culminated in a great result.
His notion about caste assimilation required not only high caste to low caste but also low caste to lowest one. He made a temple in Ratnagiri and allowed all in it. His speech usually followed inter-caste dining that slowly blurred the caste lines. He was a front-runner in all these activities. Dr. Ambedkar appreciated the work done by Veer Savarkar to reduce caste distinction.
He was revolutionary by heart and act. English usually attached blame for every attack on their officers as the plan hatched by him. He never shied away from supporting them. During the ‘India House’ days, his activities led several revolutionaries to take arms. During the time, when Madan Lal Dhingra shot an Englishman, his family disowned him, to escape English fervor but Savarkar supported him, and such was his character. During his capture from London, he was able to escape when the ship was on the French coast but due to a lack of intelligence, a political prisoner was given back. It even led diplomatic clash between these competing power but was not befit to Savarkar otherwise another Ras Bihari Bose like Azad Hind Fauj would have been there.
He never aligned himself with congress and always called congress a body that was more conscious about its survival rather than a nation. He blamed congress for being a passive resister rather than an aggressor. Even when Subhash Chandra Bore was Congress president, he tried to bring him into the fold of congress to bolster the freedom struggle. He denied coming into the fold of an organization that lacked a futuristic vision.
His idea was that of Bhagat Singh and the latter was found to have literary work by Savarkar. Savarkar contested that his resistance is not for getting a concession from colonial power. Our former president was asked about his hand in India’s nuclear program, and his response should be remembered, “everybody wants peace, peace comes from strength and strength respects strength”
So Savarkar was very critical of the idea of nonviolence. Although the contribution Of Gandhi and congress can’t be lowered as they led the mass protest to the last person’s vigor and the person who shook the power of the British were revolutionary like Savarkar and Chandra Shekhar Azad.
our revolutionaries from a young ‘Abhinav Bharat’ member to Madan Lal Dhingra to Chandra Shekhar Azad to Ras Behari Bose to Bhagat Singh are the founding stone of this great nation.
He said, “Everybody that considers Sindhu (River) to Sindhu (Indian ocean) as their motherland is Hindu”. He never advocated for special rights for any community and worked for the abolition of any kind of discrimination.
He was a great poet, and writer, He was chairperson of the Marathi literary sabha. He advocated for grammar in Hindi and Marathi to be corrected. He fought for the rights of fellow inmates during Kalpani’s imprisonment. He was such a threat to the British empire that during Royal Darbar almost all political prisoners were given clemency except him and his brother. He was kept away from public light for nearly 29 years and still he was able to do such exemplary is commendable.
He was a freedom fighter, a social cohesion, a great writer who faded away without much spotlight.
