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SAVARKAR AND THE MAKING OF HINDUTVA
Savarkar and the Making of
Hindutva
JANAKI BAKHLE
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 An Anticolonial Revolutionary: Savarkar and the Colonial Police 25
Surveillance 35
The Savarkar Police File 42
2 A Fearful Demagogue: Savarkar and the Muslim Question 85
The Indian National Context 86
What Was the Caliphate in Theory and Practice? 90
World War I and Mustafa Kemal’s Abolition of the Caliphate 93
The Khilafat and What It Meant to Indian Muslims 95
The Khilafat Movement (1918–24) 102
Gandhi and the Khilafat 109
Savarkar and the Muslim Question 113
Conclusion 146
3 A Social Reformer: Savarkar and Caste 151
Non-Brahmin and Anti-untouchability Movements in Maharashtra in
the 1920s 160
Savarkar Returns to India 169
Savarkar and Viṭāḷvēḍa 176
Savarkar and Sanātan Dharma 183
Savarkar and Varṇa 186
Savarkar and Brahminism 190
Savarkar and Ritualism, Temple Destruction, and Cow Worship 195
Savarkar and Intermarriage 204
Savarkar and Temple Entry 221
Genetics and the Hindu Body 228
Conclusion 230
4 A Nation’s Bard: Savarkar the Poet 232
Savarkar’s Education in Poetry 239
Savarkar’s Poems 254
Povāḍās 265
Śāhira Tulshidas’s Povāḍā 271
Śāhira Savarkar’s Povāḍā 280
Conclusion 293
5 A Nationalist Historian: Savarkar and the Past 295
Tryambak Shankar Shejwalkar: Hindu Nationalism without
Hindutva 302
Savarkar’s The Indian War of Independence and Hindu-Pad-
Padashahi 310
Essentials of Hindutva 318
Hindu-Pad-Padashahi 338
1857, Essentials of Hindutva, Hindu-Pad-Padashahi, and Six Glorious
Epochs 344
Conclusion 358
6 A Legend in His Own Time: Savarkar and His Hagiography 360
Savarkar’s First Memorialization 376
Savarkar’s Mājhyā Āṭhavaṇī and Gandhi’s My Experiments with
Truth 381
Hagiobiography 391
Memories of Savarkar: The Darśana-Dakṣiṇā Literature 400
Conclusion 410
Conclusion 412
Appendix 427
Bibliography 467
Index 489
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THIS BOOK has been far too long in the making. Soon after finishing my first
book Two Men and Music, two other men, Nick Dirks (husband) and Partha
Chatterjee (former advisor) suggested that I write a quick book on Savarkar,
because I read Marathi, and because I had punted on a question that I raised
but didn’t fully answer in Two Men. I did not expect that this book would
take as long as it has. It is done, but it has not been quick, and the debts I
have accumulated over the years of writing it, rewriting it, conducting
research, arguing with fellow scholars about it, and changing my argument
have been many.
Val Daniel has read many iterations of all chapters, and with each
reading he has improved my prose, shown me how to read poetry and how
not to dismiss the “poetic” as a form of historical writing. Partha Chatterjee
read the manuscript literally as soon as I asked him, line-edited it, and gave
me the kind of feedback I knew I would get from him—tough, skeptical,
challenging—and all of it forced me to fine tune my argument and alter my
rhetoric. Manan Ahmad did the same, commenting on everything from
stylistic issues to substantive ones. While on sabbatical, he looked at second
and third drafts of this manuscript, and helped me rewrite catalog copy.
Abhishek Kaicker has been a colleague and champion, believing in this
project and encouraging me when I no longer wanted to read anything ever
again about or by Savarkar. He too has read the manuscript twice and
commented on it with his characteristic incandescent intellect. Val, Partha,
Manan, and Abhishek—I hope you will see your suggestions and criticisms
addressed in this final version; the book is so much better for your careful
reading.
Roger Grant, who I met while we were both at the Stanford Humanities
Institute, has been the most generous of readers as well as an intellectual
comrade. In addition to reading everything, from a chapter to the entire
manuscript in rough draft, all on a subject he knew little about, he has also
lent me his shoulder and helped me through some very tough times.
Prachi Deshpande gave me detailed feedback in the midst of correcting
her own page proofs, for which I owe her a huge debt of gratitude. Polly
O’Hanlon read every word in the manuscript with care, and I hope will see
all the places in the manuscript where I have made changes as she advised.
Thomas Hansen has been an early and constant supporter of this project,
and I am very thankful to him for his encouraging and helpful feedback and
for pushing me to note my own stakes in this project. Christian Novetzke
too read very early and very rough drafts and has given generously of his
time to help me shape a mammoth mess into a readable book. Faisal Devji
gave me an enthusiastic thumbs up after reading it. Keya Ganguly has been
my fellow traveler in so many ways for over two decades and a friend to
whom I have turned in my lowest, and highest, moments. Keya read my
manuscript at a busy time of the semester and helped me make my
argument much clearer, providing enormously helpful perspectives on how
to read Savarkar’s politics. Tim Brennan gave this manuscript the same
extraordinary close read as he did my first book, and his feedback came
right at the moment when I was struggling to put some concluding notes to
the book—I am grateful to him for his generous and thoughtful comments.
Dorothea von Mucke’s theoretical and precise formulations, along with our
conversations in Riverside Park, allowed me to craft first an article on
Savarkar’s Essentials of Hindutva and subsequently a long chapter on
history and memory.
This book has been written over many years and from two departments
of history. At Columbia, I was fortunate to get feedback on parts of the
chapters as I was writing or presenting them from Rashid Khalidi, Matt
Connolly, Mamadou Diouf, Adam Kosto, Claudio Lomnitz, Mark
Mazower, Brinkley Messick, Tim Mitchell, Lila Abu-Lughod, Mae Ngai,
Susan Pederson, Alice Kessler Harris, Akeel Bilgrami, Philip Hamburger,
and Sheldon Pollock. My colleagues at UC Berkeley read the entire
manuscript and made suggestions on how to improve it, and I hope they
will see their comments reflected in the final book. I have benefitted
enormously from Ussama Makdisi’s careful and critical reading. Christine
Philliou, colleague and friend across two departments of history, has fielded
endless questions about Mustafa Kemal, the CUP, and the abolition of the
Caliphate, and helped me make sense of a very complex and complicated
period in Turkish history, for which I cannot thank her enough. I am
grateful to Carlos Norena, Emily Mackil, Wen-hsin Yeh, James Vernon,
Jonathan Sheehan, Ethan Shagan, Susanna Elm, Asad Ahmad, Munis
Faruqui, and John Connolly for their comments and feedback on the
manuscript. Beyond the two departments I have worked in, I have had
wonderful and helpful conversations about parts of this book with Judy
Friedlander, Michael Hassett, Afiya Zia, and Akbar Zaidi (who in his
characteristic manner simply told me he didn’t like one of my chapters and
that I had to fix it). I am also grateful to Saurabh Dube, Dipesh Chakrabarty,
Elizabeth Kolsky (my friend and fellow dancer), Keith Nield, Gyanendra
Pandey, Anupama Rao, Satadru Sen, Peter van der Veer, Stacey van Vleet,
David Freedberg, Christophe Jaffrelot, Ira Bhaskar, Pradeep Chibber, Wang
Hui, and Mahmood Mamdani.
I offer my thanks to the staff of the following institutions where I
conducted research for this book: the India Office Library and Records,
London; the National Archives of India, New Delhi; the Nehru Memorial
Museum and Library, New Delhi; the Maharashtra State Archives, Mumbai:
and the Swatantryaveer Savarkar Rashtriya Smarak, Mumbai. I am
particularly grateful to Dhananjay Shinde, Librarian at the Savarkar Smarak
in Bombay, for his kind help with bibliographic materials and to Satyaki
Savarkar for graciously meeting with me and granting me permission to use
Savarkar’s words.
My research over the years has been supported by grants or fellowships
from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Stanford Humanities
Center, the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies at Columbia, and the
department of history at UC Berkeley. I have presented parts of this book at
conferences, workshops, institutes, departments. My grateful thanks to
Satya Mohanty for inviting me to Cornell; Roger Grant for inviting me to
Wesleyan; Peter van der Veer for inviting me to speak in Utrecht and at the
Max Planck institute; to Sudipta Sen for inviting me to UC Davis to present
an early version of this book; to Dipesh Chakrabarty, Rochona Majumdar,
and Andrew Ollett for inviting me to speak at SALC at the University of
Chicago; and to Aamir Mufti for inviting me to UCLA. Karen Barkey,
friend and colleague over two universities, has followed the progress of this
book for years, and I am grateful to her for organizing a panel at Bard
College so that I could get feedback and comments just before receiving the
copyedited manuscript, and to Sudipta Kaviraj, Nabanjan Maitra and Rupali
Warke for their incisive and thoughtful comments on the manuscript on that
panel.
Martha Schulman was the best developmental editor, working with me
over the past year to take an unruly manuscript and help me turn it into a
book. Without her cheerful, ever-encouraging, and prompt responses, this
would never have made it. She rolled with every punch I threw, considered
every small and large argument I tried out, and consistently pushed me to
clarify in clear prose what I meant. If this book reads well, it is in no small
measure because of Martha.
Over the years I have taught a number of graduate students who have
read Savarkar with me in one or another class. Nirvikar Jassal, Shaivya
Mishra, Brent Otto, Sourav Ghosh, Anurag Advani, Christian Gilberti,
Pranav Kuttiah, Justin Grosnick, Adam Jadhav, Joanna Korey, Zainab Wani,
Amar Zaidi, and Aparajita Das have all helped me hone my arguments.
Shaivya and Sourav in particular were my research assistants for the
Muslim chapter, corrected errors, and worked on transliteration with me,
and I am grateful to them for both their careful reading and their many
suggestions.
In the course of writing this book, I turned into Savarkar’s research
assistant. Savarkar’s Marathi writings are liberally sprinkled with numerous
Sanskrit ślokas. Often he quoted one line from a śloka without indicating
where it came from or using the next line. He was writing for a particular
Marathi audience that might not have needed the exact citation or the
second line of the verse, an audience that knows Sanskrit literature well.
But I do not. And in hunting down the second lines of ślokas he used, and
translating them, I turned again and again to my two erudite and learned
colleagues who, in effect, became my Sanskrit teachers: Madhav
Deshpande and Robert Goldman. Madhav and Bob not only translated
ślokas for me—they gave me the exegetical context and explained them to
me. Madhav read my chapter on poetry within twenty-four hours, corrected
my mistakes, and gave me detailed suggestions. Bob sent me PDFs of
Sanskrit works (as did Madhav) at a moment’s notice, and I am immensely
grateful for their unfailing, prompt, and incredibly generous help. Just
before I received the copyedited manuscript, I was fortunate enough to meet
Nabanjan Maitra at a panel at Bard College where he volunteered to correct
the mistakes I’d made in my transliterations of Sanskrit verses. How does
one even say thank you to such a generous offer? Nabanjan, thank you for
all your help. To Luther Obrock, likewise, my grateful thanks for cheerfully
chasing down with me the last couple of Sanskrit phrases quoted by
Savarkar that I had missed, and for correcting (again) my translations and
transliterations, and for mulling with me the question of what Savarkar
knew, what he made up, and what he put together.
I don’t have the right words to express my gratitude to Vidyut Aklujkar.
Vidyut helped me with most of the readings of the poetry in this book, and
without her help, advice, and suggestions, I would have been lost given how
Sanskritized Savarkar’s poetry is. Ashok and Vidyut welcomed me into
their home, and I sat with Vidyut working on translations of Savarkar’s
poetry which makes an appearance in four of six chapters. I am grateful as
well to Mrs. Prabha Ganorkar for looking over my poetry chapter and
correcting some of my mistakes. Shrikant Botre, who I met because I read
his dissertation, has become a good friend, and as friends do, he pushed me
to turn a few chapters from their original versions into a more focused
investigation into Brahminism.
Alok Oak and Ajinkya Lele have been the most cheerful,
knowledgeable, resourceful, indefatigable, and helpful research colleagues I
could hope for. Ajinkya’s persistence in chasing down sources and citations
from all the Marathi libraries in Mumbai and Pune has meant that this book
is a far better resource than it could have been otherwise. I am grateful as
well to Ajinkya for his numerous suggestions that all began with the words
“ताई, एक मिनिट, एकच मिनिट, एक सांगु का तुम्हाला?” (Tai, one minute, just one
minute?) and ended with “हे पुस्तक तुम्ही नक्की वाचा” (You have to read this
book), which resulted in my reading many more Marathi works on Savarkar
than I had intended to! Alok read my chapters with care and—I have to note
—brutal honesty. He found my last chapter a little boring, so I rewrote it. I
hope he finds it less so now. From Alok’s comprehensive dissertation on
Tilak, I have learnt an enormous amount, as I have as well from his
extraordinary knowledge of early twentieth-century Maharashtra. Rahul
Sarwate has been supportive throughout the project and a continuous source
of material and insight about early twentieth-century Maharashtra.
It has been a great pleasure to work with Princeton University Press.
Priya Nelson has been the best of editors. I am grateful for her prompt
attention to all my questions, for her reading of parts of the manuscript on
which I needed her opinion, and for securing me reports that were more like
review essays. To the two anonymous readers of my manuscript, you have
my appreciative thanks and I hope you will see the final version reflecting
my own attention to your critical feedback. At Princeton, Emma Wagh and
Morgan Spehar shepherded the manuscript through production with
remarkable efficiency. Kenny Hoffman copyedited the manuscript and
allowed me to basically hijack months of his time during which I got in
touch daily with some question or the other about track changes, formatting,
and style—I am enormously grateful to him for his patience and willingness
to answer all my questions.
Natalie Baan was without question the best production editor an author
could ever hope to have assigned to her book. Not only did she give me
great advice about all production matters, including how to set the poetry,
Natalie all but copyedited the copyedited manuscript, proofed the proofs,
copyedited and proofed the index, and did all of this not just once but a few
times. She found errors in transliterations and inconsistencies of translation
after I had gone through the copyedited manuscript and proofs, and gave me
ample opportunities and time in which to correct them. In particular, when I
was utterly sick of reading my prose and looking through yet another
version, Natalie’s always cheerful, encouraging, and meticulous attention
kept me going. I cannot thank her enough. Any errors that remain in this
book are mine and mine alone.
The year I finished my first book, my father was diagnosed with ALS. A
good part of the next decade I conducted research in Bombay at the
Savarkar Smarak in between doctor’s visits, physical therapist visits, and
neurological checkups. He is not alive to see this book come to an end,
which is one of my single largest regrets. But my mother has patiently
waited for me to be done, periodically asking me “कधी हे पुस्तक संपणार तुझं?
झालं कि नाही अजून?” [“When is this book of yours going to be done? Isn’t it
done yet?”] and answering impromptu questions about her childhood, her
knowledge of the RSS, Moropant, Samartha Ramdas, subhasitas, and so on.
Bhaiya, Arti, and Diya have always been a source of strength and support
for me, in ways I don’t acknowledge enough. A shout out to Punekar
International, for being the best tribe of cousins ever. Gauri (for her
unflagging encouragement and support), Lacho, Pipsa, and Tanu—thank
you for reading as much of this book as you have. Of my nieces and
nephews who have heard about this book and talked to me about it, I would
like to thank Latika, Malu, Avani, Kabir, Tahir, Tanvir, Swara, Abu, Nishad,
Revati and Shiven. Diane Carty has been friend, sister and house
companion these past few years and a steady source of encouragement,
pushing me every day to just keep at it. Abhishek and Stacey, and Sandhya
and Cameron, have brought feisty, tutu-dress-obsessed Ashapasha and
warrior extraordinaire Zubinbabu into my life, which has now become
richer and more joyous than I ever knew possible—thank you!
Over the decade it has taken me to write this book, my wonderful,
beautiful son Ishan has grown up and moved fully into his own life as a
scholar athlete and now dedicated teacher. But through it all he has waited
patiently by my side as I have struggled with writing, sweetly nudging me
to flip sand (he knows what I mean), as he is wont to do, and monitoring
and altering my exercise routines throughout so that I stayed somewhat fit
—what would I do without you?
And finally, I dedicate this book to Nick. Nick is not sentimental and
would be embarrassed if I were to be so, particularly in praise of him. So
this dedication will be restrained. He started me on this journey, and all
through the years when I thought I could not complete this book, he has
always steadfastly believed that I could and gently pushed me to finish it.
His belief in me and this book is the one thing that has kept me going,
through some particularly tumultuous and trying times. Would that I had the
words to thank him for his unflagging, calm, consistent, and loving support,
even through the period when he was Vice President for the Arts and
Sciences at Columbia and Chancellor at Berkeley. I have discussed every
line in this book with him. I have tried every last argument on him, large or
small, argued with him when he pushed back only to both clarify what I
meant and reformulate the argument anew. Nick has read every line in this
book not once but many times. Cliched as this may sound, I simply could
not have written this book without him.
Berkeley, California
January 23, 2022
Introduction
ON JULY 20, 1910, The (London) Times reported a daring escape by a young
Indian law student being extradited to India to stand trial on charges of
treason and abetment to murder. When the SS Morea docked near the port
of Marseilles, the student squeezed himself out of a porthole in the ship’s
bathroom and swam to shore. He requested asylum as a political prisoner
but was returned to the British detectives in charge of him. The New York
Times reported that French socialists agitated on his behalf, claiming that he
had been improperly returned to British authority; the case eventually went
to the Hague Tribunal for arbitration.1 Much to the relief of the British
Secretary of State for India, Sir John Morley, the Permanent Court of
Arbitration ruled that France could not hold him. The twenty-seven-year-
old student was then brought to India, where he was tried and sentenced to
an unprecedented two life terms of banishment to a penal colony. Indian
students frequently ran into trouble with British police without it being
covered by British and American national newspapers, but this was no
ordinary student. His name was Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883–1966),
an Indian revolutionary nationalist who believed uncompromisingly that
armed struggle was the only way for India to free herself from British
colonial rule, and he would become one of the most important figures
associated with right-wing Hindu nationalism.2
Savarkar was born in Bhagura—a village in Bombay Presidency—into a
lower middle-class Marathi Chitpavan Brahmin family on May 27, 1883,
and his early life seemed to lead naturally to revolutionary nationalism. His
childhood and adulthood were filled with tragedy: the death of his mother
from cholera when he was nine years old, the subsequent death of his father
and uncle from the plague, and the experience of bumbling and insensitive
colonial efforts to alleviate a catastrophic plague that devastated the
population of rural western India. During his adulthood, his four-year-old
son died; just before Savarkar was released from prison, his beloved sister-
in-law died; and while under house arrest in Ratnagiri, he lost another
child.3 During his adolescence, the plague became the proximate cause for
anticolonial sentiment across western India, resulting in political
assassinations, the glorification of revolutionary nationalists and anarchists
from far away—particularly Italians and Russians—and tactics that the
colonial government would quickly categorize as “terrorist.”
In 1899, a teenage Savarkar and some friends founded a secret
revolutionary society called Rāshtrabhakta Samuha (Devotees of the Nation
Society), which in 1901 became the Mitra Mela (Friends Society).4 In 1902
he entered Fergusson College in Pune, where he organized anticolonial
protests. Like many other young educated Indian men, he went to London
for postgraduate study, arriving in 1906, but spent most of his time engaged
in political activities, some benign and some less so, including procuring
Browning pistols to smuggle into India for political assassinations. He was
a classic example of the early twentieth-century revolutionary Indian
nationalist, enamored with guns and bombs. He went to London to study
law only to have the Metropolitan Police decide he was breaking it.
His companions during the five years he spent there were a motley group
of like-minded revolutionary Indian students—the British authorities
labeled them all extremists—who idolized Irish nationalists, Russian bomb
makers, and Italian thinkers. Within six months of his arrival, Savarkar
translated Giuseppe Mazzini’s biography into Marathi; by the end of the
year, he started another secret revolutionary society called the Free India
Society that was clearly modeled after Mazzini’s Young Italy. In 1909 a
housemate of his, Madanlal Dhingra, shot Sir William Hutt Curzon Wyllie
—the political aide-de-camp to Sir John Morley—and in 1910 Savarkar
was arrested in connection with not just that shooting but also for having
supplied pistols for political assassinations back in India, after which he
was repatriated to India to stand trial.5
The notoriety surrounding his trial made him a world-famous “terrorist”
and captured the interest of the international press as well as figures like
Maxim Gorky.6 Savarkar was sentenced to two life terms in the notorious
Cellular Jail on the Andaman Islands7 but was brought back to India in May
1921.8 He was placed under house arrest from 1924 to 1937 during which
time he promised to cease all political activities—but nonetheless wrote
history, poems, plays, speeches, and editorials as he became known as a
serious political figure even while under police watch. In 1937, after his
release, he became the president of the Hindu political party, the Hindu
Mahasabha. By the time he stepped down from that position in 1943, his
rhetoric had taken on a particularly strident and virulent tone, denouncing
Gandhi and the main voice of Indian nationalism, the Indian National
Congress (INC), for taking too soft a line on Muslims.
In 1944, three years before independence, a veteran American war
correspondent interviewed Savarkar. He was one of the very few political
leaders not in jail because the Hindu Mahasabha had stayed aloof from the
Quit India movement that had roiled most of British India in 1942. Tom
Treanor describes Savarkar as unshaven and disheveled but intellectually
engaged and eager to talk about how he perceived Indian Muslims. Asked
by Treanor how he planned to treat the “Mohammedans,” Savarkar said he
would regard them “as a minority in the position of your Negroes.” To
Treanor’s follow-up question about what might happen “if the
Mohammedans secede and set up their own country,” Savarkar, according
to Treanor, “waggl[ed] a menacing finger” and promised that “as in your
country there will be civil war.”9
When British India was partitioned in 1947, Savarkar’s promise of civil
war seemed to come true in the paroxysm of Hindu-Muslim violence that
midwifed the birth of Pakistan and India as two independent and mutually
hostile new nations. At midnight, August 14, 1947, India’s first prime
minister Jawaharlal Nehru spoke to the new nation. “Long years ago,” he
said, “we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall
redeem our pledge.… A moment comes … when an age ends, and when the
soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.” While his lofty words
and ideals captured the ebullient spirit of independence, they also evoked
the horrific possibility that the violence of partition was also an expression
of the nation’s soul, but of its dark side.
On January 30, 1948, Nathuram Godse, a former member of the right-
wing cultural organization the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and a
close associate of Savarkar, pushed his way through the crowd assembled to
greet Gandhi for his usual prayer meeting. He made a short bow to Gandhi,
then shot him dead. Later it was discovered that Godse had not only met
Savarkar before setting out on his mission but had received his blessing. As
a result, Savarkar was arrested in connection with yet another political
assassination, this time of the “Father of the Nation.” Whether Savarkar was
directly responsible or not, there is little doubt that his animus against
Gandhi—indeed his complete rejection of Gandhi’s idea of India—was a
dominant factor in Nathuram Godse’s decision to fire the gun. The police
could not find concrete evidence of any complicity and released Savarkar.
In an odd twist of fate, he lived out the remainder of his life as if he were
back in house arrest, in the Bombay neighborhood of Shivaji Park. He was
disallowed by the newly independent Indian nation from participating in
politics, though he remained influential in the Hindu Mahasabha and, in an
echo of earlier colonial restrictions on him, remained under surveillance. He
continued writing, publishing one tract after another until his death in
1966.10
One of the charges that landed Savarkar in jail in 1910 was sedition. Yet
soon after his 1921 repatriation to an Indian prison, he wrote another
potentially seditious work, even if it may not have been seditious in a legal
sense since it made no critical mention of British rule in India, smuggling it
out of his prison cell in Ratnagiri in 1923.11 Titled Essentials of Hindutva,
the tract was published the same year by a lawyer in Nagpur named Shri
Vishwanathrao Kelkar. Savarkar wrote the work in English under the
pseudonym “A Mahratta.”12 The extended essay was a passionately lyrical
celebration of the Indian territorial nation. Some five decades after it was
written, it has become the de facto bible of militant and exclusionary Hindu
nationalism, which sees as its foremost enemy India’s minority Muslim
community.13 The essay not only encapsulated this suspicion of Muslims—
it also encapsulated Savarkar’s entire oeuvre, dramatically influencing the
course of modern Indian history.
One word—an abstract noun—from the essay’s title, Hindutva, would
come to stand as the exemplary expression of militant Hindu nationalism,
while one couplet became the cornerstone of Hindutva ideology:
Asindhu sindhu paryanta yasya bharata bhumika
Pitrabhu punyabhushchaiva sa vai hinduriti smritaha14
Translated literally, the couplet claims that India’s geographical contours
extend from the Sindhu River in the North (in present-day Pakistan) to the
seas below in the South.15 All people who claimed India as both pitrabhumi
(the land of their ancestors) and punyabhumi (holy land) were its natural
inhabitants. He clarified what he meant by punyabhumi ten years after
publishing Essentials to ensure that he was not misunderstood.
The land in which the founder of a religion appeared as a Rishi, an
Avatar, or Prophet, and in which he preached that religion, and by his
living in the land it acquired sacredness, that land can be considered the
punyabhu of a religion. Like Palestine for the Jews and Christians, and
Arabia for the Muslims.… It is not to be understood simply as sacred
land.16
The modern boundaries of India contain the oldest shrines and sacred sites
of its Hindu, Sikh, Jain, and Buddhist communities; they also contain
sacred shrines of India’s Christian, Jewish, and Muslim communities. But
because Jerusalem, Mecca, and Medina were outside the territorial
boundaries of modern India, by Savarkar’s definition, Jews, Christians, and
Muslims were neither natural nor national inhabitants of India. This
territorial demarcation and its accompanying exclusionary ideology—the
idea that India is primarily a Hindu country—are at the core of Hindutva.
To call someone a Hindutvavadi in today’s India is to either bestow upon
her a great compliment or bruise her with a contumelious insult, depending
upon that person’s ideological persuasion. For these and other reasons
Savarkar’s Essentials has received its share of attention from Indian
historians and political commentators, as has Savarkar himself.
There is, in fact, a large body of literature on and by Savarkar, and no
conversation about Hindutva or Hindu nationalism, whether by historians,
sociologists, political scientists, or anthropologists, takes place without
naming him as the father of Hindu fascism, Hindu fundamentalism, and/or
Hindu right-wing nationalism. His supporters think of him as an
extraordinary patriot and the champion of Hindus. There is also an
enormous biographical body of literature on Savarkar published in his
native language, Marathi, and even some works in Sanskrit. A few of these
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tuntia."
Rainar tuskin saattoi vastata, kun oli juuri ikään kourallisen suuria
sinervänmustia marjoja suuhunsa pannut. Hänen kätensä olivat jo
kuin värjätyt ja hänen suunsa niin musta, että Ville nauroi, jotta
raikui. Ei kukaan heistä ollut milloinkaan edes maistellut niin maajaita
mustikoita, joita siellä oli niin, että varret nuukottivat.
— "Olli, missä sinä olet! Me menemme nyt. Tule, tule!" huuteli Ville
viimein. "Me saatamme sairastua, jos syömme liiaksi ja päälle
päätteeksi leivättä."
Senkin takia oli Villen ja Ollin ja Rainarin vaikea nähdä sitä. Mutta
toisestakaan syystä he eivät puutansa löytäneet. Olli oli todellakin
näet ollut oikeassa luullessaan, ettei hän ollut kertaakaan
kääntäytynyt. He olivat siis kulkenut ihan väärään suuntaan, joutuen
toiseen aukeamaan ja haikailivat puutansa ihan toisen metsän
laidasta.
— "No, mutta, Olli! Mitä sinä luulisit isän sanovan, jos hän sen
kuulisi! Emmehän me ole seitsen- ja kahdeksanvuotisia tyttöjä.
Koetetaanpas huutaa: Antti!"
— "Ville! Ville!"
Untako hän näki vai huusiko joku? Ville hypähti pystyyn unisilmin
ja löi päänsä oksaan, niin että koko maja tärähti.
— "Ville! Olli!"
Ei Ville eikä Olli ymmärtänyt, mitä oli tapahtunut. Rainar, joka unen
pöpperössä majasta kömpi, ei ymmärtänyt senkään vertaa. Mutta
aivan pyörälle he joutuivat, kun he muutamain sylien päässä
havumajasta yhtäkkiä seisoivat sen suuren petäjän juurella, jonka
Rainar niin hyvin tunsi sen vinosta latvasta. Vähän merkitsi, että
lippu oli poissa ja leili tyhjä, mutta hehän olivat siinä — siinä ihan
lähellä — ja he olivat tuntikausia kulkea kupittaneet suoraan
Kangasalaa kohti!
9.
TALKOISSA.
— "Kummallista, että Lentolassa ei vielä ole leikkuuta edes
alotettu ja niin suuret pellothan siellä on", ihmetteli Ville, silmäten
naapurin laajoja vainioita, jotka vain aita ja tie erotti heidän
ruispelloistaan.
— "Ja koulu", lisäsi Olli. "Ihan jo katoaa halu koulua käydä, kun on
saanut jo vuosikausia sitä jupittaa. Mutta mikäs auttaa? Ei kuin kestä
vain loppuun asti."
— "Mutta, Olli, sinä kyllä tiedät, että tiedot hyödyttävät", sanoi
Ville. "Ei aina saa vain hauskuuksia ajatella."
— "Etkö sinä muista, että itsekkin nauroit, kun hän kysyi, oliko
Berliini Venäjällä?" muistutti Rainar.
— "No, maantieto", toimesi Olli. "Sen sijaan hän tuntee joka talon
tässä pitäjässä ja Vesilahdessa ja Kangasalla. Entä mitenkä tarkasti
hän tietää ilmat ennakolta? Eivätkö ne ole yhtä päteviä
maantieteellisiä tietoja?"
— "Eihän meistä kovinkaan suurta hyötyä ole", arveli Ville. "Ja yksi
päivähän vain. Ehkä emme pääsekkään."
Kun Ville herättyään vilkasi ulos, ihastui hän ikihyväksi. Taivas oli
sininen. Viileä aamu oli niin tyyni, ettei lehti värähtänyt. Ja ilma oli
niin kirkas, että Ville selvästi erotti kirkontornin huipun etäältä yli
puidenlatvain. Hänelle juolahti mieleen muuan varhainen kaunis
kevätaamu, kun he isän kanssa soutivat kalanpyydyksiä kokemaan.
Olipa siinä liikettä, kun pitkin koko peltoa järven rannasta metsän
laitaan kaikki paikoilleen asettuivat. Silloin vasta selvästi nähtiin,
miten paljo siellä oli ihmisiä.
— "Tule nyt, Olli, alotetaan", huusi Ville Ollille, joka oli siirtynyt
lähimmän kaljakorvon luo ja paraillaan tuoppia täytti. "Varmaankin
odotetaan patruunia", hän sanoi Rainarille kurottautuen katsomaan.
Mutta hän ei nähnyt mitään, kunnes viulu yhtäkkiä ihan heidän
takanaan vingahti. "Krymmi, räätäli", hän kuiskasi Rainarille. "Hän se
vasta soittaa osaa. Hän on monen pitäjän paras soittaja. Minä luulin
hänen tulevan vasta iltasella, kun tanssi alkaa."
Koko ajan Krymmin viulu soi. Konsa kaikui marssia, konsa lauluja,
taas uusia marssia, tauoten vain juonikkaan kielen viritysajaksi tai
siksi, että soittaja silloin tällöin sai tuopillisen vaahtoavaa kaljaa
tyhjennetyksi.