Savarkar A Contested Legacy 1924-1966

Email

Whatsapp

Facebook

Pinterest

Twitter

Copy link

Decades after his death, Savarkar continues to uniquely influence India's political scenario. From being an optimistic advocate of Hindu- Muslim unity in his treatise on the 1857 War of Independence, what was it that transformed him in the Cellular Jail to a proponent of 'Hindutva? Former president of the All-India Hindu Mahasabha, Savarkar was a severe critic of the Congress's appeasement politics. After Gandhi's murder, Savarkar was charged as a co-conspirator in the assassination. While he was acquitted by the court, time and again, Savarkar occupies centre stage, where his alleged role in Gandhi's assassination is often discussed and debated.

Was Savarkar really a co-conspirator in the Gandhi murder? Was there a pogrom against a particular community after Gandhi's murder?

Exploring a vast range of original archival documents across India and abroad in English and several Indian languages, in this concluding volume of the book, historian Vikram Sampath brings to light the life and works of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, one of the most contentious political thinkers and leaders of the twentieth century.

a Bangalore-based historian, is the author of ten acclaimed books, including: Splendours of Royal Mysore: The Untold Story of the Wodeyars. His two- volume biography, Savarkar: Echoes from a Forgotten Past and Savarkar: A Contested Legacy, and his latest books, Bravehearts of Bharat: Vignettes from Indian History and Waiting for Shiva: Unearthing the Truth of Kashi's Gyan Vapi, have all gone on to become national bestsellers. In 2021, Vikram was elected a fellow of the prestigious Royal Historical Society. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi's first Yuva Puraskar in English literature and the ARSC International Award for excellence in historical research in New York for his book My Name Is Gaubar Jaan: The Life and Times of a Musician. Vikram was among four writers and artists selected as writers-in-residence at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in 2015. He has a doctorate in history and music from the University of Queensland, Australia, and was a senior research fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi. He was also a fellow of the Aspen Global Leadership Network, an Eisenhower Global Fellow and a visiting fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. Currently, he is an adjunct senior fellow at Monash University, Australia. Vikram is the founder of the Archive of Indian Music (AIM) and the Foundation for Indian Historical and Cultural Research (FIHCR).

Since the time the first volume Savarkar: Rebors from a Forgotten Past, was released in August 2019 the amount of love and affection that 1 have received from readers, within and outside India, has been most heart-warming. Being accosted for 'selfies' or being recognized and appreciated as the biographer of Savarkar in public places by complete strangers was deeply humbling and made all the efforts seem so worthwhile. My lectures on him in various cities drew large crowds; the book went into multiple translations and reprints in no time and my publishers were happy! But all this went on to show the genuine hunger that people had in them to know more about this hotly contested character of the past and something that they had been denied in all these decades after independence. Hence, despite attempts made by some bookstores to not even stock the book, given they did not agree with the ideology of the protagonist, or some leading media houses to block out any reviews or mentions of the book (so much for their self-alleged 'liberalism'!), it managed to reach far and wide, through online channels, social media and sheer word of mouth. I have been constantly badgered with questions about when the second volume would be out. The Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown in 2020 slowed down everyone's lives and so did the pace of my research work and field trips, with travel being impaired. My sincere apologies to all the readers who have had to wait so patiently for so long for this volume to be out and I do hope they feel that the wait was worth the while after reading this book. This volume carries forward the story of Savarkar from the time he was released conditionally from jail in 1924 and captures the tumultuous decades of his life thereafter the wide-ranging social reforms that he undertook in Ratnagiri under house arrest; his entry into active politics as the President of the All-India Hindu Mahasabha in 1937; the stormy years that led to freedom and Partition of India; the assassination of Gandhi and Savarkar's implication in it; his eventual acquittal and release, the final years of his life culminating in his sacrificing his own life in 1966.