Navigating the contours of modernity through nationalism: — A study of Gandhi and Savarkar
Introduction
The late 19th and early 20th century confronted the Indian subcontinent with the experiential and theoretical problems of modernity. The term “modernity” here, as elsewhere, reflects a set of ideas, primarily the European enlightenment ideas of rationalism and the positivist approach to science, that emerges in the European context. The new Indian elites, owing to their education in the English language and ideals, could neither ignore the ideas that directly challenge traditionalism nor the real flaws that exist in the social and cultural milieu. It is under these circumstances that different forms of Indian nationalisms were ideated. It is my general contention that almost all forms of Indian nationalisms formulated during this period were a response to modernism. This argument is made in this paper through the works of two contrasting figure i.e. MK. Gandhi and VD Savarkar. While the nationalisms formulated by both these anti-imperialist figures had similar elements, their divergences can only be understood as different reactions to modern industrial civilization and European nationalism. While Gandhi’s inclusive nationalism was rooted in the traditional and the plural, Savarkar’s nationalism was rooted in homogeneity and modernity. Using Partha Chatterjee’s contention on Indian nationalist thought, I argue that Gandhi escaped thematic colonialism while Savarkar unwittingly embraced it wholeheartedly in the hopes of producing a formidable challenge.
Historical background
As the British rule over India became largely stable, the need to justify its hold became essential and inevitable both for administrative and ideological purposes. The British East India Company was initially reluctant to give importance to the Christian missionaries for fear of offending the religious sentiments of the natives. This stance was faced with persistent backlash and criticism from Christian evangelical missionaries as well as British politicians. In 1797, Charles Grant, an influential politician who served as the chairman of the Company, represented the massive shift in the British policy towards Indian tradition and education.
Grant portrays India as a land of depravity, immorality and decadence. The following paragraph presents an illustration of his general views on Indians, particularly the Hindus: -
“And in general a want of sensibility for others is a very eminent characteristic of this people. The apathy with which a Hindoo views all persons and interests unconnected with himself, is such as excites the indignation of Europeans. At any rate his regards extend but to a very narrow circle. Patriotism is absolutely unknown in Hindustan.” [1]
Grant was not alone in perceiving a lack of morality among the natives. His contemporary Sir John Sore, the governor general of Bengal, had this to remark about Indians: -
“The natives are timid and servile. As individuals they are insolent to their inferiors; to their superiors, generally speaking, submissive, though they are to them also guilty of insolence when they can do so with impunity. Individuals have little sense of honor, and the nation is wholly void of public virtue. They make not the least scruple of lying where falsehood is attended with advantage; yet both Hindoos and Mahomedans, continually speak of their credit and reputation, by which they mean little more than the appearance they make to the world” [2]
Such perceived lack of morality was ascribed to the inherently immoral and despotic religions of India. The company’s initial lack of interest in interfering with the knowledge systems of the natives was in sharp contrast with the growing missionary zeal in early 19th century England. The early-Orientalists showed some genuine fascination and curiosity about native traditions. Empirical knowledge on India’s history, geography, literature and traditions became necessary for proper administration. An authoritative compendium on India was intended to help in the construction of an inferior region for ruling[3]. The first governor-general of Bengal, Warren Hastings, compiled a code on Hindu law after consulting with the “most respectable pandits”. It was only practical for Indians to be governed by Indian laws. This would, according to Hastings, help in establishing a firm footing of the company[4]. Hastings’ compendium was not trusted by many, including Sir William Jones, for being merely the opinion of selected specialists. The goal was to transcend such distinctions to reach the earliest and original texts. As Van der Veer has pointed out, this was propelled by enlightenment ideas of searching for original, pure lost civilizations[5].The Orientalists considered Hindus to be inheritors of a great civilization. The natives had to be educated in their native system. This approach came into attack from the “Anglicists”, which comprised of both utilitarians and the evangelicals. Jones, though supported by Hastings in his lifetime, came under attack after his death. John Stuart Mill considered certain races existing in the backward states of society to be in their “nonage”. Despotism, thus, became a “legitimate mode of government dealing with barbarians”, provided it improved their well-being[6]. The utilitarian disdain for native tradition stemmed partly from its implicit functioning within the positivist and methodological naturalist phenomenon, which will be briefly discussed in the section on Savarkar. The evangelicals, on the other hand, were motivated by their belief in the superiority of the Christian tradition. In his Minute on Indian education, Thomas Babington Macaulay argued that “a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia”[7]. Macaulay’s speech was effective and became a contributing factor in the decisive victory of the Anglicists over the Orientalists[8]
The Charter Act of 1813 made educating the natives, along with their “religious and moral improvement”, the imperative of England[9]. As the evangelicals started proselytizing and organizing educational institutions, they started to directly attack and engage with Indian traditions and spiritual texts. The company was castigated for presiding over a Christian government while engaging in profiteering. James Silk Buckingham, the MP from Sheffield, argued that the company ought not be tolerant of “religious abominations” like the “obscene and bloody rites”. It was hypocrisy for the Company to interfere with religions where it sought to profit but ignore where there was nothing to gain. The company, Buckingham implied, should not allow the flourishing of “native superstitions in all their rankness and deformity”[10].
It is true that regressive practices like Sati and untouchability were practiced often in colonial Indian society. Nevertheless, the weaponization of these practices for instrumental and imperialist ends went unremarked upon until relatively recently. Lata Mani has argued that colonial debates on Sati, while motivated by caricatures of superstition in Indian religious texts, also helped in prioritizing Brahminical texts while excluding women’s agency in the discourse[11]. In a similar manner, Nicholas Dirks has argued that British colonialism facilitated the construction and solidification of caste categories, which existed incongruously in pre-colonial India[12].
A comprehensive understanding of debates concerning nationalism and Hinduism in the colonial period can only be achieved by analysing the evangelical encounter with the native traditions.
In his speech criticizing the conduct of the Company, Buckingham alluded to the evangelical caricature of Hinduism: -
“Here was an organized system of procuring pilgrims to the bloody shrine of the Indian Moloch. Here was a body of Idol Missionaries, far exceeding in number the whole of the Christian Missionaries in the East, going forth clothed with all the authority of the British name and power, paid by the Company’s Government, and their zeal stimulated by a payment of a certain sum per head on every pilgrim brought to bow himself before the wooden God”.
The descriptions “wooden God” and “Indian moloch” referred to the Jagannath temple at Puri. Buckingham’s use of these terms was derived from the works of the Scottish missionary Claudius Buchanan. The writings of Buchanan were one of the earliest to illustrate the perceived “immorality” of Indian traditions. Buchanan represented Hindu religion as bloody, violent, superstitious and backward. This was represented through the figure of Jagannath or Juggernaut, as he termed it. In a letter published by the Christian Observer, Buchanan described the Rath Yatra as a festival of “sanguinary superstitions” where “human victims” showed their devotion to the duty by “by falling under the wheels of the moving tower in which the Idol is placed”. Juggernaut was described as the Canaanite deity of Moloch. Buchanan wrote that the God “is said to smile when the libation of the blood is made.” Exaggerating the supposed sexuality associated with Hindu rituals, Buchanan remarked about “obscene songs” and a “sensual yell of delight”. The women “emitted a sound like that of whistling, with their lips circular, and the tongue vibrating: as if a serpent would speak by their organs, uttering human sounds”[13]. Such hissing sounds, for Buchanan, echoed the hissing at the Satan’s Assembly in John Milton’s Paradise Lost.
Buchanan’s portrayal of native religions is merely one instance of the justifications that the evangelicals had for their proselytizing mission. The charter act led to the development of the English education system, along the lines suggested by Grant and Macaulay. This created, quite intentionally, an Indian class of interpreters who were exposed to European ideas of enlightenment and modernity. The life and work of the social reformer Raja Rammohun Roy, initially employed by the East India company, provides an initial glimpse into the educated Indian’s attempt to reconcile modernity with tradition. The abolition of Sati came about due to untiring efforts of Roy. It is beyond the realm of this paper to examine Roy’s social activism. Instead, I want to focus on the rhetoric and arguments employed by both the colonizers as well as social reformers to illustrate the engagement with European presuppositions. The official colonial narrative on Sati was structured around the presumptions of the existence of hegemonical scriptures and the complete indigenous submission towards it. The Orientalists, unlike the evangelicals, imagined their civilizing mission as imparting proper education to the natives regarding their scriptures[14]. In conflating Hinduism as a religion in the same mould as that of monotheistic book-religions, they assumed that practices like Sati were based on ignorance of the Scriptures and the deception of the priestly class.
Rammohun Roy operated within these frameworks. In his pamphlet critiquing Sati, Roy cites Brahminical scriptures like the Manusmriti and the Vedas as religious texts that implicitly forbid Sati by permitting widows to live even after the death of their husbands. Roy’s primary argument, thus, is responding to and engaging with the question of scriptural foundations of Sati. This was the same mode of engagement that the colonialists engaged in. While defending the character of women against accusations of stoicism, Roy writes: -
“You charge them with want of resolution, at which I feel exceedingly surprised: for we constantly perceive, in a country where the name of death makes the male shudder, that the female from her firmness of mind offers to burn with the corpse of her deceased husband.”[15]
In the paragraph, Roy not only implicitly concedes the importance of voluntary Sati but also uses the practice as an instance of women displaying a certain heroism. In the very next paragraph, Roy argues against Sati by pointing out the way it has exploited women’s vulnerability. Yet, such ambivalence was part of the colonial discourse on tradition. Sati was argued to be a later interpolation, an instance of an earlier great religion being corrupted. Mani has noted the contrast between Roy’s earlier Persian writings with his later works in the English[16]. In his Persian writings, Roy advocates for a strict monotheism that rejects almost the entirety of organized religion. However, as Roy starts engaging with the missionaries and the colonial administrators, a radical Hindu monotheistic organized religion in the form of Brahmo Samaj which strictly adheres to the Vedas is formed. In fact, in his petition to Lord William Bentick, Roy argued that government was only consulting ignorant men instead of consulting “pundits and Brahmins”[17]. Given the legal nature of petition, one can reasonably argue that Roy’s attempt to align with the orthodoxy was a mere tactic. A complete picture emerges only when one engages with Roy’s construction of Hinduism.
Roy was extremely critical of the rhetoric and activities of the missionaries. He argued that Christianity was not truly monotheistic owing to its belief in the trinity[18]. Roy defended Hinduism against imperial Christian expansionism. Yet, he internalized the criticisms of missionaries with respect to polytheism and rituals. According to Roy, Hinduism in its original form eschewed idol worship while being strictly monotheistic and egalitarian. This was the first instantiation of a belief in the Vedic Golden age when Hinduism was superior to Christianity. In its positioning of Hinduism in direct opposition to evangelical Christianity, Roy’s Hinduism was simultaneously reformist and reactionary. As Jaffrelot argues[19], Roy laid the groundwork for later organizations like Arya Samaj in forming Hindus as a community as well as a nationalism rooted in tradition.
This is the background in which European modernity was engaged with and influenced the formation of Indian nationalism. These are the historical and ideological circumstances preceding Gandhi and Savarkar.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi: — escaping colonial epistemology.
One of the difficulties in covering Gandhi’s work is the sheer volume and versatility of his writings. Gandhi was not keen on attempting a systematic and logical exposition to his ideas. As he remarked in a conversation, his language was “aphoristic”, imprecise and subject to multiple interpretations[20]. Hind Swaraj, written in 1909, is an exception to this. Even though it was written before Gandhi’s return to India, it continued to represent core ideas which Gandhi practiced and reiterated throughout his life.
Hind Swaraj cannot be and should not be treated as a mere philosophical text. As with most of Gandhi’s work, it was inevitably tied to and influenced by his larger political project. The text is framed as a conversation between the “editor” and the “reader”. It is written in the immediate aftermath of Gandhi’s encounter with Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and his fellow revolutionaries at India House in 1909. Inspired by Savarkar’s ideology, a 26-year-old Madan Lal Dhingra had assassinated an official of the British Indian government. Reacting to this event in London, Gandhi remarked: -
“Every Indian should reflect thoughtfully on this murder. It has done India much harm; the deputation’s efforts have also received a setback. But that need not be taken into consideration. It is the ultimate result that we must think of. Mr. Dhingra’s defence is inadmissible. In my view, he has acted like a coward. All the same, one can only pity the man. He was egged on to do this act by ill-digested reading of worthless writings. His defence of himself, too, appears to have been learnt by rote. It is those who incited him to this that deserve to be punished.”[21]
In London, Gandhi and Savarkar engaged in spirited conversations concerning the nature of Gita, the value of revolutionary violence and the use of scriptures[22]. The extracts below are indicative of the sort of conversations they might have had: -
“READER: At first, we will assassinate a few Englishmen and strike terror; then, a few men who will have been armed will fight openly. We may have to lose a quarter of a million men, but we will regain our land. We will undertake guerrilla warfare and defeat the English.
EDITOR: Do you not tremble to think of freeing India by assassination? What we need to do is to kill ourselves. It is a cowardly thought, that of killing others. Whom do you suppose to free by assassination? The millions of India do not desire it. Those who are intoxicated by the wretched modern civilisation think these things. Those who will rise to power by murder will certainly not make the nation happy. Those who believe that India has gained by Dhingra’s act and such other acts in India make a serious mistake.”[23]
This is not to indicate that the entirety of Hind Swaraj was inspired by Gandhi’s conversation with Savarkar. Nevertheless, Savarkar certainly represented one of the many ideas Gandhi strongly critiqued in the book, namely revolutionary violence. What is particularly striking in the dialogue is Gandhi’s implication that revolutionary violence is inevitably tied to an intoxication with modern civilization. This argument, as I’ll argue in the next section, correctly identifies the root of Savarkar’s nationalism. Gandhi’s text can be read as an attempt to formulate an alternative form of nationalism, one that not only abhors violence but also opposes modern civilization.
Gandhi’s text inquiries into the question of the reason for subjugation of India by the British. It was not the modern civilization of the British, Gandhi argues, but the moral failing of Indians which started and continued coloniality. It was the Indians who co-operated with the British for selfish reasons that led to India’s subjugation[24]. Gandhi laments that Indians sought self-government while retaining English structures of government and the ideals of Mills and Spencer. Such an arrangement, according to Gandhi, would result in “English rule without the English man”[25].
What is it about the English that Gandhi considers to be so problematic? Modern European civilization. Gandhi acknowledges the intoxicating nature of modern civilization. It was true that materially the people of England lived in better-built houses and acquired more wealth by ploughing their land with steam engines. The presumably dystopian nightmare envisioned by Gandhi is one where people would be able to have clothing, motorcar, food and newspaper through the mere pressing of a button. Machinery would be able to perform virtually all tasks. Modern civilizations’ detrimental effects were obvious to Gandhi in the form that it existed in the 19th century. The condition of workers was lamentable. Crucially, “men were enslaved by temptation of money and of the luxuries that money can buy”[26]. Modern civilization seeks to improve bodily comfort while paying no heed to morality.
Excessive consumption was the primary urge that was induced by and continued the existence of modern civilization. The scientific temperament was the product of the restless mind, which given the conditions of industrial civilization, engaged in unbridled indulgences. This is not to say that Gandhi does not acknowledge the existence of regressive practices like child marriage in ancient civilization. Gandhi considers such practices to be “defects” rather than the norm. On the other hand, the consumption instinct in fact defined modern industrial civilization. Gandhi did not seek to reform civilization. He considered machinery to be “evil” that would ultimately have to go[27].
Gandhi’s opposition to the British, thus, cannot simply be categorized as anti-imperialism. His criticism was based on the fundamental ideals upon which the Empire, as well as many European countries, stood. Gandhi’s critique here can be contrasted with the ideals of many his fellow nationalists. As Sudipta Kaviraj has argued, India’s founding fathers were enchanted with the idea of a centralizing state[28] . Jawaharlal Nehru, for instance, considered it to be a mere a fact that any country that sought political and economic independence must also be highly industrialized. One cannot achieve high standards of living or eradicate poverty without the aid of modern technology[29].
For Gandhi, industrialization meant the exploitation of villages through competition. Responding to Nehru, Gandhi says: -
“Pandit Nehru wants industrialization because he thinks that, if it is socialized, it would be free from the evils of capitalism. My own view is that evils are inherent in industrialism, and no amount of socialization can eradicate them.”[30]
Gandhi’s critique of industrialization must not be conflated with the Marxian approach. A fundamental way in which Gandhi differs from Marx is his refusal to work within western epistemological frameworks. Marx operated within the framework of European Enlightenment. The socialism that Marx theorized along with his critique of capitalism were explicitly intended to be “scientific” based on rational prepositions[31]. At best, Marx is ambivalent about machinery and industrial society. While critiquing technology for alienation, he also recognizes its revolutionary power[32]. The problem, for Marx, is a particular institution i.e. capitalism. Many Marxists continue to advocate for accelerating the liberatory forces of industrialization[33].
Gandhi is either critical or indifferent to institutions. He refuses to accept that an effective combination of institutional actors, motivated by common self-interests will be able to act and steer representative institutions in a way that benefits the collective. In this scenario, personal self-interests are often incentivized instead of social morality. Lawyers, for instance, are enjoined to find arguments to support the client’s position. As a rule, lawyers advance quarrels to enrich themselves instead of repressing them[34]. Gandhi is similarly dismissive of the idea of representative democracy without the existence of communal morality. In his words: -
“The power to control national life through national representatives is called political power. Representatives will become unnecessary if the national life becomes so perfect as to be self-controlled. It will then be a state of enlightened anarchy in which each person will. become his own ruler. He will conduct himself in such a way that his behaviour will not hamper the well-being of his neighbours. In an ideal State there will be no political institution and therefore no political power”[35]
The personal and the political, for Gandhi, were inseparable in a deeper sense than the phrase implies. It is in this vein that Gandhi reconciles his intense religiosity with his public programs and ideas. Gandhi’s public affirmation of religion was under intense scrutiny even during his lifetime. More recently, the Marxist historian Perry Anderson, has accused Gandhi of converting the “studiously secular” politics of the early Congress with a mass politics of religion utilizing theology, symbology and mythology[36] . This analysis unfortunately is ignorant of the realities of mass politics in India. Gandhi’s use of religion was neither unique nor oppositional. Communal morality neither exists on its own nor is it intentionally constructed through a strategy. It functions through archetypes. Ethics and politics had to be intertwined. Thus, it was the “method alone” that interested Gandhi. It did not matter whether the achievement of the goal was possible through unethical i.e. violent means. It was more important to utilize truth and non-violence as an agency to achieve the wishes of the people than it was to achieve mere independence from imperial rule[37].
While utilizing religion, Gandhi was also reacting to claims of the British that India was not one nation before their arrival. While it is true that nationalism did not exist in the modern sense of the word, it is not the case that there was no continuity, interaction or sense of unity among the diverse regions of India at all. Citing the examples of Shankara’s Char Dham and the belief in sacred geography (worship of the river Ganges), Gandhi argues that a feeling of nationality did exist among the various regions of India[38]. This is one of the rare point of convergences between Gandhi and Savarkar, as we shall see. Gandhi recognized that ethical politics had to resort to the language of ethics universally understood by the masses i.e. religion. This nationalism did not have to be exclusionary as Gandhi argued for the universality of ethics among all religions. The defence of Indian religions was also in response to the caricatures that we’ve explored.
Gandhi’s break with modernity became complete through his epistemological rejection. The political scientist Partha Chatterjee[39] defines the colonial thematic as an essentialist framework of knowledge premised upon objectivity, reason and post-Enlightenment western scientific thought. Gandhi’s reading of religious texts was premised upon an explicit rejection of historicism. Texts like the Gita, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana represented poetic truths, not historical or theoretical truths. How does one extract the “poetic truth”?
“Who is the best interpreter? Not learned men surely. Leaming there must be. But religion does not live by it. It lives in the experiences of its saints and seers, in their lives and sayings. When all the most learned commentators of the scriptures are utterly forgotten, the accumulated experience of the sages and. saints will abide and be an inspiration for ages to come.”[40]
It is in this vein that Gandhi blamed the earthquakes in Bihar as a chastisement for the sin of untouchability. Savarkar considered such statements to be a “misfortune” for India. In his usual sardonic tone, he remarked “I still wait to hear what his inner voice will tell us about why Quetta was rocked by an earthquake!”[41]. Gandhi admitted that his belief was “instinctive” and thus unprovable. However, it would be “untruthful and cowardly” of him to not proclaim such beliefs owing to fear of ridicule. Rational knowledge is limited while faith provides a unified framework. Even if beliefs are “ill-founded”, they can still be beneficial for the believers by motivating them towards the cure of the disease of untouchability[42]. Repeatedly, Gandhi refuses to engage in historicism or resort to science as an explanation or justification for his beliefs. This marks a rare break from epistemological domination of European thought that nationalists of his time accepted.
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar: — A modern nationalist
V.D. Savarkar demonstrated his love for the nation from a very early age. Unlike Gandhi, whose ideas often resist historicization, it is almost impossible to properly understand Savarkar’s ideas without some understanding of his personal history as well as the social milieu in which he lived. Savarkar was heavily influenced by the life and ideas of his personal hero, the Italian revolutionary Giuseppe Mazzini. In 1904, he formed an anti-imperialist secret society called “Abhinav Bharat” (Young India), which was inspired from Mazzini’s Young Italy.
Savarkar, much like Gandhi, wrote prolifically. Yet, it is extremely difficult to provide an intellectual genealogy of his ideas. This is because Savarkar is notoriously vague in identifying influences. Despite his voracious reading, Savarkar rarely specified the individuals he was critiquing. Mazzini is perhaps the only thinker whose intellectual influence is explicit in almost all his major writings. Tilak also does exert enormous influence as an early proponent of Hindu nationalism. Savarkar’s method of writing is heavily affected by the circumstances in which he wrote. He was subject to surveillance from his early days as a revolutionary at India House. After his arrest in 1910, all his writings were written with limited source materials, often extracted from memory. Continued surveillance after his restricted release in 1924 meant that Savarkar often resorted to pseudonyms and had to subtly disguise his true political motives. Vinayak Chaturvedi points out the similar conditions under which both Antonio Gramsci and Savarkar wrote their major works. Just as Gramsci’s writings had to be contextualized to be properly understood, Savarkar’s writings will also have to be approached in the same vein[43] .
In his introduction to the Marathi translation of Mazzini’s writings, Savarkar explained that he sought to build upon scientific forms of knowledge based on “detailed experiments” so that they could be “universally proven and accepted”. Mazzini’s writings were an example of “universally accepted principles” which were true for all places across time periods[44] . Mazzini’s work, for Savarkar, showed that religion and politics were synonymous. Politics is to be considered as divine duty. Not only was the Italian revolution necessary, but it was also a “holy war of independence”. Revolutions were virtuous. Savarkar also admires the anti-imperialist strand in Mazzini’s work as it was essential for human beings to be free to achieve progress[45].
Savarkar developed his ideology through history. By his own admission, he was not particularly interested in “chaotic mass of details”. The role of a historian was to portray the “feelings, motives, emotions and actions of the actors themselves whose deed he aims to relate”[46]. It is only when the historian puts herself in the shoes of the individuals being written about that history can be said to be complete. It is in this vein that he re-imagined the 1857 “rebellion” as the First war of independence[47]. It is one of his few books where Savarkar does refer to sources, which he accessed from the British archive. In his introduction, Savarkar opined that 1857 was relegated to the “realms of history”. “English historians” and their “Indian sycophants” have been “deceptive” by ignoring Mazzinian revolutionary spirit behind the 1857 war[48]. Though Savarkar was only able to primarily consult English sources, he read against the grain quite astutely to present an evocative alternative narrative.
While admitting that there was communal enmity in the past among Hindus and Muslims, the 1857 war of independence was an instance of the two communities coming together to fight against the British. Writing poetically about Maulvi Ahmadullah Shah, Savarkar compared his heroism to that of Mazzini. Hindus and Muslims were both “children of the same mother”. Both belonged to the soil of Hindustan[49]. Savarkar does not make any extensive argument for unity between Hindus and Muslims in his later texts. Nevertheless, the germination of his later ideas can be found in this text. The poetic flair evidenced throughout the prose of this book only becomes enhanced in future. Savarkar does not merely defend the rebellion, he romanticizes gruesome violence. The extract below serves as a testament to both his rhetorical style and glorification of violence: -
“As soon as they entered, they stabbed right and left and killed about one hundred and fifty English women and children! The room was a lake of blood with pieces of human flesh swimming in it. When they went in, the butchers walked on the ground; but when they came out, they had to wade through blood. The night was wailing with the screams of the half-dead, the deep groans of the dying, and the piteous cries of a few children who escaped on account of their size in the general massacre. About dawn, the unfortunate creatures were dragged out of Bibigarh prison and pushed into a neighbouring well. A couple of children, so long crushed under the weight of the dead bodies, got out near the well and began running away. A blow threw them also dead on the heap of the dead. Men drank water so long from the well, but the well now drank human blood. As the English had thrown to the skies the screams of brown women and children at Fatehpur, so, the Pandays threw the screams and the corpses of white women and children into the deep down! The account between the two races, extending over a hundred years, was thus being settled! Even the Bay of Bengal might, in ages, be filled up; but the yawning well of Cawnpore — never!”[50]
A defence of violence in a conflict between two armed opponents is different from a celebration and glorification of violence as revenge against unarmed women and children. As he writes “Revolt, bloodshed and revenge have often been instruments created by nature to root out injustice and introduce an era of justice.”[51] The sword of the oppressed was holy. It was the British who were to be blamed for the brutality. In his words: -
“At Meerut, the Indians no doubt killed the alien English, but it was not done savagely enough. They simply cut off their heads with a blow of the sword.”[52]
Savarkar’s views on violence remained constant throughout his life. During his revolutionary years, violence was not merely a matter of faith but also a matter of practice. This is evidenced through assassins who were inspired by him to murder agents of the British government.
During his years in prison, Gandhi made an alliance with some of the Muslim leaders on the question of non-cooperation and Khilafat. Savarkar’s turn towards anti-Muslim politics is often blamed on his terrible experiences in the prisons with Muslim evangelist prisoners[53]. This is the narrative Savarkar’s own memoir seems to support. However, Savarkar was particularly prone to exaggeration in his personal narrative. A belief based on few bad encounters can be remedied by a few good encounters. Savarkar’s position is much more coherent and consistent. In a reference to the Khilafat in one of his mercy petitions, Savarkar argues that he’s much more concerned with “the fanatic hordes of Asia who had been the curse of India” than with the British. [54] Notwithstanding the strategic nature of the petition, this sentiment seems to be sincere. Almost a year after writing this petition, Savarkar writes his pamphlet “Essentials of Hindutva” conceptualizing a radical Hindu nationalism[55].
Savarkar’s “Hindutva” is not a defence of Hinduism in the traditional sense. At times, it is almost the opposite. This is not to say that Savarkar was not responding to or did not mind the caricatures of Hinduism prevalent among the orientalists. Like Roy, Savarkar was fascinated with modernity. While Roy sought to modernize Hinduism through a discourse of theology, Savarkar couldn’t care less about it. An understandably contentious relationship existed between the Hindu orthodoxy and Savarkar. He acknowledged that caste system was sanctioned by scriptures. It was idiocy to follow fossilized scriptures. Scriptures, for Savarkar, were self-contradictory creation of human beings which are specific to a particular context. Thus, “they need to be discarded as and when society evolves, and new rules and laws that are relevant to contemporary times need to be codified.” [56]Scriptures must not retard progress towards modernity in scientific terms. Savarkar did not stop here. He accused the Sanatanis of arrogance. The Hindu orthodoxy’s scriptural defence of caste system frustrated him. Citing a verse from the Bhavishyapurana which prohibited speaking in foreign languages, Savarkar argued that the Sanatanis had already broken their vows by speaking the English language[57]. Savarkar critiqued cow worship in Hinduism as the orthodoxy “filled their cupped palms with cow urine and sprinkled it all over a temple but if a pure and wise previous untouchable like Dr. Ambedkar were to give them Ganga water, let alone drinking it, if it were even sprinkled on them, they believe they have been polluted.” It was ridiculous to worship the cow due to it being associated with divinity textually as the boar was also mentioned as an incarnation of Vishnu. Shouldn’t there be pig protection societies then, Savarkar mocked[58].
Savarkar’s Hindutva was neither conservative nor religious. This is not to say he was completely divorced from the debates happening around the religion of Hinduism. As we have seen, he inserted himself in the debates on caste in Hinduism. During his years of restricted release at the district of Ratnagiri, Savarkar organized multiple programs against untouchability while also inaugurating a Patit Pavan temple for the untouchables[59]. Monier Monier-Williams, challenging earlier British scholarship, argued that Orientalist scholarship should promote the Christian religion[60]. For Monier-Williams, Hinduism was difficult to define as it touched on almost every religious and philosophical ideas available. Thus, there was no “succinct designation” for the Hindus. Emphasizing on this problem, Monier-Williams rhetorically asked[61]:- “If then, such all-comprehensive breadth and diversity are essential features of Hinduism, is it possible to give a concise description of it which shall be intelligible and satisfactory?”.
For the creation of a common group, one needs a common identity. In First Indian war of Independence, Savarkar sought to forge the common Indian identity by appealing to history. Now, he utilized history to forge the Hindu community. Hinduism was an imprecise “ism” which only captured “spiritual or religion dogma”. Hinduism’s reduction to a dogma prevented it from being inclusive of Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs. This would be a sacrilege hurting the feelings of non-Vedic Hindus[62]. As he wrote “All this bitterness is mostly due to the wrong use of the word, Hinduism, to denote the religion of the majority only. Either the word should be restored to its proper significance to denote the religions of all Hindus or if you fail to do that it should be dropped altogether”[63].
Tracing the epistemology of the word “Hindu”, Savarkar shows that it came from the word “Sindhu” which later became “Hindu” in foreign languages. For someone to be a Hindu, he had to accept India as his holy-land(punyabhumi), fatherland(pitrubhumi) and motherland(matrubhumi). This allowed Jains, Sikhs and Buddhists to be included while Christian, Muslims and Jews were excluded. While these “non-Hindus” had India as their fatherland and motherland, their holy land i.e. the land of their prophets were outside. The ambiguity in this definition was recognized by Savarkar when he admitted that Christians were a “civil minority” with no “extra-territorial designs” while the Parsis are indistinguishable from Hindus while being “gratefully loyal” to the nation[64]. It was only the Muslims, then, whose loyalty was suspect.
Even among the Muslims, he claimed the “Bohras” and the “Khojas” as “ours”. For Savarkar, such “patriotic Bohras and Christians” qualified to be called “Hindu”[65] . He celebrates Dara Shukoh as evidence of the “moral victory” of Akbar over Aurangzeb. What Savarkar could not tolerate was perceived dual loyalty. He interpreted the Khilafat movement as evidence of the dual loyalty inherent among Muslims. Hindutva, in essence, is an ideology premised upon the search for the history of violence[66] and the propagation of political monogamy, as Bakhle has argued. Muslims were scorned lovers who had betrayed this monogamy.
The Hindu nation, in Savarkar’s telling, was born when Ram conquered Ceylon and brought the entire nation from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean under his imperial throne. It did not matter to Savarkar whether Ram was the incarnation of a deity or a mortal warrior. What mattered was that he was the “most illustrious representative monarch” of the Hindu race. Savarkar portrayed both Hindu deities and historical Hindu monarchs as mythical lovers of the nation[67]. In the words of the historian Janaki Bakhle “Savarkar secularized a pantheon of Hindu religious leaders. In so doing he did not generate a sterilely secular nationalism. Indeed, he did the opposite, enchanting a secular nationalism by placing a mythic community into a magical land.”[68]
Savarkar, while arguing against caste, emphasized on the commonality of Hindu race and blood. The “whole Hindu race” could feel the “blood of a Shivaji” in their veins[69]. Savarkar’s defence of inter-caste marriage was intertwined with his views on race. In a letter to his brother, he writes: -
“Indeed, we can no longer be blind to the fact that we care more for the good breeding of cattle and fowls than for the Eugenics of man. Centuries of child marriages and marriages by proxies! Centuries of love banished from its legitimate sphere of influence to attract and develop elements that tend to the betterment of body and mind and soul; and the inevitable result is a race puny, debilitated, all vigour and manhood sapped out of it. Thousand things have wrought this — and the marriage customs that prevail in us are one of the few important factors contributing to it. Authorities should come in to sanctify but not to silence love altogether”[70]
Savarkar’s use of the words “race puny” and “eugenics of man” reflected the influence of positivist philosophy that had engulfed the nations of Europe. The positivists sought to interpret and understand all phenomenon to the scientific method. Positivism positions itself against social constructionism. Thus, the importance of genetics is prioritized. Charles Darwin’s discovery of the theory of evolution played a crucial role in the development of positivism. Herbert Spencer, a sociologist and utilitarian, expanded Darwin’s formulation of the “survival of the fittest” to human society, in what comes to be known as social Darwinism. Savarkar was considerably influenced by the works of Mills and Spencer[71]. This is evident through Savarkar’s views on cow worship, which he ascribes to utility. Any “cow protection” society, therefore, must be based solely on “scientific and economic”, not religious superstitions[72] . Eugenics became a crucial part of the Nazi regime, which sought to maintain social harmony by eliminating the dysgenic elements of society including the Jews, the disabled and the mentally ill[73]
Giovanni Gentile, the philosopher who helped formulate the doctrine of Fascism along with Benito Mussolini, considered history to be ever-present, alive and in the souls of Italians[74]. Fascism, as Mussolini proclaimed, was the creation of the myth of the nation along and the subordination of everything else[75]. The spiritualization of the nation was not just instrumental for the fascists, it was essential. Fascism, at its core, is a totalitarian system of thought. It demands not only your political support but also your spiritual allegiance.
Hindu nationalism as a movement and an ideology was formulated when fascism was at its peak historically. How did Savarkar react to fascism? He did not mind. He defended the idea of a pan-German state. In his words[76]:-
“Now that Germany is strong why should she not strike to unite all Germans and consolidate them into a Pan-German state and realise the political dream which generations of German people cherished.”
A nation is not formed merely due to the acquisition of territory. It is only “cultural, racial or historical affinities” that forms the basis of a homogenous “organic national being”[77]. Savarkar’s defence of the Nazi policy of expansion was reproduced by the official Nazi newspaper Völkischer Beobachter[78]. The nation belonged to the majority while the German Jews formed a minority. Thus, the Jews represented the communal element while the Germans represented the national movement. Indian Muslims, just like their Jewish counterparts in Germany, identified more with fellow Muslims outside the nation than their fellow citizens. If Hindus grew stronger, then the Muslims will have to play the role of the German-Jews. After Savarkar’s address to his party, the Hindu Mahasabha, his close companion Bhai Parmanand urged the audience to make his address the “Mein Kampf” and make Savarkar their “fuhrer”[79].
Another leader of Savarkar’s party, B.S. Moonje, met Mussolini and was impressed with Fascist Italy. In his diary, Moonje writes[80]:-
“The idea of fascism vividly brings out the conception of unity amongst people. India and particularly Hindu India need some such Institution for the military regeneration of the Hindus.”
This is not to say that Savarkar was a fascist. He had no theory of the state and did not place his Hindu nationalism in an anti-democratic milieu. The fascist elements that do appear in his deification of the nation are corollary of his intoxication with modernity. While Gandhi sought to ethicize politics through the introduction of religion, Savarkar sought to politicize religion for the formation of a homogenous community and territory. Roy, unlike Savarkar, attempted to form the Hindu community through the insertion of modernity in the archetypal Hindu idiom. Savarkar, on the other hand, not only embraced but also romanticized European modernist construction of the nation through his poetic prose.
Conclusion
The afterlife of Savarkar and Gandhi’s ideology have been fascinating. Savarkar’s alleged involvement in the conspiracy of Gandhi’s assassination ensured that he remained a marginal figure in Indian politics for the remainder of his life. On the other hand, Gandhi’s omnipresence as a symbol can be contrasted with the state’s apathy to the essentials of his ideals. Postcolonial India wholeheartedly adopted industrialization and the centralized state, a mode in which Gandhi’s ideas simply could not function. Savarkar, on the other hand, never escaped the colonial thematic. His Hindu nation could exist and needed modernity to thrive. This is not to say that it is the only form of the nation that thrives in centralized, modern nation-state. However, the conditions of the modern state do make it easier for certain ideas to flourish as opposed to others. Even though Gandhi and Savarkar operated and in fact responded to similar historical trends, the approach they took is reflective of the continuing divide between the colonial thematic and epistemological independence.
Notes
[1] Grant, Charles. Observations on the State of Society among the Asiatic Subjects of Great Britain: Particularly with Respect to Morals; and on the Means of Improving It. of Cambridge Library Collection — Perspectives from the Royal Asiatic Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.
[2] Ibid., p. 58
[3] Cohn, Bernard S. Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge: The British in India. Princeton University Press, 1996.
[4] Ibid, p. 26
[5] Veer, Peter van der. Imperial Encounters: Religion and Modernity in India and Britain. Princeton University Press, 2001.
[6] Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
[7] Macaulay, Thomas Babington Macaulay. 1935. Speeches by Lord Macaulay, with His Minute on Indian Education. Edited by G. M. Young. London: Oxford University Press, H. Milford.
[8] Van der Veer, p. 41
[9] Viswanathan, Gauri. Masks of Conquest : Literary Study and British Rule in India. New York :Columbia University Press, 1989
[10] https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1833/jul/10/east-india-companys-charter
[11] Mani, Lata. 1998. Contentious Traditions : The Debate on Sati in Colonial India. Berkeley: University of California Press.
[12] Dirks, Nicholas B. Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India. Princeton University Press, 2001. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt7rq9d.
[13] Altman, Michael J. Heathen, Hindoo, Hindu: American representations of India, 1721–1893. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.
[14] Mani, Lata. “Production of an Official Discourse on ‘Sati’ in Early Nineteenth Century Bengal.” Economic and Political Weekly 21, no. 17 (1986): WS32–40. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4375595.
[15] Collet, Sophia Dobson, ed. 1914. The Life and Letters of Raja Rammohun Roy. 2d ed.
[16] Mani, Lata. “Contentious Traditions: The Debate on Sati in Colonial India.” Cultural Critique, no. 7 (1987): 119–56. https://doi.org/10.2307/1354153.
[17] Majumdar, Jatindra Kumar. 1983. Raja Rammohun Roy and Progressive Movements in India : A Selection from Records, 1775–1845. Calcutta: Brahmo Mission Press.
[18] Collett, p. 73–82
[19] Jaffrelot, Christophe, ed. Hindu Nationalism: A Reader. Princeton University Press, 2007. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt7s415.
[20] Gandhi, Mahatma. The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi(CWMG), Vol. 53. New Delhi :Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India, 2000–2001.
[21] Gandhi, CWMG, Vol. 9, p. 427–428
[22] Chaturvedi, Vinayak. Hindutva and violence: V. D. Savarkar and the politics of history. Albany: SUNY Press, 2023.
[23] Gandhi, Mahatma. Hind Swaraj. New Delhi: Gandhi Peace Foundation, 1985.
[24] Ibid, p. 35
[25] Ibid, p. 27
[26] Ibid, p. 33
[27] Ibid, p. 83
[28] Kaviraj, Sudipta. “On the Enchantment of the State : Indian Thought on the Role of the State in the Narrative of Modernity.” European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie / Europäisches Archiv Für Soziologie 46, no. 2 (2005): 263–96. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23999580.
[29] Nehru, Jawaharlal. The discovery of India. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982.
[30] Gandhi, CWMG, Vol. 73, p. 20–30
[31] Engels, Friedrich. Socialism, Utopian and Scientific. United Kingdom: C.H. Kerr, 1907.
[32] Marx, Karl. Das Kapital, a Critique of Political Economy. Chicago :H. Regnery, 1959
[33] Deleuze, Gilles, and Eugene W. Holland. 1999. Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus : Introduction to Schizoanalysis. London: Routledge.
[34] Gandhi, p. 49–50
[35] Gandhi, CWMG, Vol. 68, p.265
[36] Anderson, Perry. 2013. The Indian Ideology. London: Verso.
[37] Gandhi, CWMG, Vol. 43, p. 41
[38] Gandhi, p. 43–44
[39] Chatterjee, Partha. Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse. Germany: University of Minnesota Press, 1986.
[40] Ibid, p. 95
[41] Sampath, Vikram. Savarkar : Echoes from a Forgotten Past, 1883–1924. Gurgaon, Haryana, India: Penguin/Viking, an imprint of Penguin Random House, 2019.
[42] Chatterjee, p. 97
[43] Chaturvedi, p. 26
[44] Ibid, p. 59
[45] Ibid, p. 59–61
[46] Savarkar, Vinayak Damodar. Hindu-pad-padashahi: Or the review of the Hindu Empire of Maharashtra. New Delhi: Bharti Sahitya Sadan, 1971.
[47] Savarkar, Vinayak Damodar. The Indian War of Independence 1857. Delhi: Abhishek Publications, 2007.
[48] Ibid, p. 13–14
[49] Ibid, p. 70
[50] Ibid, p. 233
[51] Ibid, p. 209
[52] Ibid, p. 110
[53] Sampath, p. 390–392
[54] Ibid, p. 536–537
[55] Savarkar, Vinayak Damodar. Essentials of Hindutva. India: Global Vision Publishing House, 2021.
[56] Sampath, p.
[57] Bakhle, Janaki. Savarkar and the Making of Hindutva. United States: Princeton University Press, 2024.
[58] Bakhle, p. 214
[59] Sampath, Vikram. Savarkar (Part 2): A Contested Legacy, 1924–1966. India: Penguin Random House India Private Limited, 2021.
[60] Thomas, Terence. The British: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices 1800–1986. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis, 2006.
[61] Monier-Williams, Monier. Hinduism. United Kingdom: Society for promoting Christian knowledge, 1880.
[62] Savarkar, p. 51–52
[63] Ibid.
[64] Savarkar, Vinayak Damodar. Hindu rashtra darshan: A collection of the presidential speeches delivered from the Hindu Mahasabha Platform. Bombay: Khare, 1949.
[65] Savarkar, Hindutva, p. 49
[66] Kapila, Shruti. 2021. Violent Fraternity : Indian Political Thought in the Global Age. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
[67] The following five paragraphs also appear in an article in the online magazine Quillette. Satpathy, Anwesh. “Swastikas of Both Sorts: Hindu Nationalism’s Fascist Nostalgia.” Quillette, May 3, 2024. https://quillette.com/2024/04/30/swastikas-of-both-sorts-hindu-nationalism-india/.
[68] Bakhle, p. 368
[69] Ibid, p. 211
[70] Savarkar, Veer. Six glorious epochs of Indian history. S.l.: PRABHAT PRAKASHAN, 2020.
[71] Wolf, Siegfried O.. “Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s ‘strategic agnosticism’: A compilation of his socio-political philosophy and worldview.” Heidelberg Papers in South Asian and Comparative Politics. Working paper no. 51, Jan. 2010.
[72] Sampath, p. 500
[73] Evans, Richard J. The Third Reich in Power. London: Penguin. 2012
[74] Gentile, Giovanni. Origins and Doctrine of Fascism: With Selections from Other Works. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis, 2017.
[75] Falasca-Zamponi, Simonetta. 2000. Fascist Spectacle : The Aesthetics of Power in Mussolini’s Italy. Berkeley: University of California Press. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/heb.33189.
[76] Bhatt, Chetan. 2020. Hindu Nationalism : Origins, Ideologies and Modern Myths. London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003085553.
[77] Savarkar, Hindu Rashtra Darshan, p. 44
[78] Sampath, p. 260
[79] Bhagavan, Manu. “Princely States and the Hindu Imaginary: Exploring the Cartography of Hindu Nationalism in Colonial India.” The Journal of Asian Studies 67, no. 3 (2008): 881–915. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20203428.
[80] Casolari, Marzia. 2020. In the Shadow of the Swastika : The Relationships between Indian Radical Nationalism, Italian Fascism and Nazism. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.