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May 28, 2025

The Patriot Who Knelt: Savarkar’s Journey from Revolutionary Icon to Ideological Revisionist

 




Once a firebrand who preached revolution, Savarkar’s real legacy may lie not in resistance—but in revision, retreat, and a loyalty for hire.


I. Prologue in Chains: The Revolutionary at the Gallows’ Edge

In the early 20th century, the name Vinayak Damodar Savarkar stirred both admiration and apprehension among the colonial authorities. A young barrister with a razor-sharp intellect and incendiary prose, Savarkar authored The First War of Indian Independence, 1857, a bold reinterpretation of the Sepoy Mutiny that recast the uprising as a pan-Indian revolution—a joint resistance by Hindus and Muslims against British rule. It was a vision of unity born out of shared suffering, a plea to forge nationalism from common trauma.

This book, banned even before it reached Indian shores, catapulted Savarkar to a cult status among militant nationalists. In London, he founded the Free India Society. In Bombay, he inspired secret societies of armed youth. When he was arrested for his involvement in revolutionary activities and transported to the Andaman Cellular Jail in 1911, it was not as a mere dissident—it was as a symbol of uncompromising resistance.

But symbols crack under pressure. And for Savarkar, the prison cell proved not just a crucible of punishment but one of profound transformation—and calculated recalibration.


II. Petitions from the Pit: The Price of Survival

In June 1911, scarcely a month after his arrival in Cellular Jail, Savarkar submitted his first mercy petition to the British government. The revolutionary who had once urged Indians to “burn down British flags” now pleaded for leniency. That appeal, ignored, would soon be followed by others. In 1913, his second mercy petition shed all ideological defiance, replacing it with grievances about prison classifications, comparisons with fellow convicts, and, crucially, declarations of political rebirth:

“[I]f the government in their manifold beneficence and mercy release me, I for one cannot but be the staunchest advocate of… loyalty to the English government.”

The shift was not merely rhetorical. It was strategic. Savarkar framed himself not only as a reformed man but as a valuable asset—one who could bring wayward revolutionaries back into the constitutional fold. His pitch was clear: Convert me, and I will convert others.

This was not so much a surrender as it was a sale. And his price? Redemption through rehabilitation, in exchange for repudiation of revolt.


III. From Empire’s Enemy to Nation’s Divider

When Savarkar was finally released in stages—first under surveillance and then gradually integrated back into public life—it was not the same man who had entered the colonial dungeons. The post-prison Savarkar did not return to a struggle against imperialism. Instead, he trained his intellectual arsenal on a new set of internal enemies: Muslims, Gandhians, Congressmen, and anyone who threatened the hegemony of his idea of a Hindu nation.

This ideological evolution culminated in his articulation of Hindutva—a term he deliberately distinguished from mere Hinduism. In his 1923 pamphlet Hindutva: Who is a Hindu?, Savarkar proposed a cultural, ethnic, and territorial identity in which true Indianness was inseparable from being Hindu by race, culture, and land. Muslims and Christians, regardless of how many generations they had lived in India, were foreign unless they acknowledged India as both Pitrubhumi (fatherland) and Punyabhumi (holy land). Thus, belonging became conditional—and nationalism, exclusionary.

Ironically, the man who once championed inter-caste marriages to unify Hindus under one political roof now stood vehemently against inter-religious unions. In his view, such marriages were not bridges but threats—dilutions of cultural purity. Social reform was permissible, even desirable, but only if it reinforced Hindutva’s internal cohesion, not if it fostered pluralism.


IV. The Darkest Doctrine: Justifying the Unjustifiable

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of Savarkar’s later thought was his moral descent into what can only be called ideological barbarism. In his retellings of historical grievances—particularly regarding Muslim rulers—he moved beyond critique into advocacy of vengeance. At his most extreme, Savarkar justified rape as a tool of political retribution, especially during war or historical redress. For a man who once argued for India's moral elevation above colonial brutality, this was a descent into the abyss.

This rhetorical violence was not just theoretical. In the climate of the 1940s, with partition looming, such ideas fanned the flames of hatred and suspicion. Although Savarkar was acquitted in the Gandhi assassination trial, his ideological fingerprints were unmistakable in the atmosphere of hatred that made Gandhi’s murder thinkable.


V. Legacy in Dispute: Freedom Fighter or Proto-Fascist?

Savarkar's defenders continue to present him as a misunderstood patriot—one who pragmatically adjusted his strategy to survive and serve. They hail his promotion of scientific temper, abolition of untouchability, and support for women's rights (again, within limits). Yet even these claims must be weighed against the ideological rigidity that underpinned them. His social reforms were never universalist—they were instrumental, designed to fortify a Hindu identity that excluded more than it embraced.

His critics, on the other hand, see in Savarkar a cautionary figure: a revolutionary who, when broken by empire, turned to mimic its tools—division, hierarchy, and state violence—to shape a new dominion of his own.


VI. Conclusion: The Prison That Never Opened

The irony of Savarkar’s life is that while he was physically released from the Cellular Jail, he remained mentally confined within the walls of vengeance, purity, and exclusion. The real prison was not made of brick or iron—but of an ideology that mistook grievance for vision, and retribution for justice.

From lion to lapdog, from rebel to reactionary—Savarkar’s journey is not just the story of a man, but a mirror held up to the soul of a nation still debating what freedom really means, and for whom.


About the Author

Siddhartha Mishra is an Advocate at the Supreme Court of India. His writing focuses on the intersection of law, history, and political thought. He can be reached at ssmishra33@gmail.com.

May 20, 2025

The Business of Belief: How Faith, Nationalism, and Welfare Were Rebranded for Power

 


The RSS today looks less like a cultural organisation and more like a Brahmin-Baniya club that knows how to sell ideas like goods in a market. Over the last decade, it has perfected the art of packaging ideology with the finesse of a corporate campaign. Words like “Bharatiya”, “Hindutva”, and even the sacred name of Lord Ram have been turned into political commodities—marketed with emotional appeal, devoid of spiritual depth, and served with electoral intent. Faith has become a business model, and government schemes are sold with a religious sticker on them.

Many of these schemes, ironically, were conceived during Congress regimes but have been rebranded under glossy saffron labels. Initiatives for financial inclusion, rural housing, and public health have been remarketed with catchy slogans like #ModiHaiTohMumkinHai and Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas—often with minor tweaks and maximum media mileage. The difference? Congress lacked marketing; the BJP mastered it. Wrapped in a saffron version of Bharatiyata, these repackaged schemes are designed to touch the emotional nerves of a largely unsuspecting population, turning governance into spectacle.

The Constitution guarantees freedom of religion—not its franchising. But that distinction is being deliberately erased. In today’s India, beliefs are marketed like brands, governance is sold like faith, and nationalism is peddled like a loyalty subscription. The BJP IT cell, meanwhile, has done a phenomenal job manufacturing and spreading narratives laced with nationalism, creating a digital universe where they are the only patriots and everyone else is conveniently labelled anti-national.

But marketing alone doesn’t move mountains. What makes this political rebranding so effective is the carefully constructed echo chamber that sustains it. A large section of the mainstream media has shed its role as the fourth estate and become the extended PR arm of the ruling dispensation. Prime-time news is no longer about facts or holding power accountable. It has become a circus of manufactured outrage, where anchors shout down dissenters and amplify distraction. While joblessness, inflation, and agrarian distress silently deepen, our television screens remain lit with debates on temples, films, and communal flashpoints.

This sustained diversion would not be possible without the passive complicity—or active abdication—of institutions meant to uphold constitutional order. The judiciary, once revered as the last refuge of the common citizen, now walks a delicate line between caution and calculated delay. Petitions concerning civil liberties, electoral malpractices, and democratic rights linger in cold storage, while cases that suit political interests are heard with lightning speed. The once-mighty Supreme Court now risks appearing selective, if not submissive.

The Election Commission, constitutionally mandated to ensure free and fair elections, too appears increasingly uneven in its scrutiny. While opposition leaders are often reprimanded for minor code violations, blatant breaches by ruling party figures are either ignored or brushed aside. The neutrality that once lent credibility to our democratic process now appears compromised by convenience.

This slow institutional drift has had a chilling effect on civil society. Voices of dissent are not just discredited—they are criminalised. Journalists, students, activists, and even comedians are hounded for questioning the state. The line between criticism and sedition has blurred. In such a climate, even silence becomes an act of resistance.

And then there are the voters—the ordinary citizens whose emotions are constantly manipulated by appeals to religion, caste, and nationalism. It’s not that the public is unaware; it’s that the noise is too loud, the propaganda too persistent, and the choices too narrow. When every election is framed as a battle for civilisation, it becomes harder to speak of roads, schools, or jobs. The voter is offered mythology, not manifesto.

India is not just being governed—it is being marketed. Faith, governance, and identity have all been brought under a single brand strategy. The real danger isn’t just the misuse of religion for politics, but the normalisation of it. When belief becomes business, and business becomes ballot, democracy loses both its meaning and its soul.

In times like these, the citizen must remain alert, not just to what is being said—but to how it's being sold.


About the Author:

Siddhartha Mishra is an Advocate at the Supreme Court of India. He writes on law, politics, and society with a focus on constitutional values, civil liberties, and the misuse of power. He believes that satire is not a style—but a form of resistance.

Email : - ssmishra33@gmail.com

May 03, 2025

Democracy Doesn’t Need a Chest Size—It Needs a Backbone

 


 


In today’s political climate, symbolism often overshadows substance. In India, few symbols have captured the public imagination more starkly than the metaphor of the “56-inch chest.” Once uttered to convey strength, resolve, and nationalistic pride, it has since become the emblem of a political era defined by hyper-masculinity and performative governance. But a closer look reveals an unsettling paradox: this display of muscular nationalism is not fortifying India’s democracy—it’s hollowing it out from within.

The "strongman" image has long been a tool in global politics, from Vladimir Putin's shirtless horseback photos to Donald Trump’s bluster. In India, it has evolved into a strategic political narrative where strength is equated with authoritarian control, emotional nationalism, and a disdain for dissent. The result is a version of leadership that substitutes depth with drama, and courage with chest-thumping—an illusion of power, rather than its responsible exercise.

What’s at stake isn’t just optics; it’s the health of India’s democracy.

The Cult of the Individual Over the Constitution

Democracies are built not on personalities, but on institutions. The power of a democratic system lies in the separation of powers, the checks and balances between branches of government, and the autonomy of institutions that are meant to safeguard the rights of citizens. But strongman politics disrupts this balance. It redirects attention and authority away from institutional frameworks and toward a single individual portrayed as the savior of the nation.

This over-centralization of power is visible in how India’s key institutions have increasingly bent to the will of the executive. Judicial appointments have raised concerns about independence, media organizations frequently self-censor or toe the government line, and even election oversight bodies have faced accusations of bias. The erosion is subtle, but constant. Over time, institutions that once served the Constitution begin serving the image of a leader—and that shift is devastating to democratic integrity.

A leader with real democratic backbone empowers institutions, encourages decentralization, and values institutional memory and continuity over personal credit. Instead, we see power consolidated, bureaucracies politicized, and a narrative where critique is seen as betrayal rather than civic responsibility.

 

Dissent as a Threat

The most damning characteristic of strongman politics is its allergy to dissent. Democracies thrive on disagreement. Diverse opinions, lively debates, and the right to question authority are not flaws—they are the system working as intended. But when criticism is equated with sedition, and disagreement is labeled “anti-national,” the room for democratic dialogue shrinks dramatically.

Over the past few years, we’ve witnessed journalists jailed for doing their jobs, students arrested for expressing political views, and activists silenced under vague or outdated legal provisions. Protest movements, from anti-CAA demonstrations to farmers’ agitations, have been met not with engagement, but with force, propaganda, and vilification. The language of nationalism has been weaponized—not to unite, but to silence.

This dangerous equation—where loyalty to a party or leader is conflated with loyalty to the nation—undermines the very freedoms a democracy promises. Dissent isn’t dangerous; suppressing it is.

Majoritarianism Wearing the Mask of Democracy

At the heart of democracy lies representation. Every citizen, regardless of religion, caste, gender, or region, must feel seen, heard, and protected. Yet, the strongman model thrives not on inclusivity, but on division. It courts the majority while subtly (and sometimes overtly) demonizing minorities and marginalized groups.

Policies are framed in the language of security and tradition, but their impact often disproportionately affects communities that already face systemic disadvantages. Whether it’s through the restructuring of citizenship laws, the criminalization of interfaith marriages, or the silence around hate crimes and mob violence, the message is clear: democracy is being reshaped to serve the few, not the many.

This brand of nationalism pretends to protect cultural values but instead weaponizes identity to manufacture political consensus. It offers unity through exclusion—and in doing so, chips away at the pluralism that has long been India’s strength.

The Smokescreen of Emotional Nationalism

Strongman politics thrives on spectacle. It feeds on emotional nationalism, turning elections into theatres of passion rather than spaces for reasoned deliberation. Rallies are filled with slogans, not policy. News cycles revolve around symbolic gestures, not governance metrics.

Meanwhile, critical issues—rising unemployment, rural distress, inflation, a struggling education system, and a fragile healthcare infrastructure—are sidelined or spun through nationalist narratives. The opposition is mocked or dismissed rather than debated. Media coverage focuses more on optics—what the leader wore, where they traveled, who they greeted—than on outcomes and performance.

It’s governance by distraction. And the costs are real. In a country with the world’s largest youth population, real strength would mean equipping them with opportunities, not empty rhetoric.

 

Where Is the Strength When It’s Needed Most?

Perhaps nowhere is the gap between posturing and performance more obvious than in matters of national security. While fiery speeches and aggressive slogans are common in domestic political rallies, they often vanish when confronting real external threats.

Take, for instance, the troubling developments along India’s northeastern border. As reported by The Tribune (Jan 2023) and The New York Times (Dec 2022), China has built nearly 90 villages in disputed areas near Arunachal Pradesh—an encroachment with massive geopolitical implications. Yet the government’s response has been one of near-total silence. No parliamentary debate. No public strategy. No accountability.

While drums of patriotism beat at home, key foreign policy questions go unanswered. The strongman’s silence in the face of such challenges is not a sign of strategic restraint—it’s a failure to act with the transparency and urgency that democratic governance demands.

Where is the “56-inch chest” when every inch of Indian land is under threat?

What India Truly Needs

It’s time to move past theatrics and ask: what kind of leadership does India truly need?

India needs a leader who understands that real strength lies not in dominating opposition, but in listening to it. A leader who sees institutions as pillars of democracy, not as personal tools. A leader who does not stoke identity-based divisions to win votes, but brings communities together with a shared vision.

Most importantly, India needs a leader who rises above party lines and beyond communal politics—a leader who governs with empathy, strategy, and courage rooted in constitutional values rather than charisma.

This kind of leadership doesn’t require a metaphorical chest size. It requires a backbone.

Conclusion: The Illusion of Strength Is Not Strength

The allure of strongman politics lies in its simplicity. It offers certainty in uncertain times, heroes instead of complexity, slogans instead of policy. But democracy is not meant to be simple. It is messy, noisy, and participatory. And that’s what makes it beautiful—and powerful.

Democracy doesn’t demand blind loyalty; it demands critical thinking. It doesn’t ask for theatrical strength; it asks for moral and institutional courage. It doesn’t want silence in the face of aggression—it needs truth, action, and leadership that’s rooted in principle.

The illusion of the strongman may win elections. But it cannot build a future.

India must decide: do we want a democracy built on bravado, or one built on backbone?

 

Siddhartha Mishra

(The author is an advocate at Supreme Court of India )

Email : - ssmishra33@gmail.com