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Vinayak Damodar Savarkar
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar to create a collective "Hindu" identity as an essence of Bharat.
His political philosophy had the elements of utilitarianism, rationalism and positivism, humanism and universalism, pragmatism and realism.
Savarkar was also an atheist and a staunch rationalist who disapproved of orthodox beliefs in all religions.
Savarkar's revolutionary activities began while studying in India and England, where he was associated with the India House
and founded student societies including Abhinav Bharat Society and the Free India Society,
as well as publications espousing the cause of complete Indian independence by revolutionary means.
Savarkar published The Indian War of Independence about the Indian rebellion of 1857 that was banned by British authorities. He was arrested in 1910
for his connections with the revolutionary group India House. Following a failed attempt to escape while being transported from Marseilles,
Savarkar was sentenced to two life terms of imprisonment totaling fifty years and was moved to the Cellular Jail in the Andaman
and Nicobar Islands, but released in 1921. While in jail, Savarkar wrote the work describing Hindutva, espousing what it means to be a Hindu,
and Hindu pride, in which he defined as all the people descended of Hindu culture as being part of Hindutva, including Buddhists, Jains and Sikhs.
In 1921, under restrictions after signing a plea for clemency, he was released on the condition that he renounce revolutionary activities.
Traveling widely, Savarkar became a forceful orator and writer, advocating Hindu political and social unity.
Serving as the president of the Hindu Mahasabha, Savarkar endorsed the ideal of India as a Hindu Rashtra
and opposed the Quit India struggle in 1942, calling it a "Quit India, but keep your army" movement.
He became a fierce critic of the Indian National Congress and its acceptance of India's partition.
He was accused of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, but acquitted by the court. The airport at Port Blair, Andaman and Nicobar's capital,
has been named Veer Savarkar International Airport. The commemorative blue plaque on India House fixed by the Historic Building
and Monuments Commission for England reads "Vinayak Damodar Savarkar 1883-1966 Indian patriot and philosopher lived here". In the recent past,
the Shiv Sena party has demanded that the Indian Government posthumously confer upon him India's highest civilian award, the Bharat Ratna.
Early life
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar was born in the Marathi Chitpavan Brahmin Hindu family of Damodar and Radhabai Savarkar in the village of Bhagur,
near the city of Nashik, Maharashtra. He had three other siblings namely Ganesh, Narayan, and a sister named Maina. He earned the nickname "Veer"
when at the age of 12, he led fellow students against a rampaging horde of Muslims that attacked his village. Highly outnumbered,
he inspired the boys to fight-on until the last Muslim was driven off. Later, he is known to have stated: "Do not fear them.
The Almighty is your strength, so fight, even when facing an enemy stronger than yourself" After the death of his parents,
the eldest sibling Ganesh, known as Babarao, took responsibility of the family. Babarao played a supportive
and influential role in Vinayak's teenage life. During this period, Vinayak organised a youth group called Mitra Mela and encouraged revolutionary
and nationalist views of passion using this group. In 1901, Vinayak Savarkar married Yamunabai, daughter of Ramchandra Triambak Chiplunkar,
who supported his university education. Subsequently, in 1902, he enrolled in Fergusson College, in Pune. As a young man, he was inspired
by the new generation of radical political leaders namely Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal and Lala Lajpat Rai along
with the political struggle against the partition of Bengal and the rising Swadeshi campaign. After completing his degree,
nationalist activist Shyamji Krishna Varma helped Vinayak to go to England to study law, on a scholarship. It was
during this period that the Garam Dal, literally "Army of the angry,"
was formed under the leadership of Tilak as a result of a split between the moderate, "constitutionalist" wing on the one part,
and of Tilak's extremist or radical wing in the Indian National Congress. The members of the Garam Dal,
did not acknowledge the agenda of the majority moderate Indian National Congress leadership which advocated dialogue with the British rulers
and incremental steps towards Independence by gaining confidence of the British. Tilak was soon imprisoned
for his support of revolutionary activities.
Activities at India House
 [^]  After joining Gray's Inn law college in London Vinayak took accommodation at India House. Organized by expatriate social
and political activist Pandit Shyamji, India House was a thriving centre for student political activities.
Savarkar soon founded the Free India Society to help organize fellow Indian students with the goal of fighting
for complete independence through a revolution, declaring, Savarkar envisioned a guerrilla war for independence along the lines of the famous war
for Indian independence of 1857. Studying the history of the revolt, from English as well as Indian sources, Savarkar wrote the book,
The History of the War of Indian Independence. He analysed the circumstances of 1857 uprising and assailed British rule in India as unjust
and oppressive. It was via this book that Savarkar became one of the first writers to allude the uprising as India's "First War for Independence."
The book was banned throughout the British Empire. Madame Bhikaji Cama,
an expatriate Indian revolutionary obtained its publication in the Netherlands, France and Germany. Widely smuggled and circulated,
the book attained great popularity and influenced rising young Indians. Savarkar was studying revolutionary methods and he came into contact
with a veteran of the Russian Revolution of 1905 who imparted him the knowledge of bomb-making. Savarkar had printed
and circulated a manual amongst his friends on bomb-making and other methods of guerrilla warfare. In 1909, Madan Lal Dhingra, a keen follower
and friend of Savarkar, assassinated Sir William Hutt Curzon Wyllie in a public meeting. Dhingra's action provoked controversy across Britain
and India, evoking enthusiastic admiration as well as condemnation. Savarkar published an article in which he all, but endorsed the murder
and worked to organize support, both political and for Dhingra's legal defence. At a meeting of Indians called for a condemnation of Dhingra's deed,
Savarkar protested the intention to condemn and was drawn into a hot debate and angry scuffle with other participants. A secretive
and restricted trial and a sentence awarding the death penalty to Dhingra provoked an outcry and protest across the Indian student
and political community. Strongly protesting the verdict, Savarkar struggled with British authorities in laying claim
to Dhingra's remains following his execution. Savarkar hailed Dhingra as a hero and martyr, and began encouraging revolution with greater intensity.
Arrest in London and Marseille
In India, Ganesh Savarkar had organised an armed revolt against the Morley-Minto reforms of 1909.
The British police implicated Savarkar in the investigation for allegedly plotting the crime. Hoping to evade arrest, Savarkar moved
to Madame Cama's home in Paris. He was nevertheless arrested by police on 13 March 1910. In the final days of freedom, Savarkar wrote letters
to a close friend planning his escape. Knowing that he would most likely be shipped to India, Savarkar asked his friend to keep track of which ship
and route he would be taken through. When the ship SS Morea reached the port of Marseille on 8 July 1910, Savarkar escaped
from his cell through a porthole and dived into the water, swimming to the shore in the hope that his friend would be there to receive him in a car.
But his friend was late in arriving, and the alarm having been raised, Savarkar was re-arrested.
Case before the Permanent Court of Arbitration
Savarkar's arrest at Marseilles caused the French government to protest to the British,
arguing that the British could not recover Savarkar unless they took appropriate legal proceedings for his rendition.
The dispute came before the Permanent Court of International Arbitration in 1910, and it gave its decision in 1911.
The case excited much controversy as was reported by the New York Times,
and it considered it involved an interesting international question of the right of asylum. The Court held, firstly, that
since there was a pattern of collaboration between the two countries regarding the possibility of Savarkar's escape in Marseilles
and there was neither force nor fraud in inducing the French authorities to return Savarkar to them, the British authorities did not have
to hand him back to the French in order for the latter to hold rendition proceedings. On the other hand,
the tribunal also observed that there had been an "irregularity" in Savarkar's arrest and delivery over to the Indian Army Military Police guard.
Trial and Sentence
Arriving in Bombay, Savarkar was taken to the Yervada Central Jail in Pune. Following a trial, Savarkar, aged 28, was convicted and sentenced
to 50-year imprisonment and transported on 4 July 1911 to the infamous Cellular Jail in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Prisoner in Cellular Jail in Andaman
 [^]  His fellow captives included many political prisoners, who were forced to perform hard labour for many years. Reunited with his brother Ganesh,
the Savarkars nevertheless struggled in the harsh environment: Forced to arise at 5 am, tasks including cutting trees and chopping wood, and working
at the oil mill under regimental strictness, with talking amidst prisoners strictly prohibited during mealtime. Prisoners were subject
to frequent mistreatment and torture. Contact with the outside world and home was restricted to the writing and mailing of one letter a year.
In these years, Savarkar withdrew within himself and performed his routine tasks mechanically. Obtaining permission
to start a rudimentary jail library, Savarkar would also teach some fellow convicts to read and write.
Mercy Petitions
Savarkar applied to the Bombay Government for certain concessions in connection with his sentences. However, by Government letter No. 2022,
dated 4 April 1911, his Application was rejected and he was informed that the question of remitting the second sentence of transportation
for life would be considered in due course on the expiry of the first sentence of transportation for life.
Merely a month after arriving in the Cellular Jail, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Savarkar submitted his first mercy petition on 30 August 1911.
This petition was rejected on 3 September 1911 Savarkar submitted his next mercy petition on November 14, 1913, and presented it personally
to the Home Member of the Governor General’s council, Sir Reginald Craddock. In his letter, asking for forgiveness, he described himself as a
"prodigal son" longing to return to the "parental doors of the government". He wrote that his release
from the jail will recast the faith of many Indians in the British rule. Also he said "Moreover, my conversion
to the constitutional line would bring back all those misled young men in India and abroad who were once looking up to me as their guide. I am ready
to serve the government in any capacity they like, for as my conversion is conscientious so I hope my future conduct would be.
By keeping me in jail, nothing can be got in comparison to what would be otherwise." In 1917, Savarkar submitted another mercy petition,
this time for a general amnesty of all political prisoners. Savarkar was informed on February 1,
1918 that the mercy petition was placed before the British Indian Government On 30 March 1920, Savarkar submitted his fourth mercy petition
to the British Government, in which he stated that "So far from believing in the militant school of the Bukanin type, I do not contribute even
to the peaceful and philosophical anarchism of a Kuropatkin [sic.] or a Tolstoy. And as
to my revolutionary tendencies in the past:- it is not only now for the object of sharing the clemency, but years before this have I informed of
and written to the Government in my petitions about my firm intention to abide by the constitution and stand by it as soon as a beginning was made
to frame it by Mr. Montagu. Since that the Reforms and then the Proclamation have only confirmed me in my views
and recently I have publicly avowed my faith in and readiness to stand by the side of orderly and constitutional development." In 1920,
the Indian National Congress and leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi, Vithalbhai Patel and Bal Gangadhar Tilak demanded his unconditional release.
Savarkar signed a statement endorsing his trial, verdict and British law, and renouncing violence, a bargain for freedom. Jaywant Joglekar,
who authored a book euologising Savarkar as 'Father of Hindu Nationalism', considers Savarkar's appeal for clemency a tactical ploy,
like Shivaji's letter to Aurangzeb, during his arrest at Agra etc. However, such claims are disputed by others.
The Indian historian Bipan Chandra claimed that post Savarkar's release from jail, he was not an anti-imperialist any longer,
and that he accepted the humiliating conditions of his release set forth by the British government,
including his non-participation in politics A portrait of Savarkar was unveiled in the Indian Parliament in 2003.
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