Savarkar: Echoes from a Forgotten Past

Savarkar: Echoes from a Forgotten Past, 1883–1924 is the first volume of a two-part biography about legendary Indian revolutionary leader– Vinayak Damodar Savarkar[1][2], written by biographer Vikram Sampath and published by Penguin Viking.[3] It has been one of the best selling biographies. It reveals the fact that Indian National Congress was formed by Allan Octavian Hume to prevent any other conflict such as First Indian War of Independence between Indians and the British Raj.

Savarkar: Echoes from a Forgotten Past, 1883–1924
AuthorVikram Sampath
CountryIndia
LanguageEnglish
GenreBiography
PublishedAugust 2019
ISBN9780670090303

About

Sampath did thorough research combing the Savarkar Samagra, by interviewing Savarkar's family, visiting memorials, reading newspapers from the time and conducting research at associated libraries and institutions.[4]

The first book covers Savarkar’s life from birth to his release in 1924.[5]

There are details about other Indian independence activists like Shyamji Krishna Verma, Virendranath Chattopadhyay et al.[5][6] The book tells how Savarkar was an atheist, rationalist, who strongly opposed orthodox Hindu beliefs and to whom Hinduism was a genetic and political force inbuilt into Hindus.[5][7] Bal Gangadhar Tilak's recommendation helped get him a scholarship to London where he spent five years; in London he built a network of revolutionaries across Europe and helped provide the intellectual basis for the movement.[5] Sampath reveals how revolutionaries like Bhagat Singh and Subhash Chandra Bose "considered Savarkar as a figurehead of the revolution."[6]

It describes about how Savarkar was held in an immense esteem until before his imprisonment in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and how his experiences during the span led to his hatred of Muslims, which will be the subsequent cause of much antipathy:[8][9][7]

"It was [the jailor] Barrie’s idea of creating discord between the Hindus and Muslims and hence he placed the Hindu prisoners under the most bigoted of Muslim warders and jamadars. Most of them were fanatical Pathans, Sindhis and Baluchis from Sindh and the North-West Frontier Province. It gave these men a special thrill to brutalize a Hindu kafir."

Sampath says that a motivation to write the book was that no comprehensive biography of Savarkar had been written since the 1960s, yet Savarkar was used in political discourse often, where the demand to give Savarkar a Bharat Ratna, India's highest civilian award, had even been brought up recently.[10][11][12]

Reception

During the launch of the book, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray, said that every school and college in the state should have the book, and that every MP and MLA should read the book too.[13] Narendra Modi, the incumbent Prime Minister of India (and leader of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, which largely subscribes to Savarkar's ideology) praised the work.

TCA Srinivasa Raghavan, former Indian diplomat and current Director General of the Indian Council of World Affairs noted it to be a must read no-nonsense book over a review at Calcutta Telegraph.[3]

Critical reception

In a review of the book at the Open Magazine, historian Manu S. Pillai praised Sampath's meticulous research and gathering of source materials to have aided in a definitive charting of his early years and noted of him to have persuasively laid out the case of Savarkar as a martyr who sacrificed his youth for the cause of the nation.[7] However, Pillai sharply criticized the methodologies of his scholarship especially the uncritical acceptance of Savarkar's self-laudatory memoirs, some written years after the incidents.[7] He rejected Sampath's acceptance of Savarkar's mercy petitions as a shrewd strategy that ran parallel to the plot by Shivaji, in that Savarkar stuck to his promises of absolute cooperation until his death and refused to be associated with acts of rebellion, anymore.[7] Pillai also notes Sampath to have not achieved the necessary distance of separation, required for penning an objective non-eulogizing biography; he remained in Savarkar's awe for much of the spans.[7]

Janaki Bakhle, an associate professor of Indian history at University of California, Berkeley, echoed concerns similar to Pillai.[4] She praised Sampath's meticulously through research but noted the work to be a wholly uncritical biography, with him doing very little to distance from the subject and accepting every primary source at face-value.[4] His interpretation of concurrent historical events were also faulted as non-objective and lacking of the recent radical developments in relevant scholarship.[4]

P. A. Krishnan noted the work to be a sympathetic biography in a review over at Outlook.[9] Madhav Khosla, professor of Political Science at Ashoka University noted the work to be detailed over a review at The Hindustan Times.[14] Krzysztof Iwanek, Asia editor for The Diplomat and chair of the Asia Research Centre at the National Defence University of Warsaw[15] noted the work to be extraordinarily detailed and containing hitherto unpublished information; however he found the work to be largely evasive on Savarkar's views about Muslims and sympathetic to his overall cause.[16]

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References
  1. "Book review | 'Savarkar: Echoes from a forgotten past' by historian Vikram Sampath". The New Indian Express. Retrieved 4 January 2020.
  2. Joseph, Manu (25 August 2019). "Opinion | What Savarkar could yet do for the future of Hindutva". Livemint. Retrieved 4 January 2020.
  3. TCA Srinivasa Raghavan (30 September 2019). "The Savarkar revival". Telegraph India. Retrieved 5 January 2020.
  4. Bakhle, Janaki (26 September 2019). "The missing pieces | Books". India Today. Retrieved 4 January 2020.
  5. Madhukar, Jayanthi (30 August 2019). "In the shadows of time: The life of Veer Savarkar". Deccan Chronicle. Retrieved 4 January 2020.
  6. Singh, Veenu (26 October 2019). "Brunch bookmarks: Lending an ear to the echoes of the past". Hindustan Times. Retrieved 4 January 2020. Sampath recalls:- 'Though there are hardly any references to him in our textbooks, Savarkar’s name is often used in contemporary political discourse...'
  7. Pillai, Manu S (27 September 2019). "In search of the real Savarkar". Open The Magazine. Retrieved 4 January 2020.
  8. Varma, Amit (31 August 2019). "What Does Hindutva Stand For, Outside Of Resentment?". BloombergQuint. Retrieved 4 January 2020.
  9. Krishnan, P.A. (4 November 2019). "Pro Patria Mori Meets Fire-And-Brimstone". Outlook India. Retrieved 4 January 2020.
  10. Joseph, Krupa (24 November 2019). "Savarkar did not favour cow worship: Vikram Sampath". Deccan Herald. Retrieved 4 January 2020.
  11. "'The Cellular Jail should be a place of pilgrimage'". Hindustan Times. 2 October 2019. Retrieved 9 January 2020.
  12. "'VD Savarkar Has Suitable Advice For Gau Rakshaks': Vikram Sampath". The Quint. 26 August 2019. Retrieved 9 January 2020.
  13. "There would have been no Pakistan if Savarkar was PM: Uddhav Thackeray". The Economic Times. 18 September 2019. Retrieved 4 January 2020.
  14. "Review: Books on VD Savarkar by Vikram Sampath and Vaibhav Purandare". Hindustan Times. 29 November 2019. Retrieved 9 January 2020.
  15. "Krzysztof Iwanek – The Diplomat". thediplomat.com. Retrieved 9 January 2020.
  16. Series of tweet mentioning aspects of the work:

Further reading
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