Savarkar

by Vikram Sampath

  50 years are past, but oh restless spirits of 1857, we promise you with our heart’s blood that your Diamond Jubilee shall not pass without seeing your wishes fulfilled!! We have heard your voice and we gather courage from it. With limited means you sustained a war, not against tyranny alone but against tyranny and treachery together. The Duab and Ayodhya, making a united stand, staged a war not only against the whole of the British power but against the rest of India too; and yet you fought for three years, and yet you had well nigh snatched away the crown of Hindustan and smashed the hollow existence of the alien rule. What an encouragement this! What the Duab and Ayodhya could do in a month, the simultaneous, sudden and determined rising of the whole of Hindustan can do in a day! This hope illumines our heart and assures us of success. And so we avow that your Diamond Jubilee the year 1917 shall not pass without seeing the resurging Ind making a triumphant entry into the world!

  For, the bones of Bahadur Shah are crying vengeance from their grave! For, the blood of dauntless Laxmi is boiling with indignation! For the shahid Peer Ali of Patna, when he was going to the gallows for having refused to divulge the secrets of the conspiracy, whispered defiance to the Firungee, said in prophetic words, ‘You may hang me today, you may hang such as me every day, but thousands will still rise in my place—your object will never be gained’.

  Indians, these words must be fulfilled! Your blood, Oh Martyrs, shall be avenged!!!

  Bande Mataram!

  Appendix II

  Full Text of ‘Will and Testament’, 1910

  (I)

  It was the month of Vaishakha: The sky above and the terrace underneath were washed and quivered in the delightful Moonlight. The dear little creeper of Jai daily fondly watered by Bal blushed and bloomed in fragrant flowers.

  They were the days of summer vacation and friends and Comrades, all the dear and near ones had gathered under one roof. Fame waited upon that noble band of youths and chivalry surrounded them with a halo of transparent Purity and Young Brilliance.

  Their hearts were welling up with fresh love and they breathed an atmosphere suffused with noble breezes of high aspirations and chivalrous resolves. Young and tender creepers clung there to noble and aspiring trees and the townsmen lovingly called that grateful garden a ‘Dharmshala’.

  Thou served the meals; the dishes used to be juicy and inviting all the more for thy serving. The Moon was delightful above and we all friends and families sat along, now musing, now lost in stirring and stimulating conversations. Now we listened to the moving story of the Princely Exile of Ayodhya or of the stirring struggle that set Italia free. Now we sang the immortal exploits of Tanaji or of Chitore or of Baji and Bhau and Nana: the anxious analysis is that with tearful eyes recounted the causes of the downfall of our distressed Mother; the keen and watchful synthesis that planned daring schemes of Her Ultimate Deliverance; the ceaseless activity that laid bare the wounds of our Mother and sturred and roused and fired the imagination of hundreds of highly metalled youths to high resolves.

  Those happy days that dear company, those moonlit nights, the romantic aspirations, the chivalrous resolves and above all the Divine Ideal that informed and inspired them all and made us take up our cross and follow it!

  Dost thou remember it all? Dost thou remember the stern vows and consecrating oaths mutually administered and the hundreds of noble youths initiated into the ranks of His Forces? The youths pledging themselves to fight and fall as Baji fell—the young girls to watch, enthuse, and die as the girls of Chitore died!

  Nor was it blindness that goaded us on to that Path! No! We entered in it under the full blaze of the searching light of Logic and History and Human Nature knowing full well that those who would have Life must lose it; we took up our Cross and deliberately followed Him!

  (2)

  Having first called to the mind those consecrating oaths and stern vows so solemnly taken by us with that band of dear comrades and chums, cast thou an eye on the Present! Not even a dozen years have rolled by: and yet so much is already accomplished! Cheerful indeed is the outlook! The whole country is roused throughout its length and breadth! She has cast off the beggar’s bowl and put Her hand on the hilt of Her sword! Stern worshippers are pouring in their thousands into His Temple and the Sacrificial Fire too has begun to rise in angry leaping flames on His altar.

  The Test has come, Oh Ye! Who has taken the stern vows and pledged your solemn words to see the great sacrifice accomplished: Who is, say! Ready to fall the first victim and immolate himself in this roaring fire that Good may triumph over the forces of Evil!

  No sooner did Shree Rama challenge his votaries thus than did our family. Oh, noble sister! Volunteer itself and pray ‘Here are we, Oh Lord! Honour us by sacrificing us first in those blazing flames!!’

  We will work and die in defence of Righteousness—thus had we pledged our words. Behold, we enter the flames! We have kept our word!

  The stern vows we took to fight under Her banner in order to win Her Freedom back even at the cost of our lives have thus been fulfilled. What a relief! Blessed indeed are we that He should have given us strength to burn down the Self in us to ashes before our very eyes. We have served the Cause and fighting fell. This was all we aimed at!

  (3)

  We dedicated to Thee our thoughts; our speech and our eloquence we dedicated to Thee, Oh Mother! My lyre sang of Thee alone: my pen wrote to Thee alone, Oh Mother!

  It was on thy altar that I sacrificed my health and my wealth. Neither the longing looks of a young wife vainly waiting for my return nor the pearls of laughter of dear children, nor the helplessness of a sister-in-law stranded and left to starve could hold me back at the call of Thy Trumpet!

  My eldest brother—so brave, so sternly resolute, and yet so oftly loving—was sacrificed on Thy altar. The youngest one—so dear, so young—he too followed him into the flames; and now here am I, Oh Mother! Bound to Thy Sacrifical Pillar! What of these! Had we been seven instead of only three I would have sacrificed them all—in thy cause!

  Thy Cause is Holy! Thy Cause I believed to be the Cause of God! And in serving it I knew I served the Lord!

  Thirty crorers are Her children! Those amongst them who possessed of this divine rage die in Her cause shall ever live! And our family tree, Oh Sister! Thus uprooted shall strike its roots deep and bloom immortality.

  (4)

  And what even if it does not bloom and like all other Mortal Things withers and gets mixed up with the dust of oblivion! We have fulfilled our pledges and strove suppressing Self to secure the Triumph of Good over Evil. To us that is enough. To us sacrifice is success.

  Whatever pleased the Lord to bestow on us have we consecrated to Thee to day! And if ever it pleases Him to bestow on us ought else that too would certainly be laid at Thy feet alone!

  Scanning thus Thy thoughts, discriminating thus, continue dear Vahini to uphold the traditions of our family and stand faithfully by the Cause. The divine Uma practising severe austerities in the snowclad Himalayas: the girls of Chitore with young smiles playing on their lips mounting blazing flames.

  These are thy ideals! Thou art hero’s better-half! Be Thy life as supremely heroic as to prove, that, that radiant courage and spirits’ strength which the weaker sex of Hind displayed are not yet dimmed or diminished.

  This is my last word to thee; my will and my testament. Good bye, dear Vahini, Good bye! Convey my best love to my wife and this:

  That it was certainly not blindness that goaded us to this path! No! We entered it under the full blaze of the searching light of Logic and History and Human Nature: knowing full well that a Pilgrim’s Progress leads through the Valley of Death, we took up our Cross and deliberately followed Him!

  Appendix III

  Petitions by V.D. Savarkar

  Petition from V D Savarkar (Convict No. 32778) to Reginald Craddock, Home Member of the Government of India, dated November 14, 1913 I beg to submit the following points for your kind consideration:


  When I came here in 1911 June, I was along with the rest of the convicts of my party taken to the office of the Chief Commissioner. There I was classed as ‘D’ meaning dangerous prisoner; the rest of the convicts were not classed as ‘D’. Then I had to pass full 6 months in solitary confinement. The other convicts had not. During that time I was put on the coir pounding though my hands were bleeding. Then I was put on the oil-mill—the hardest labour in the jail. Although my conduct during all the time was exceptionally good still at the end of these six months I was not sent out of the jail; though the other convicts who came with me were. From that time to this day I have tried to keep my behaviour as good as possible.

  When I petitioned for promotion I was told I was a special class prisoner and so could not be promoted. When any of us asked for better food or any special treatment we were told ‘You are only ordinary convicts and must eat what the rest do.’ Thus Sir, Your Honour would see that only for special disadvantages we are classed as special prisoners.

  When the majority of the casemen were sent outside I requested for my release. But, although I had been [caned] hardly twice or thrice and some of those who were released, for a dozen and more times, still I was not released with them because I was their casemen. But when after all, the order for my release was given and when just then some of the political prisoners outside were brought into the troubles I was locked in with them because I was their casemen.

  If I was in Indian jails I would have by this time earned much remission, could have sent more letters home, got visits. If I was a transportee pure and simple I would have by this time been released, from this jail and would have been looking forward for ticket-leave, etc. But as it is, I have neither the advantages of the Indian jail nor of this convict colony regulation; though had to undergo the disadvantages of both.

  Therefore will your honour be pleased to put an end to this anomalous situation in which I have been placed, by either sending me to Indian jails or by treating me as a transportee just like any other prisoner. I am not asking for any preferential treatment, though I believe as a political prisoner even that could have been expected in any civilized administration in the Independent nations of the world; but only for the concessions and favour that are shown even to the most depraved of convicts and habitual criminals? This present plan of shutting me up in this jail permanently makes me quite hopeless of any possibility of sustaining life and hope. For those who are term convicts the thing is different, but Sir, I have 50 years staring me in the face! How can I pull up moral energy enough to pass them in close confinement when even those concessions which the vilest of convicts can claim to smoothen their life are denied to me? Either please to send me to Indian jail for there I would earn (a) remission; (b) would have a visit from my people come every four months for those who had unfortunately been in jail know what a blessing it is to have a sight of one’s nearest and dearest every now and then! (c) and above all a moral—though not a legal—right of being entitled to release in 14 years; (d) also more letters and other little advantages. Or if I cannot be sent to India I should be released and sent outside with a hope, like any other convicts, to visits after 5 years, getting my ticket leave and calling over my family here. If this is granted then only one grievance remains and that is that I should be held responsible only for my own faults and not of others. It is a pity that I have to ask for this—it is such a fundamental right of every human being! For as there are on the one hand, some 20 political prisoners—young, active and restless, and on the other the regulations of a convict colony, by the very nature of them reducing the liberties of thought and expression to lowest minimum possible; it is but inevitable that every now and then some one of them will be found to have contravened a regulation or two and if all be held responsible for that, as now it is actually done—very little chance of being left outside remains for me.

  In the end may I remind your honour to be so good as to go through the petition for clemency, that I had sent in 1911, and to sanction it for being forwarded to the Indian Government? The latest development of the Indian politics and the conciliating policy of the government have thrown open the constitutional line once more. Now no man having the good of India and Humanity at heart will blindly step on the thorny paths, which in the excited and hopeless situation of India in 1906-1907 beguiled us from the path of peace and progress. Therefore if the government in their manifold beneficence and mercy release me, I for one cannot but be the staunchest advocate of constitutional progress and loyalty to the English government, which is the foremost condition of that progress. As long as we are in jails there cannot be real happiness and joy in hundreds and thousands of homes of His Majesty’s loyal subjects in India, for blood is thicker than water; but if we be released the people will instinctively raise a shout of joy and gratitude to the government, who knows how to forgive and correct, more than how to chastise and avenge. 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. The Mighty alone can afford to be merciful and therefore where else can the prodigal son return but to the parental doors of the government?

  Hoping your Honour will kindly take into notion these points.

  Full text of petition submitted by V.D. Savarkar to the Chief Commissioner, Andaman Islands, October 1914:To the Chief Commissioner,

  Sir,

  The undersigned petitioner most humbly begs to tender the following petition, with a fervent hope that it will be forwarded to the Indian Government.

  Ever since this world shaking war that is now being fought in Europe broke out, nothing has sent such a thrill of hope and enthusiasm in the heart of every true Indian patriot as the fact that Indians including the youth of India have been allowed to wear arms of fight against the common foe in defence of this country and the Empire. A thing which one has a right to protect is a thing in which one feels a sense of ownership; and fighting side by side with the other citizens of the Empire, the rising generation of India is sure to feel a sense of equality and therefore of a sincere loyalty to the same.

  Believing that the ideal of all political science and practice is or ought to be one Universal State; that therefore humanity is higher patriotism, and therefore any empire that succeeds in wielding a number of conflicting races and nations in one harmonious whole without letting the growth of any one be staunched by the overshadowing domination of another, is a distinct step to the realization of that Ideal: I rejoiced to see the volunteering movement succeed and felt confident in the ultimate triumph of the far sighted and truly Imperial policy of conciliation and confidence inaugurated by Lord Hardinge’s administration. If the Government will but continue it, if the manhood of the nation be allowed to share the glories and responsibilities of the Empire with perfect equality with other citizens of it, then Indian patriots of all shades and opinions can conscientiously feel that burning sense of loyalty that one feels for one’s motherland.

  Therefore I most humbly beg to offer myself as a volunteer to do any service in the present war, that the Indian Government think fit to demand from me, I know that a Kingdom does not depend on the help of an insignificant individual as I am, but then I know this also that every individual however insignificant, is duty bound to volunteer his or her best for the defence of that Kingdom. I also beg to submit that nothing can contribute so much as to the widening and deeping [sic] the sentiment of loyalty in the Indian people as a general release of all those prisoners who had been convicted for committing political offences in India. Such a step at such a time would dispel the illusion which the foreigners seem to be labouring under, that because the Indians fight for equal rights inside the Empire, therefore they must be eager to get rid of it altogether and worse invite others to side over them, se
condly, the majority of these convicts would be staunchly attached to that power which might as it proved to chastise, would thus prove mightier still to forbear and forgive: and moreover when the Royal road of constitutional success is thrown so wide open as Lord Hardinge has done, who is so depraved or fanatical as to hang to the thorny paths of blood or crime? Above all it is but a frank truth that there cannot be a real and whole hearted sympathy felt in a thousand homes in India—however they may hate the Germans—to that power which has kept a husband or a son or a father or a friend rotting in the jail: for blood is thicker than water. But a general release will, especially at such a critical time, make such a deep impression on the grateful people of India will touch their imagination to such a degree as no amount of Durbars and fireplays after the war ends can do, It will prove beyond all evil that English and Indian sons have perfect confidence in each other as far as the Imperial defence is concerned.

  If the Government suspect that my real intention in writing all this is only to secure my release, then I beg to submit let me not be released at all, with my exception let all the?rest be released, let the volunteer movement go on—and I will rejoice in that as if myself was allowed to play an active part. It is only through a sincere desire to see the right thing done that I have dared to write this frank and outspoken petition for your gracious consideration.