[Reader-list] Remembering Veer Savarkar Ji on his anniversary

[Pawan Durani]

http://indiatribune.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2545:veer-savarkar--a-true-sincere-and-devoted-son-of-india&catid=30:opinion&Itemid=460

India’s freedom movement is replete with countless Indians, who have
sacrificed their lives.  However,  today they are, by and large, swept away
into oblivion. But there is one name that will remain permanently in
history.   He, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, prevails. He was born on May 28,
1883.

Savarkar is the stuff that heroes are made of. As a man of sharp
intelligence and political acumen, supreme orator, passionate poet, he was a
leader of leaders. He had the magnetic personality, the daring, the
capability and sincerity to inspire a nation. But, being a foremost exponent
of the Karmayoga, as propounded in the Bhagavad-Gita, he believed in duty
for the sake of duty. Not for him was the path of acquiring self-glory and
power. He was very uncompromising in his principles.  This, his deep abiding
love for India and his rational approach to life was the driving force of
all his actions. As a revolutionary social reformer, he campaigned far and
wide to rid society of the caste system.  He was a firm believer in freedom
and equality for all. The India he had visualized was one where every
individual would have equal rights and opportunities, irrespective of caste,
creed, race or religion. The minorities would have effective safeguards to
protect their language, culture and religion, but would not be allowed to
create a state within a state. All Indians should regard India as their
Fatherland and Holyland. With the intention of making a collective, united
Indian bid for freedom, the oath of his secret revolutionary society,
Abhinav Bharat, was: One God, One Country, One Aspiration, One Community,
One Life, One Language.

How many countries are blessed with a son of his caliber, his brilliance?
His many contributions to India are invaluable, though invisible to many
today. It behooves us to direct our thoughts, to spare at the very least a
moment of our time, to this great patriot who has sacrificed so much all
life long for India.

He was the first to declare complete Independence as a goal for India. With
India for the Indians as his goal, in 1899, 16-year-old Savarkar took a
sacred oath to sacrifice his all for his Motherland, if need be.

By the late 19th century, India was emasculated, a mere slave of the
British. How then was this vicious imperial power ruling by military might
and making new laws to serve their end to be circumvented? Where was the
Constitution that freedom fighters could appeal to? How were their voices to
be even heard, when Indians were being flung into jails, or hanged at the
slightest provocation? Where were they to find guns and bombs and military
might to counteract all the enemy armory? In England, so Savarkar was quick
to realize that. With that in mind he, by winning a scholarship, left for
England on June 9, 1906, ostensibly  to become a Barrister. In reality his
goals were manifold. He wished to study British Law, to circumvent it in his
mission. Paramount was the need to spread patriotism in the hearts of the
Indian youth. To bring all Indians together for this common, national cause,
he wrote The Indian   War of Independence, 1857.  The government getting a
whiff of this, promptly banned the book before its publication. The book was
published regardless. In later years, Bhagat Singh and Netaji Subhash
Chandra Bose translated it into regional            languages to inspire the
people.  In 1907, Savarkar designed the national flag for free India,
incorporating the symbols for Muslims, Sikhs and other Hindus. This was
hoisted in the Stuttgart convention. The plight of India was now an
international issue. He was also determined to contact revolutionaries of
other countries and make a common cause for freedom of all slave countries.

The British recognized at a glance in Savarkar what India fails to see even
today. Desperate to annihilate him, they charged him with waging war against
the King of England and procuring and distributing arms in London. But to
doom him for all eternity, he had to be extradited to India. So they tangled
Savarkar in a concocted charge of delivering seditious speeches four years
earlier in India. The Jaws of Hell, the judiciary system prevailing in
India, swallowed him. For 27 years, he was held in bondage by the British.
When, finally released, he fought, at the cost of his health, for the
freedom of a united India, with equal rights and opportunities for all
Indians. After Indepen-dence, he continued to look out  for Indian interests
right up to his death. To strive so, for the country that so consistently
forsook him, is the mark of a great personality. Savarkar was indeed a true,
sincere and devoted son of India.