Delayed Honour

India’s arguments about history rarely stay in the past and few figures provoke them as reliably as ‘Swatantryaveer’ Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. While Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat’s remarks that conferring the Bharat Ratna posthumously on Savarkar would enhance the award’s prestige predictably unsettled the Congress, he was essentially giving voice to a belief already shared by many Indians.

The surprise lies not in the demand itself, but in the persistence of the Congress, whose leaders have spent a lifetime caricaturing Savarkar and reducing him to a convenient political demon. For all the efforts of successive Congress-ruled regimes to erase Swatantryaveer Savarkar’s place in India’s freedom struggle, his ideas and sacrifices have proved stubbornly resistant to official amnesia.

He was among the earliest revolutionaries to articulate a full-throated case for complete independence, long before such ideas became respectable within the Congress. His imprisonment in Andaman’s Cellular Jail, enduring unimaginable conditions designed to break men physically and mentally, is a source of inspiration for many. His writings on nationalism, social reform and the abolition of caste rigidities were influential even among those who later disagreed with his politics. That such a figure still awaits the country’s highest civilian honour speaks volumes about the selective memory of India’s political class.

The Congress has long cast Savarkar as a ‘traitor’ for submitting mercy petitions to the British, completely ignoring the historical context. Revolutionary politics in the early 20th century involved clandestine networks, strategic retreats and compromises forced by incarceration. Many freedom fighters wrote petitions or recalibrated their methods when faced with indefinite imprisonment. The Congress’s insistence on treating Savarkar’s petitions as unique moral failings reveals more about the party’s insistence on reductive narratives than historical truth.

Equally telling is the party’s attempt to link Savarkar to Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination. While courts of the time examined that accusation and acquitted Savarkar, that insinuation persists, and has been deployed by Rahul Gandhi and other leaders whenever Savarkar’s name arises. This has proved corrosive to honest debate on Savarkar.

Savarkar’s articulation of Hindutva challenged the Congress’s long-standing claim to be the sole custodian of nationalism. He argued that cultural identity and national unity were not incompatible with modernity, an argument that has gained traction as India’s politics have evolved. To honour Savarkar would be to acknowledge that the freedom movement was intellectually plural, and not a monopoly of one party or one ideology. Savarkar’s rehabilitation has not been driven by official patronage alone. It reflects a broader reassessment by Indians who are weary of being told which heroes they may admire. While awarding the Bharat Ratna to Savarkar would not settle every argument about his ideas, they would at least belatedly acknowledge his contribution. India has bestowed the award on artists, scientists and politicians who disagreed profoundly with one another. To deny Savarkar the same consideration is to turn the Bharat Ratna into a partisan veto rather than a national recognition.