Savarkar by Vikram Samantha Book Review

Savarkar: Echoes from a Forgotten Past 

BooK story:

As the intellectual fountainhead of the ideology of Hindutva, which is in political ascendancy in India today, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar is undoubtedly one of the most contentious political thinkers and leaders of the twentieth century. Accounts of his eventful and stormy life have oscillated from eulogizing hagiographies to disparaging demonization. The truth, as always, lies somewhere in between and has unfortunately never been brought to light. Savarkar and his ideology stood as one of the strongest and most virulent opponents of Gandhi, his pacifist philosophy and the Indian National Congress. An alleged atheist and a staunch rationalist who opposed orthodox Hindu beliefs, encouraged inter-caste marriage and dining, and dismissed cow worship as mere superstition, Savarkar was, arguably, the most vocal political voice for the Hindu community through the entire course of India's freedom struggle. From the heady days of revolution and generating international support for the cause of India's freedom as a law student in London, Savarkar found himself arrested, unfairly tried for sedition, transported and incarcerated at the Cellular Jail, in the Andamans, for over a decade, where he underwent unimaginable torture. From being an optimistic advocate of Hindu-Muslim unity in his treatise on the 1857 War of Independence, what was it that transformed him in the Cellular Jail to a proponent of 'Hindutva', which viewed Muslims with suspicion? Drawing from a vast range of original archival documents across India and abroad, this biography in two parts-the first focusing on the years leading up to his incarceration and eventual release from the Kalapani-puts Savarkar, his life and philosophy in a new perspective and looks at the man with all his achievements and failings.

Book Review:

The first serious biography of Savarkar in English, this book allows us to understand a man whose ideas have come to define contemporary India. (Faisal Devji, Professor of Indian History, University of Oxford) A gripping narrative . . . We get a rich portrait of Savarkar as a poet and writer as well as a political activist and theorist (Sugata Bose, Gardiner Professor of History, Harvard University) Vikram Sampath has written the finest biography . . . This will restore the right balance to the story of one of the revolutionaries of modern India. (Meghnad Desai, Eminent author and columnist, Professor Emeritus at the London School of Economics) Read it, not just to understand Savarkar, but also to understand the emergence of modern India. (Sanjeev Sanyal, Best-selling author & Principal Economic Advisor, Ministry of Finance, Government of India) Vikram's writing skills and his penchant for description, especially of the inhuman torture that the prisoners had to undergo . . . make the text both heart-wrenching as also very readable (Tathagata Roy, Governor of Meghalaya) Vikram Sampath's brilliant biography demystifies the man, the thinker and the leader. Far from being a hagiography, the book is essential reading for all those interested in contemporary India and the rise of Hindutva (Amitabh Mattoo, Professor, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University) Vikram Sampath has done extraordinary research into Savarkar's life and history (T.V. Mohandas Pai, chairman, Manipal Global Education) 

About Author:

Vikram Sampath, a Bangalore-based historian, is the author of three acclaimed books-Splendours of Royal Mysore: The Untold Story of the Wodeyars, My Name Is Gauhar Jaan: The Life and Times of a Musician and Voice of the Veena, S. Balachander: A Biography. Vikram was awarded the Sahitya Akademi's first Yuva Puraskar in English literature and the ARSC International Award for Excellence in Historical Research in New York for his book on Gauhar Jaan. The book has also been adapted as a play, Gauhar, by Lillete Dubey and is being adapted into a Hindi movie by Ashutosh Gowariker. Vikram has a doctorate in history and music from the University of Queensland, Australia, and is currently a senior fellow at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi. An engineer/mathematician from BITS Pilani and an MBA in finance from S.P. Jain Institute of Management, Mumbai, he is also a trained Carnatic vocalist. He has established the Archive of Indian Music, India's first digital sound archive for vintage recordings, and is the founder-director of the Bangalore Literature Festival, Indic Thoughts Festival and the ZEE Group's ARTH: A Culture Fest.