The RSS: Icons of the Indian Right

by Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay

The books he had authored, including those that were banned, came back into circulation which readers and scholars began devouring with renewed vigour. What merits mention here is that Vinayak Damodar Savarkar was among those rare revolutionary nationalists who supplemented his activism with propaganda literature. At that particular stage of his life, Savarkar’s idea of nationalism wasn’t yet integrated with his childhood ambition of restoring Hindu dignity by raising the spectre of ‘cultural’ Hindus. The codification of Hindu nationalism, which was truly Savarkar’s contribution to Indian political thought, occurred at a later stage in his life. However, a careful reading of Indian War of Independence, 1857 provides enough indication of his future postulations because he had clearly focused on Hindu and Maratha exclusivity, and didn’t celebrate ‘a unified and composite past, present, and future Indian nation.’