Savarkar: A Contested Legacy, 1924-1966

by Vikram Sampath

Elaborating on the accusation made on the Hindu Mahasabha of being a communal organization and a mirror image of the Muslim League, he said: The fact is that Nationalism and Communalism are in themselves either equally justifiable and humane or not. Nationalism when it is aggressive is as immoral in human relation as is Communalism when it tries to suppress the equitable rights of other communities and tries to usurp all to itself. But when Communalism is only defensive, it is as justifiable and humane as an equitable Nationalism itself. The Hindu nationalists do not aim to usurp what belongs to others. Therefore, even if they be called Hindu communalists they are justifiably so and are about the only real Indian Nationalist. For, a real and justifiable Indian Nationalism must be equitable to all communities that compose the Indian Nation. But for the same reason the Moslems alone are communalists in an unjustifiable, anti-national and treacherous sense of the term. For it is they who want to usurp to themselves all that belongs to others. The Indian National Congress only condemns itself as an anti-national body when it calls in the same breath the Hindu Mahasabha and the Muslim League as bodies equally communal in the reprehensible or treacherous sense of that term. Consequently if to defend the just and equitable rights of Hindus in their own land is communalism then we are communalists par excellence and glory in being the most devoted Hindu communalists which to us me...