Unlimited Quote Collections
Organize your favorite quotes without limits. Create themed collections for every occasion with Premium.
What is noteworthy is that unlike in the past decades, there is at least space for a debate and discussion around Savarkar to happen in our public re… - Vikram Sampath
" "What is noteworthy is that unlike in the past decades, there is at least space for a debate and discussion around Savarkar to happen in our public realm now. The persona-non-grata that he had become and the heavy price that anyone invoking his name with any modicum of positivity had to bear, are luckily not as pronounced. The idea of these two volumes is not to create an army of Savarkar fans who have an answer to every allegation hurled against him by any loony or vested quarter. I myself disagree vastly with several of his stances and I am deeply critical of his actions at various stages of his life, as seen from the happy comfort of a retrospective review. One may hate or love him as much as one might want. But then to blackout even a discussion and debate around him, based on facts and documents, rather than rhetoric and politics (as has been the case till now) is deeply prejudicial to the tenets of liberalism and democracy, where every opposing view needs to find a platform. In his own life, Savarkar welcomed those who were opposed to his ideas and even kept a record of critical assessments of him by the press or his contemporaries.
English
Collect this quote
About Vikram Sampath
Vikram Sampath is an Indian historian and author of four books.
Related quotes. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.
Additional quotes by Vikram Sampath
Towards the end of 1926, the first English biography of Savarkar titled The Life of Barrister Savarkar was published in Madras under a curious pen name ‘Chitragupta’. In Hindu mythology, Chitragupta is the accountant of Yama, the God of Death, who keeps a meticulous debit and credit account of every soul’s sins and virtues. There have been various allusions about who the author is—from Congress leader C. Rajagopalachari, the revolutionary V.V.S. Aiyar to Savarkar himself writing under a pseudonym. The identity of the author continues to remain a mystery.
There is a mosque known as Har Tirath mosque, near the famous Har Tirath temple, which also appears to have been constructed of the materials of some old buildings. That was a temple of the Hindus known as Krittivaseshwara. The historical documents showed that this temple was constructed in an irregular manner in 1077 Hijri (1666 ce) after demolishing a temple, as per the orders of Aurangzeb.
Hence, even more than five decades after his death, Savarkar intrudes contemporary political debates like a few characters of our recent past have. Conferment of the country’s highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, still becomes the topic of intense contention, necessitating its inclusion even in the election manifestos of political parties. From being called a cowardly stooge who wrote groveling apologies, a casteist and Islamophobic bigot who allegedly pioneered the two-nation theory, a British-collaborator who drew pension from the government to personal slurs of a megalomaniac who penned his own biography in a pseudonym and someone who justified rapes—the basket of toxic allegations is mind bogglingly wide-ranging. The demonization is so absolutist in nature that there hardly seems to be any trace of positive virtue that his opponents can find in him.
Loading...