Our main plank is Veer Savarkar’s message which he preached at the Calcutta session: ‘Equal rights for all citizens and protection of the culture and… - Vinayak Damodar Savarkar

Oh Ocean, take me back to my Motherland!
My soul in so much torment be!
Lapping worshipfully at my mother’s feet
So always I saw you
Let us visit other Lands to see
The abounding nature, said you.
Seeing my Mother’s heart full of qualms
A sacred oath you did give to her,
Knowing the way home, upon your back
My speedy return you promised her.
Fell for your promise did I!
That worldly-wise n’ able be I
Her deliverance better serve do I
Upon returning, so saying I left her.
Oh Ocean, my soul in so much torment be! Like a parrot in a cage, like a deer in a trap—
Oh so duped am I
Parting from my mother for ever—
Besieged by darkness am I!
Flowers of virtue gather did I
That blessed by their fragrance she be.
Bereft from service for her deliverance
My learning a futile burden it be,
The love of her mango trees, oh!
The beauty of her blossoming vines, oh! Her tender budding rose, oh!
Oh forever lost is her garden to me,
Oh Ocean, my soul in so much torment be! Stars abound in the heavens above, but
Only the star of Bharat-land love I
Here are found plush palaces, but
Only my mother’s humble hut love I
What care I for a kingdom without Her?
Ever exile in her forests choose I.
Deception is futile now, say I
Let you not be spared, vow I
Suffer the same pangs, cry I
Of parting with the dearest of your rivers!
Oh Ocean, my soul in so much torment be! Oh Ye of Foaming Surf, pitilessly you mock!
Why go back on your word, oh!
Why deceive my helpless mother,
Oh why condemn me to exile so!
Was it in fear of England
Who flaunts her mastery over you so?
Fearsome though England may be,
O My Mother is not feeble so
Tell all about Sage Agastya she will, lo
Who in one gulp your waters drank!
Oh Ocean, my soul in so much torment be!

Back in mainland India, a new movement was brewing. It is important to understand this issue because it sets the context in which Vinayak penned his magnum opus on Hindutva and his belief in the need for Hindu society to organize itself politically. The concept of Hindutva continues to be a contentious one in Indian politics even today..... Meanwhile, it was in the dark confines of Ratnagiri prison that Vinayak began writing his magnum opus on his political philosophy—his conception of what constituted a ‘Hindu nationalist identity’. These were distilled from his experiences in the Andaman and Ratnagiri jails with respect to the conversions, his own attempts at shuddhi and sangathan and the raging debates in the country surrounding the Khilafat agitation. The word that he popularized and which holds immense political currency in contemporary India was ‘Hindutva’ or ‘Hindu-ness’.

In parenthesis, and with due respect, it strikes the modern reader that Savarkar’s writing is full of superlatives. In publications of lesser Hindutva writers, the situation is often much worse: they sound almost as emotional as Syed Shahabuddin’s diatribes. After all that Rishis and Tirthankaras and Buddhas have taught about the value of dispassionate observation, it is disappointing to find that Hindu writers cannot keep their cool and go off on an emotional tangent of either bombastic glorification or sterile self-pity.