Thread by @DaMoMusings

Savarkar and Me:

"Nhe majhshi nhe parat matrubhumi la".....

When I was a kid, my Appa (maternal grandfather) used to take me to the seashore and hum this song. I used to hum it with him, feeling a sense of pride swell up inside me. (1/n)

My Appa was a RSS Karyakarta in his youth, fiercely patriotic, extremely disciplined but at the same time could love Morarji Desai and Jawaharlal Nehru without differentiating.
(2/n)

As he grew up in the ranks of RSS he figured that they were more than just a "Swayamsevak Sangh" and quickly got out of it at the first opportunity.... thats another story for some other day.
(3/n)

But still he used to sit ,on his rocking chair in his 70s wearing his khakhi shorts and a white half sleeved vest and regale me with stories of Shivaji Maharaj, Lokmanya Tilak, Babasaheb Ambedkar and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.
(4/n)

I grew up admiring all of them. My history knowledge was restricted to my school text books and the stories told to me by my Appa.

Appa told me stories of heroism of Savarkar.
(5/n)

How he tried to escape arrest by jumping off a ship and swim across the ocean.

How he braved the the torture in the Anda cell meted out against him by the British.

How he wrote extensively in faour of Swaraj.
(6/n)

Appa never told me that Nehru or Gandhi was a villain.

Infact Appa always mentioned Gandhi as some sort of a Messiah....."Gandhi Baba used to come to our village and we all used to go to listen to him", he had told me.
(7/n)

Appa always mentioned Nehru as a visionary. "Pandit Ji did this, Pandit Ji did that", he was always full of praises for Nehru.
(8/n)

Appa could look at the good sides of Nehru, Gandhi and even Savarkar and downplay their faults, in the same breath even though they were the ideological opposites of each other.
(9/n)

For him, all these people and many more were the Leaders who had a contribution towards giving him freedom from the British and thats all that mattered.

Savarkar, for me, was a Hero..... and he would have remained so.
(10/n)

Until, the BJP brought in Savarkar as a counter to Gandhi and Nehru.

Then I started reading.

I read how Savarkar wrote mercy petitions to the British, something Appa never told me.
(11/n)

I read how Savarkar got pension from the British for staying out of the political struggle post his release, something Appa had hidden from me.

I read how Savarkar justified rape as a legitimate political tool, something Appa didnt bother to tell me.
(12/n)

Savarkar was no longer my Hero.

Appa probably didnt want to disrespect the contributions of the freedom fighters that made them larger than life in my eyes, and turn them into mere human fallible human beings.
(13/n)

He probably looked at them differently because he spent most of his life under the British rule, unlike you and me who were born in a free India with access to loads of information on the world wide web.
(14/n)

If it wasnt for BJP, I would have remained like that lil boy who stood by the seashore & got goosebumps whenever he sang "Nhe Majhsi nhe parat matrubhumi la", visualizing Savarkar trapped in Anda Cell, staring out at sea through a window of his anda cell
(15/n)

Now, I know that he wrote this poem when he was in London and dedicated it to his sister-in-law after his brother's demise.

BJP managed to shatter the image of Savarkar that I had in my head, an image created by the stories told to me by my Appa.
(16/n)

Appa passed away few years ago and along with him the image of Savarkar in my eyes had a sad demise too.

For Appa's death, I have no one to blame but his old age.

But for the death of Savarkar's image that I valued, I firmly blame the BJP.
(17/n)

Had they not brought Savarkar up as their political tactic to desecrate the image of Gandhi and Nehru, frankly I would have never bothered to read up on him in detail because it did not matter to my present and future.
(18/n)

And I would have never known the reality.

For sullying the image of Savarkar, BJP is solely to blame. They should have let the sleeping dogs lie.....
(19/n)

These days when I hear the song "Nhe Majhsi Nhe" I still get goosebumps but they are more because it reminds me of my time spent with Appa at the seashore listening to his stories :)
(n/n)
#SavarkarAndMe #Savarkar #BJP #INC #Nehru #Gandhi