Savarkar and the Making of Hindutva

A monumental intellectual history of the pivotal figure of Hindu nationalism Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (18831966) was an intellectual, ideologue, and anticolonial nationalist leader in India's struggle for independence from British colonial rule, one whose anti-Muslim writings exploited India's tensions in pursuit of Hindu majority rule. Savarkar and the Making of Hindutva is the first comprehensive intellectual history of one of the most contentious political thinkers of the twentieth century. Janaki Bakhle examines the full range of Savarkar's voluminous writings in his native language of Marathi, from political and historical works to poetry, essays, and speeches. She reveals the complexities in the various positions he took as a champion of the beleaguered Hindu community, an anticaste progressive, an erudite if polemical historian, a pioneering advocate for women's dignity, and a patriotic poet. This critical examination of Savarkar's thought shows that Hindutva is as much about the aesthetic experiences that have been attached to the idea of India itself as it is a militant political program that has targeted the Muslim community in pursuit of power in postcolonial India. By bringing to light the many legends surrounding Savarkar, Bakhle shows how this figure from a provincial locality in colonial India rose to world-historical importance. Savarkar and the Making of Hindutva also uncovers the vast hagiographic literature that has kept alive the myth of Savarkar as a uniquely brave, brilliant, and learned revolutionary leader of the Hindu nation.

About the Author :
Janaki Bakhle is professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Two Men and Music: Nationalism in the Making of an Indian Classical Tradition.

Review :
"Longlisted for the PEN Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography, PEN America" "The importance to Savarkar of his writing emerges clearly in Janaki Bakhle's intellectual biography, a rare piece of dispassionate criticism on its subject. . . . She describes Savarkar’s work and poetry without taking her eye off his parallel project as the author of his own legend."---Raghu Karnad, London Review of Books "The most detailed and dispassionate analysis of the ideals of Savarkar. . . . Bakhle’s work considerably enriches the discourse, going beyond the usual binaries. . . . [A] remarkable exercise to present a well rounded view of the times in which Savarkar lived, the man he was, the leader he could have been."---Ziya Us Salam, The Hindu "A brilliant intellectual biography of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. . . . This book is indispensable to understanding not just the thinking of Savarkar’s time but also the intellectual currents shaping modern India."---Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Foreign Affairs "Bakhle’s treatment is thematic, with the main chapters devoted to different dimensions of Savarkar’s outlook—his relationship with the colonial police (‘an anticolonial revolutionary’), the Muslim question (‘fearful demagogue’), his views on caste (‘social reformer’), his poetry, history-writing, and finally the hagiography that has developed around him. This thematic organization . . . undoubtedly has its own advantages, particularly evident in the chapter on poetry, which displays Bakhle’s impressive research into Savarkar’s writings in Marathi."---Sanjay Subramaniam, New Left Review "Bakhle uses primary sources, including her subject’s Marathi-language writings, to paint an impressive scholarly picture of Savarkar’s life and thoughts."---Rohit Lamba, Project Syndicate "Savarkar is often viewed in black and white—as a staunch Hindu nationalist who devoted his life to expounding the virtues of conservative, Hindu majority rule. . . . Savarkar and the Making of Hindutva, paints a much more nuanced picture of the Hindutva ideologue." "[A] fair, scholarly assessment of Savarkar’s life and work from a liberal historical perspective."---Siddharth Singh, Open Magazine "A fine book that avoids the usual pitfalls of either hagiography or derision. Bakhle . . . gives her protagonist the serious attention he deserves as one of the most influential Indians of the previous century, and whose ideas have only grown in importance in our times."---Niranjan Rajadhyaksha, Swarajya Magazine "The most fascinating aspect of Bakhle’s book is her reconstruction of Savarkar’s caste politics. Basing her account on his Marathi writings, she concludes that he has been poorly understood outside his native Maharashtra. Few in the Hindi belt are aware of Savarkar’s ‘progressive’ side. . . . ‘The great majority of the Brahmins are those who doggedly deny the horrors of the system in the teeth of such a mass of evidence; who, when they speak of freedom, mean the freedom to oppress the untouchables.’ Who said this, Ambedkar or Savarkar? Before I read Bakhle’s book, I confess I’d have got this wrong."---Pratinav Anil, The Indian Express "[A] very detailed immersion in Savarkar’s poetry in Marathi and his historical works."---TCA Raghavan, India Today "A book of such astonishing relevance and power. . . . [Savarkar and the Making of Hindutva] corrects many misconceptions and fills in many gaps in the study of Savarkar."---Arvind Sharma, Politics, Religion & Ideology "This hugely impressive study of the thought of the central ideologue of Hindutva, the foundational framework of contemporary Hindu nationalism and divisive communalism, deserves to be immediately acknowledged as essential reading for anyone seriously interested in South Asian politics and culture. Indeed, [Savarkar and the Making of Hindutva] can and should be viewed as the most important and comprehensive historical analysis of the complex and contested life and ideas of the seminal theorist and propagandist of Hindutva. . . . [G]round-breaking."---Paul Tonks, Asian Affairs "Monumental."---Surajkumar Thube, The India Forum "[An] awe-inspiring volume. . . . This is a commendable work not only to know of many lesser known aspects and psyche of her subject (Savarkar) but also to learn much more about the divisive power-play of the British, the crucial decades of the nationalist movement during the 1920s and 1930s, and it unpacks new layers of Hindu anxiety around the Pan-Islamist Muslims of India. Janaki Bakhle’s historiographic rigour, insight (and beautiful prose) uncovers the genesis behind contemporary resurgence of Hindutva. A must read."---Mohammad Sajjad, Sabrang "An extremely important, judicious, and readable book that establishes how Savarkar, and by extension Hindu nationalism, can be viewed as modernizing, progressive, and even 'decolonial' from some angles. Moreover, it is the first to show how a finely honed and deployed Marathi literary inheritance aided in nationalizing his legacy."---Vikram Visana, American Historical Review