Veer Savarkar Controversy

Veer Savarkar's controversy is an interesting depiction of how hypocritical and shallow our politicos can get. I'm not very sure what was wrong with Veer Savarkar's career that merits such derogation by our so-called 'secular' leaders. In Gandhi's assassination case, the highest courts of our country have acquitted him. So we just cannot attach him with that case any more. We shall not forget that the same crowd celebrates Rajiv Gandhi as an 'innocent' and 'gullible' leader because the courts have acquitted him in the Bofors case.

So that makes Veer Savarkar guilty of only one crime. That's having written an apology letter to the British authorities while he was languishing in the Andaman jails. I feel that's a huge crime. Forget the fact that he set up an anti-British movement in the heart of London, that he was a role model for many extremist-anti-British groups across the country, that he has written some of the most beautiful and poignant poems on the nation and its people, that he sensed the rise of Islamic-extremism long before any one else did, that he languished in Andaman jails in some of the worst humane conditions ever recorded in the history.

The fact that he has simply written an apology letter to the British in the middle of the most torturous conditions is proof-enough that he cannot be called a patriot. The fact that communists supported British Raj during the world war is not important. They are patriots. The fact that fearing the opposition, Indira Gandhi curbed the democratic rights of all the citizens, imposed emergency, jailed all the leaders is not important. The fact that she encouraged Sikh separatist movement and Bindarenwale to simply to destabilize Akali Dal is not important. She is still a patriot. And her statues should decorate every city in India. The fact that Rajiv justified anti-sikh riots when his mother was assassinated isn't important. Rajiv is a patriot.

Annadurai pleaded the British to stay in India. If they were to leave India, he wanted them to at least retain Chennai Presidency. He thought minus British India would go back to stone age. He believed that’s where we were living before Brits came here. But he deserves a statue in every street in Tamilnadu.

These activities aren't very important. They are actually political decisions, which the great leaders take from time to time. What Veer Savarkar did by writing an apology letter in a hugely stressed condition is a shameful and a despicable act. So his picture should be removed from the parliament and the plaque should be taken out of the cellar jail and thrown in the Andaman Sea.

Long live the Indian democracy.