This essay “Savarkar Against US” is written in the context of the RSS/BJP Government of India started taking several steps to change the basic structure of the present political system in the light of the Hindutva thesis proposed by their father of the modern nation, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. The idea “US” refers to the Shudra/OBC/Dalit/Adivasis, who built this nation starting with construction of the Harappan city civilization almost 1500 years before the Aryan Brahamins migrated to this land and composed their fundamental spiritual text, Rigveda. The Aryan Brahmins produced two ideological leaders—Kautilya and Manu- in ancient India. In modern India they produced Savarkar.
The RSS/BJP came into existence as byproducts of Savarkar’s theory of Hindu-Aryan racial and spiritual supremacy.
This essay examines Savarkar’s fundamental anti-Shudra thesis in his well known book Essentials of Hindutva. Though Savarkar was organizationally with Hindu Mahasabha he is being owned by the RSS as their own organic ideologue and thinker because he was the only Brahmin who wrote a theory for their modern brahmanic system’s continuation . His writings and violently militant nationalism that he proposed became the core philosophical vision of the entire Hindutva forces. Quite tragically Shudra/Dalit/Adivasis, who believe in the RSS/BJP ideology and work in their organizations think that they would be integrated into Hinduism as equals with Brahmins.
The RSS has been organizing the Shudra/Dalit/Adivasi forces with an anti-Muslim and anti-Christian agenda for the last hundred years with ups and downs. Since the Dwija social forces cannot come to power with their mass strength the productive masses are drawn into their muscle power to fight against Muslims and Christians, but they do not allow them to emerge as intellectuals. If they become intellectuals they will understand the modern designs of Brahmanism. The Brahmin intellectuals running the RSS worked generation after generation for about 90 years to capture the state power and they succeeded in 1999 with Atal Bihari Vajpayee becoming a stable RSS trained Brahmin Prime Minister and ruled India for a five year term. That was the beginning of their future anti-secular and anti-democratic plans with the support of the ideologically domesticated Shudra/Dalit/Adivasis.
Thus the turning point came when the RSS/BJP came to power in Delhi in 1999. It took a deeper turning point after they came to power in 2014 with Narendra Modi, with an image of OBC. An Savarkarite Mohan Bhagwat, head of the RSS, established his full grip over all the institutions of power. He set up the RSS Brahmin ideological managers in every institute, including schools, colleges and universities. The Shudra/OBC/Dalit/Adivasis have no ideological control even in Government structures. Some of them were given some positions but without any power to control. They work with an instilled fear of getting punished by the Government and non-Government agencies headed by Dwija RSS officials, if they do not function according to the directions of RSS Brahmin leadership.
WHAT ARE THEY DOING FROM POWER?
They came to power in 1999 and ruled one full five year term. Again they came back to power in 2014 and since then ruling India without any break. At the time of writing this essay they have been ruling for eleven years with Narendra Modi as the PM.
During the RSS and BJP rule they re-shaped India completely in their Hindutva image. The image of the father of the nation, Mahatma Gandhi, a Bania secular democrat, is slowly being shifted to their father of the nation, Savarkar, a fundamentalist anti-Shudra/Dalit/Adivasi Brahmin thinker from Maharashtra. Of course, Gandhi was declared as the father of the nation by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s Government, which had a strong Shudra leader Sardar Vallbai Patel, along with Nehru, a secular Brahmin. However, now by bringing back Savarkar, a follower of Balagangadhara Tilak and his Brahminic authoritarian back into cunning moral authority on to the nation, they want to revert the fruits of entire history of freedom struggle. The freedom struggle was fought by millions of masses and leaders coming from the Shudra/Dalit/Adivasi forces.
Both Hindu Mahasabha and RSS were formed exclusively by the Brahmins of Maharashtra, who were descendants of Peshwa rulers. Their design was to see that their civilizational path of Sanatana Dharma, where there was no respect for agrarian, artisanal production, should be resettled in modern mode in the post British rule. In the background of these forces getting organized Mahatma Gandhi, though a Bania himself, had to take a pro-Varna Dharma stand and was forced to oppose Ambedkar’s plan of caste based proportional representation, particularly Dalit representation. Gandhi himself was a strategic moralist. His Bania vegetarian Hindu heritage played its own role in impacting his decisions. However, his secular credentials cannot be doubted. That was one reason why Nathuram Godse, who belonged to Savarkar’s Hindu Mahasabha killed Gandhi. The RSS has been a supporter of Savarkar, who trained Godse to be a militant Hindutva agent.
THE PESHWA BRAHMINISM
The Peshwas were the last Brahmin rulers in the Indian subcontinent who ruled the state of Maharashtra by implementing the Vedic Sanatana Dharma principles. Strict practice of Varna Dharma was part of the Peshwa administration. They enforced human untouchability, and graded inequality by following strict Manu Dharma rules. Phule wrote about the conditions of Shudra-Ati-Shudras during that period of Maharashtra life. Those conditions and the colonial English school education for Shudras produced Phule and Savitribai as the first greatest Shudra intellectual rebels.
Savarkar was the counter-intellectual of Phule reform movement and the newly springing up Shudra intellectualism. Though the whole argument Savarkar developed in the text of Essentials of Hindutva was about Hindu-Aryan pride. He hardly critiqued the British colonial system. Hindu Mahasaabha was an antithesis of the Satyashodhak Samaj, not so much about anti-British struggle. He did not examine British exploitation in his book. The whole drive of the text is to militarise Hindu religion and establish a strong Hindu Rashtra. The Shudras and Dalits in that Rashtra are expected to be muscle power, not intellectual power.
The RSS so far used them in exactly the same way. There is no single Shudra intellectual who could emerge as an intellectual and write text with a critical engagement from the RSS network. All the Shudra/OBCs, who work in those organizations, are followers of Brahmin leaders like Mohan Bhagwat, Golwalkar. Savarker’s writings provide them with a theoretical basis.
In the post Peshwa times the Brahmins of Maharashtra (that included the present Gujarat) were of the opinion that the Peshwa rule was their last golden age. From Bala Gangadhar Tilak onwards they started thinking that from the British rule and also the Phule reforms an undesirable Shudra ascendency began to take place. Tilak opposed the reform movement of the Phules. Savarkar was his disciple. He encouraged him to go to England and learn English. Savarkar was a determined Brahmin with strong roots in Vedic education. Though he appeared to be rational, his basic conviction was to re-establish a Pan-India Peshwa rule with the Vedic thought as its guiding force. Naturally graded caste inequality and human untouchability must be brought back in full force.
Mahatma Jotirao Phule and Savitribai Phule challenged theBrahminic history and hegemony just before Savarkar was born. Perhaps Savarkar must have read Phule’s Gulamgiri and was disturbed by such a Shudra awakening.
Savarkar was born in 1883 and died in 1966. He lived a long life and was responsible for establishing Hindu Mahasabha. Later Hedgewar established RSS with the inspiration of Savarkar’s Hindutva nationalism. Savarkar’s book Essentials of Hindutva was written in the background of Phule’s Gulamgiri (Slavery) and Mahatma Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj which were meant to shape the future democratic India. If Gulamgiri paved a theoretical and practical path for casteless democracy, Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj paved the way for a non-violent freedom movement against the British.
Though Savarkar’s own Hindu Mahasabha remained dormant during the freedom struggle and later the RSS grew up into a ruling force and now uses Savarkar as their foundational thinker.
The RSS/BJP under the leadership of another Marati Brahmin—Mohan Bhagwat— worked strategies for dismantling secular democracy and moving towards establishment of the Hindu Rashtra dictatorship. Savarkar’s Hindu Rashtra thesis does not give any scope for electoral democracy. This is very clear from a serious reading of the book.
ENSLAVING SHUDRAS
The RSS from power since 2014 goes far beyond subduing Muslims and Christians. It turns to re-enslaving Shudra/Dalit/Adivasis. Unfortunately no Shudra thinker after Mahatma Phule emerged to challenge this Brahminic march in post- Phule modern India. Several Shudras got into the mayopic dogma of the RSS. They pretentiously owned Sardar Vallbai Patel by making Shudras believe that they are for integrating Shudras into their Hindutva as equals. Savarkar’s writings make it clear that the Hindu Rashtra is not for casteless society. It was to re-stabilise Shudra/Dalit slavery. The Hinduva Brahmins realized Shudra/Dalit/Adivasis were getting liberated gradually because of the reform movements during the freedom struggle, and British liberal thought that made its way into the Indian casteist society. It was in this atmosphere thinkers like Mahatma Phule and Savitribai emerged. Brahmin intellectual leaders like Tilak and Savarkar got enraged with this kind of social change. Subsequently Ambeddkar’s constitutional democracy deepened that liberation process.
The RSS/BJP and their brainchild organizations are now working to reverse the process of change. Of course, their pronounced agenda is winning over Pan- Islam and Pan-Christianity along with completely subduing Muslim and Christian people within India. But the deeper agenda is re-establishing the Brahmin-Bania absolute control over Shudra/Dalit/Adivasis by destabilizing democracy and establishing Hindu Rashtra dictatorship. They know that process takes time. But they began the work by capturing power in Delhi through the same electoral process.
During their second term from 2014 to 2009 they were more cautious. May be because of Modi’s cautious steps after Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s term. The RSS allowed Modi to speak as if he was a Gandhian. Since he had his Gujarati roots he too did not appear to be a spokesperson of the RSS and anti-Gandhi. Of course, they were owning Sardar Vallbai Patel for quite some time and that position seems to continue as the Indian National Congress sidelined him for a long time. They began to own Ambedkar as the Congress was also not too fond of him. But he will be discarded in future as he is a difficult thinker for them to handle and also own. Their core Brahmin-Bania ideology does not accept his anti-Hindu image for too long. If they discard electoral democracy and establish Hindu Rashtra Ambedkar statues also may not exist in India. They will go after Buddhism also on the lines of Islam and Christianity.
Savarkar’s first major thesis written in 1923 also put Buddhism in the enemy camp in a very subtle mode.
Their third term of RSS/BJP regime from 2019 to 2024 they focussed on their anti-Muslim agenda. Building Ram temple, abrogating 370 and bringing Kashmir under the Union Territory. These were two major anti-Muslim agendas that have historical implications and they sucessfully resolved them.
All the Muslim leaders of their own structures are marginalized. If they go too far against Muslim within India the Muslim world certainly will unify and respond, as the RSS/BJP are being now seen as anti-Islam itself. The signals from the Muslim world are clear now. The formation of the Islamic NATO is one such indication, they know. They now understood that if the Muslims are pushed to wall in India 56 Muslim nations may unite to fight the Hindu Rashtra.
They also went after Christians by all possible legal and illegal ways but now the Western Christian world seems to have understood that agenda too.
Trump’s anti-India policies are part of that Christian response.
Now they are turning to a more deeper agenda. The historical Shudra/OBC/Dalit/Adivasis must be brought under complete classical hegemony of Brahminism by weakening the electoral democracy. They know that Shudra/OBCs are the key in the voting system. They are moving slowly to encircle the constitutional fabric which gave the Dalit/Adivasi/ Shudras the right to vote, right to property and the right to exercise political power, if elected. Savarkar has not accepted individualism as a systemic practice in India. In Essentials of Hindutva text he has not recognised the identity of Shudras, Dalits and Adivasis. He was talking about only Aryans, children of Vedic fathers. It is very clear that Shudra/Dalit/Adivasis are not Aryans. They are not children of Vedic fathers. They are children of Harappan mothers and fathers. Savarkar did not even recognize Vedic mothers.
RSS/BJP OPEN FIGHT AGAINST NEHRU
About Jawaharlal Nehru the nation knows that they have decided to remove him from the nation’s memory unless a major section of Brahmins within and outside RSS oppose such a process. Though Nehru was a Brahmin by birth his philosophy of secularism, democratic socialism and his family continued stature are unacceptable to the all Savarkarites. Apart from Ambedkar, Nehru was also responsible for the sustenance of electoral democracy for 75 years. Because of democracy for the last 75 years some Shidra/OBCs/Dalits/Adivasis got educated. They hold Nehru responsible for the change because in their view how a Brahmin could allow this anti-Sanatanic transformation. The Shudra/OBC/Dalit/Adivasis working in RSS/BJP do not understand this dimension of their anti-Nehru sentiment.
REMOVAL OF GANDHI’S NAME
The agenda of removal of Gandhi from their acceptable icons starts with removal of his name from Mahatma Gandhi Employment Guarantee Scheme. That scheme is meant to feed the poorest of the poor, who mainly constitute SC/ST/OBCs.
The news that Gandhi’s photo will be removed from the currency notes is all over. Imagine removing George Washington’s photo from American currency. From 1776 to 2025 nobody could dare to do that in that country as he was designated as father of that constitutional democratic nation.
In India just in 75 years things are going to radically change like in Muslim countries. In Pakistan any constitution could be changed just like that. Here a similar system may come in. Stability of this constitution for so long in the theoretical scheme of Savarkar is unexpected. Since they cannot openly blame Ambedkar for that they keep blaming Nehru. The Gandhian morality, however problematic it was/is, also contributed to the sustenance of Indian electoral democracy. Hence they very subtly started working against Mahatma Gandhi too.
A careful reading of Savarkar’s Hindutva thesis shows that he did not advocate for electoral democracy in India. He repeatedly argued for establishing an Aryan powerful state based on Vedic Varna Dharma. On the lines of Vedic thought violence is central to his future India. We know that by using viliolent methods also the caste system and human untouchability were preserved for thousands of years.
Savarkar did not propose any social reform like Mahatma Phule did in his writings. His Essentials of Hindutva was written in the background of Mahatma Phule’s Gulamgiri (1873) and other Marathi writings that supported Mahatma Phule’s Satyashodhak movement. Mahatma Gandhi’s Hind Swaraj (1909). No Shudra/Dalit thinker reviewed Savarkar’s militant Brahminic writings from their history point of view, which was encoded by Mahatma Jotirao Phule from the same Peshwa state where Savarkar came from. If Mahatma Phule was seen as a dangerous disruptor of the Brahmanic Social Order, Gandhi was seen as a negotiator with the Phule reform agenda by many Brahmin pandits of Maharashtra. Savarkar was a theoretical epitome of that Brahminism of the Post-Phule era.
The advancement of this agenda depends on how the Shudra/OBC mass co-operate with the Brahmin-Bania plan of establishing Hindu Rashtra. No Shudra/OBC thinker emerged in India who could study Savarkar’s vision of establishing Hindu Rashtra. RSS Brahmin thinkers, from different wings keep on writing about the greatness of Savarkar’s modern thought based on his Vedic vision. It is not just Vikram Sampath’s (a right wing Brahmin intellectual) books but many other mainly Brahmin writers living in India and abroad are working on his thought to make him father of the Hindutva nation by removing the Gandhian nationalist legacy that the INC put in place.
IS THERE A COMMON INHERITANCE AMONG CASTES?
Let us examine some of the main propositions of Savarkar .
In his book Essentials of Hindutva he says “ A Hindu inherits Sanskrit, Hindu civilization, history, heroes, literature, art, law, common fairs and festivals, rites, rituals, ceremonies and sacraments. Not that each does all, mind you. But he has more of it in common with his Hindu brothers than with an Arab or Englishman”.
Do Shudras/Dalits/Adiavsis inherit Sanskrit? Leave alone Dalits and Adivasis, the Shudras, who were the main food producers of India, when Savarkar was writing this book, had no right to learn Sanskrit and use it as ritual language for spiritual purposes. Only Brahmins had that right. For millennia the Shudras who built the civilization of India had no right to learn Sanskrit, after this language migrated to India along with Aryans. Such a false claim by the Hindutva theoretician is only to hoodwink the Shudra/Dalit/Adivasis.
What does he mean by Hindu civilization? Does his notion of civilization include production of all human necessities from land, water by investing human labour? Does the name Hinduism include production and science? All the Sanskrit ancient and medieval books that Brahmins wrote have not mentioned the production processes, production technologies and human relations that developed in the process. They told themselves and others that everything came from their Sanskrit books. There are two contradicting civilizations in India: the Shudra civilization and the Brahmin civilization. The Shudra civilization built this nation’s wealth through labour. The Brahmins constructed ritualism through myth and myth alone. Savarkar did not even mention how this nation was built with agriculture and artisanal production.
He was worried about Pan-Islamism and the Muslim presence in India. He says “Great combinations are the order of the day, etc. The League of Nations, Pan-Islamism, Pan-Slavism are each little beings seeking to be incorporated into greater wholes, so as to be better fitted for the struggle for existence and power. “Who to those who have them already as their birth right and know them not; or worse, despise them!” Can any one of you, Oh Hindus! Whether Jain or Samaji or Sikh or any other subsection afford to cut yourselves off or fall out of the organic combination that already exists? Strengthen these ties if you can: “pull down the barriers that have survived their utility, of castes, and customs, of sects and sections: . . . “inter marriages between provinces and provinces, castes and castes, be encouraged where they do not exist.”
RSS/BJP never worked for inter caste marriages. If they allowed Inter province marriages, that was basically within the Dwija castes, which got educated in English. Before the colonial rule, though Sanskrit was their national language they did not allow inter-province marriages. Savarkar’s aim in proposing inter-province and inter-caste marriages was to appear somewhat progressive. But social reform was not at all his agenda.
It is very clear that he wanted all castes, non-Brahmanical religions like Sikhism, to forge unity with Hindutva only under the Brahmin control. He was not asking for abolition of caste. He was not saying that the idea of Varna Dharma should be abandoned. At several places in the book he argues that varna dharma is core of Indian civilization, not productive labour. He as a sanatanist did not think of human equality in the civil society and spiritual society.
Look at his definition of Hindutva. According to him “Obviously Hindutva comes from the words Hindu and Hindusthan. He says “Hindutva, to serve as a word, must appeal to the geographic source of India’s cohesion. It does so via Hindusthan. This word is understood as Americans understand the word “India,” without religious connotation.”
If that is purely geographical what is wrong with the name India? Why should it be called Hindutva? The word Hindutva definitely has religious connotation and that too that religion will be controlled by Brahmins. Savarkar’s hidden agenda is that the Brahmin hegemony should continue after the British left India.
He further writes “The word “Jati” derived from the root Jan means “brotherhood, a race determined by a common origin, possessing a common blood.” All Hindus have the Vedic fathers…”
This is the mischievous definition of Jati. The idea of Jati (caste) has its origins in Varna. While defining “Jan” (actually means people) as “brotherhood” and calling all Indians ‘Hindus’ and telling them that they are all children of ‘Vedic fathers’ has completely misled the Shudra/Dalit/Adivasis of India. He very cleverly tried to enslave the Pre-Aryan civilization builders, who actually were the present day Shudra/Dalit/Adivasis forever even after the colonial forces left India.
He further says “Speaking relatively alone, no people in the world can more justly claim to get recognized as a racial unit than the Hindus and perhaps the Jews. A Hindu marrying a Hindu may lose his caste but not his Hindutva.”
Do Brahmins accept uniting as national cohesion under the leadership of Dalits or Shudras? Never. For them caste first, nation next.
Savarkar while knowing the fact that Sanskrit was a language that was not allowed to be learnt by Shudra/Dalit/Adivasis says“ Sanskrit unites us as our best that enriches all the family of our sister languages, Hindi, Bengali, and more.”
In fact Sanskrit divided us by remaining a language of pure Brahmins language; it never could become a language of food producers. While he says “ A Hindu marrying a Hindu may lose his caste but not his Hindutva.” Savarkar did not build any movement for inter caste marriages. His Hindu Mahasabha subsequently became an organization of anti-inter caste marriage networks. All its leaders were mainly Brahmins.
The RSS which now owns Savarkar as their father of the nation did not encourage inter caste marriages. It never tried to protect inter-caste married couples from attacks and even murders. In areas where they are strong there is evidence that the RSS took up activities of social reform through inter-caste marriages.
HOW TO FIGHT SAVARKARISM?
The fundamental thesis of Savarkar is that Hindutva should become the sole ideological basis of post-colonial India. Quite mischievously he defined it as a name for India like Hindustan or Sindustan; the argument was couched in a spiritual discourse of Vedic Sanatana Dharma. He tried to preserve the classical status of Brahmins in the modern world, where universal equality through a process of democratizing every aspect of Indian life was expected to happen. His book Essential Hindutva was written in the background of Mahatma Phule’s Gulamgiri (1873) which has already shaken the caste order.
Savarkar by then became a staunch enemy of M.K.Gandhi, who wrote his first book Hind Swaraj which did not treat Muslims as enemies and Islam as enemy religion. Since Gandhi also came from Bania background the Brahmins of Western India did not like his rise as the leader of the Congress.
Though Ambedkar did not become a popular leader by 1923 when Savarkar wrote Essentials of Hindutva, he already wrote his famous essay Caste on India and in 1923 he got his first Ph.D from Columbia University. Sarvarkar must have been following the intellectual movements of Ambedkar. He wrote his fundamental thesis Annihilation of Caste in 1936 and Savarkar was very active in spreading his Hindutva ideology.
The RSS/BJP and the right-wing intellectuals want Savarkar to replace Gandhi-Nehru legacy, as the Congress still survives around those two Bania-Brahmin liberal leaders, but in more serious conspiratorial way they want to undo Phule-Ambedkar legacy and the constitutional democracy that Ambedkar institutionalized by undermining the Vedic Sanatan Dharma. Savarkarism can be fought more effectively with Phule-Ambedkarism than Gandhism.
Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd is a political theorist, social activist and author. His latest book is The Shudra Rebellion.
Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd 