142 years ago, today, was born one of the more visionary, brilliant and brave men to have ever been born in India – Swatantraveer Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.
Honestly, there is no way that I can put down in words how great Savarkar is – a man decades ahead of his times with vision, genius, strength, fortitude, patriotism, nationalism – all at a superlative level.
So I do no better than to borrow other people’s words. I share with you a few videos of things people have said about him and a couple of poems written by him and, all of which are an absolute must-watch / must-read to realise how great he was!
Now before we get to the videos, here’s two small yet critical anecdotes.
Q: When Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s books were banned by the British, do you know who used to publish and circulate his banned books?
Ans: Bhagat Singh. 👍🏻
One of the reasons we have so many copies of almost all of Savarkar’s books still around in India despite the British trying to find & destroy all of them is because Bhagat Singh, the HRA (later on the HSRA) and his underground movement kept printing and re-printing all of his books to distribute them to people, especially Savarkar’s seminal work on the 1857 uprising, which he called ‘The First War of Indian Independence’.
Q: When Savarkar was in jail and so was his brother, who would help out their families to ensure that they had enough money and resources to live a dignified life?
Ans: Madam Bhikaja Cama.
She was greatly inspired by Savarkar and his vision when they were in London together at the same time in the early 1900s. She was also one of the secret funders of his movement.
Now, let’s get to all the things that many greats & other learned people have spoken about Veer Savarkar.
1. Here are 2 of India’s greatest geniuses speaking about Savarkar – Pu La Deshpande & Atal Bihari Vajpayee. In the first video, both of them speak about him. And in the second video, Pu La is talking about Veer Savarkar at an event commemorating his punyatithi.
2. Here’s 2 videos of Sharad Ponkshe’s hard-hitting speeches about Vinayak Damodar Savarkar!
3. A couple of videos from the recent past. While Vikram Sampath has written a seminal work of a double volume of Savarkar’s biography and had done tens of interviews & discussions around those, these two videos in particular interested me greatly because in one he breaks down in complete detail Savarkar as one of India’s earliest freedom revolutionaries… And in the other, he does a detailed deep-dive into his social contributions as well…
4. And finally, borrowing Savarkar’s own words to showcase his genius…
Here are a couple of Savarkar’s poems:
सागरा प्राण तळमळला – O Ocean, my hear aches
ने मजसी ने परत मातृभूमीला सागरा प्राण तळमळला
English – dear ocean, please take me back to my motherland, my hear aches
Here you can see the ENTIRE Mangeshkar family performing Saagara Praan Talamalala.
And
जयोस्तुते! Jayostute! – A fantastic poem written by Veer Savarkar, while still in the Cellular Jail in Andaman.