EVEN as the nation celebrated the birth anniversary of Swatantryaveer Vinayak Damodar Savarkar two days ago, people indulged in the formality of garlanding of statues and picture-frames of the visionary patriot -- as usual. Then everything went quiet -- until the next time when people will get to the point of birth or death anniversary of the man whose multifarious contribution to the idea of India has been immense. And by any standard, that cannot be the way the nation should only feign to remember Swatantryaveer Savarkar. This is true of all the icons the nation has produced over time, of course. Swatantryaveer Savarkar was no ordinary person.

 

He was a revolutionary in every sense of the word -- he believed in armed struggle; he wrote corrected history of the Indian nation so that succeeding generations get the right picture of what happened in the past; he wrote fiction, poetry, essays on social and religious issues; he gave a comprehensive though to the subject of national security; he offered a wonderful range of issues to be tackled by the nation as a part of its foreign policy once freedom was achieved; he also tried to offer to the nation alternative to the so-called secular ideologies that dominated the political scene of the country ...! He was, thus, a man of multiple facets that cannot be fathomed easily by just garlanding the statues. In other words, Swatantryaveer Savarkar needs a deeper and more comprehensive consideration in our thought-process. But let alone all those complicated aspects.

 

Let us first start focusing on the wonderful books on Indian and world history Swatantryaveer Savarkar wrote for the benefit of succeeding generations. It was he who wrote the complete and most accurate history of the 1857 War of Independence. It was he who called that uprising ‘War of Independence’ as against the term ‘Sepoy Mutiny’ by the then British rulers. He was also the man who inspired many efforts such as the Ghadar Movement, as well as the Indian National Army which eventually Netaji Subas Chandra Bose led. In that process, the nation acquired many tales of heroism -- at the root of which was Swatantryaveer Savarkar. So, the best tribute to him would be for us to start telling our young ones those stories fostering the right idea of India and promoting the thought of the nation needs not just today but also tomorrow -- that is future. That is not a difficult process at all to start with. All we need to do is to start sharing those stories -- of Swatantryaveer Savarkar and his life and also from what he wrote in his books on Indian history -- with our families at dinner-time.

 

This is how we can go beyond the realm of formality and recall not just Swatantryaveer Savarkar but also all other national heroes of all times and in multiple fields without exception. But then, to be able to do that, we will have to re-establish the importance of family dinner as an institution, something that we have almost forgotten in the push of so-called modern lifestyle. We will have to keep our personal mobile phones away as we sit together for the evening meals -- and then share good thoughts, good ideas that would foster what metaphor of Swatantryaveer Savarkar suggests. Are we willing to go that much distance? That is the main question.