[BulletProofYogi]

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (pronunciationⓘ), Marathi pronunciation: [ʋinaːjək saːʋəɾkəɾ]; 28 May 1883 – 26 February 1966) was an Indian politician, activist and writer. Savarkar developed the Hindu nationalist political ideology of Hindutva while imprisoned at Ratnagiri in 1922.

He was a leading figure in the Hindu Mahasabha.[4][5] He started using the honorific prefix Veer ("brave") since he wrote his autobiography. Savarkar joined the Hindu Mahasabha and popularized the term Hindutva (Hinduness), to create a collective "Hindu" identity as an essence of Bharat (India). Savarkar was an atheist.

Hindutva

In contrast with Dayananda Saraswati, Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo, who were "men of religion" who introduced reforms in the society and put Hinduism in front of the world, Savarkar mixed politics and religion and started an extreme form of Hindu nationalism.

During his incarceration, Savarkar's views began turning increasingly towards Hindu cultural and political nationalism, and the next phase of his life remained dedicated to this cause.[93] In the brief period he spent at the Ratnagiri jail, Savarkar published his ideological treatise – Hindutva: Who is a Hindu? in 1923. In this work, Savarkar promotes a farsighted new vision of Hindu social and political consciousness. Savarkar began describing a "Hindu" as a patriotic inhabitant of Bharatavarsha, venturing beyond a religious identity.[93] While emphasising the need for patriotic and social unity of all Hindu communities, he described Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism and Buddhism as one and the same. He outlined his vision of a "Hindu Rashtra" (Hindu Nation) as "Akhand Bharat" (United India), purportedly stretching across the entire Indian subcontinent.[95] He defined Hindus as being neither Aryan nor Dravidian but as "People who live as children of a common motherland, adoring a common holyland

Savarkar's celebration and justification of violence against [British] women and children in his description of the Mutiny of 1857,
"transformed Hindutva into the very image of Islam that he defined and found so intolerably objectionable".

Source: Sharma, Jyotirmaya (2011), Hindutva: Exploring the Idea of Hindu Nationalism (3rd ed.), Penguin Books India, ISBN 978-0-14-341818-4

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hindutva-Jy.../dp/9351773973

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinayak_Damodar_Savarkar