Read what Tharoor, an advocate of Hindu-Muslim unity in his youth, has written on Savarkar.

The latest controversy started when ‘High Range Rural Development Society (HRDS)-India’ announced the award of ‘Veer Savarkar International Impact Award 2025’ to Shashi Tharoor. As soon as this news came, there was a stir within the Congress itself. Senior Kerala Congress leader K. Muraleedharan publicly admonished Tharoor. He said, ‘Savarkar had bowed down before the British, so taking the award in his name would be an insult to the Congress.’ Amidst pressure and controversy, Tharoor made the situation clear. He said, ‘In the absence of clarification regarding the nature of the award or the organization giving it, I will not accept the award nor attend the event.’ He also said that the organizers announced his name without his consent, which is irresponsible. However, organizer Aji Krishnan claims that Tharoor was already informed and perhaps now he is backing down under pressure from the party. But this development is only on the surface. The real story is how does Tharoor view Savarkar as a historian and writer?

Shashi Tharoor had mentioned the thoughts of Savarkar’s youth in one of his articles written on 26 June 2022. This was the period when Savarkar was a revolutionary and was far from coining the concept of ‘Hindutva’ in the cell of Cellular Jail. Tharoor writes that during his youth, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar was a strong supporter of Hindu-Muslim unity. Savarkar had declared the rebellion of 1857 as ‘India’s first freedom struggle’. Tharoor reminds that Savarkar had emphasized that in the war of 1857, all Indians had united by breaking the walls of religion, region, caste and language. And the biggest thing was that this entire battle was fought under the flag of the Mughal Emperor (Bahadur Shah Zafar). This is a historical contradiction that Tharoor highlights. In today’s politics, where the Mughals are presented as foreign invaders and enemies, Savarkar, considered the father of Hindutva, had once considered the same Mughal leadership to be the center of India’s first fight for independence.

In his much-discussed book ‘Why I Am A Hindu’, Shashi Tharoor has analyzed Savarkar’s ideology in detail. Tharoor says that it was Savarkar who popularized the word ‘Hindutva’, which literally means ‘Hinduness’. According to Tharoor, for Savarkar ‘Hindutva’ was not just a religion, but an ethnic, cultural and political identity. Savarkar argued in his book ‘Essentials of Hindutva’ in 1923 that a Hindu is one who sees India in three aspects: 1- Matrbhumi: where he was born. 2- Pitrbhumi: Where his ancestors lived. 3- Punyabhumi: Where his religion originated.

Tharoor analyzes that under this definition of Savarkar, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains come under the broader definition of ‘Hindu’ because their holy land is in India. But this is where the line of division is drawn. According to Savarkar, Muslims and Christians, even though they were born in India and consider it their motherland, their ‘Punyabhoomi’ (Mecca or Jerusalem) is outside India. Therefore, in Savarkar’s eyes he could not be completely loyal to the nation. Tharoor writes, ‘Savarkar argued that a lot of misunderstanding has arisen due to the failure to distinguish between Hindutva and Hinduism. For him Hinduism was only a part of Hindutva. Hindutva was a political and cultural idea, not just a method of worship.’

Tharoor explains that Savarkar rejected the British view (such as Churchill’s statement) of considering India as a ‘geographical expression’. For Savarkar, India was a nation since ancient times. Tharoor writes that Savarkar’s dream was of a ‘Hindu nation’ that would spread across the entire Indian subcontinent, from the Indus River to the sea. Tharoor’s writings make it clear that Savarkar believed in the concept of ‘race’. Savarkar believed that only one blood runs in the veins of Hindus. Tharoor writes, ‘Savarkar’s idea of ​​Hindutva was so broad that it covered everything that we today call ‘Indic’ (Indian). But by definition, it excluded those whose faith had its roots outside India.

Tharoor also mentions an incident of 1939 in his book, which shows the extreme form of Savarkar’s ideology. Savarkar had written the preface to the book ‘A Warning to the Hindus’ by European-born Hindu propagator and Nazi supporter Savitri Devi. Savitri Devi believed that Hinduism is the national religion of India. Tharoor explains that both Savarkar and Savitri Devi agreed that Hindus no longer needed ‘moksha’ or spirituality, but ‘political power’. Savarkar believed that the reason for centuries of slavery was that Hindus remained lost in spirituality and did not acquire power. Tharoor writes, ‘Savarkar was not interested in the esoteric metaphysics of Advaita Vedanta; He and Savitri Devi were only interested in political power, here and now.

In his 2022 article, Tharoor had also expressed concern over the political use of history. Quoting historian Eric Hobsbawm, he wrote that history is to nationalism as heroin is to opium. The past is often used to heal the wounds of the present. Giving the example of Yugoslavia’s civil war, Tharoor had told how people there used to talk about the battles of 1389 and 1448 as if they had happened yesterday. Similarly, in India too, the bitterness of the past – invasions, temple destruction and religious conversion – are being brought to the center of present politics. Tharoor says that this ‘negative historical memory’ works to break the nation instead of uniting it.