Hindutva and Violence: V.D. Savarkar and the Politics of History

Hindutva and Violence tells the story of the place of history in Vinayak Damodar Savarkars political thought. It examines Savarkars central claim that Hindutva is not a word but a history. For Savarkar, this history was not a total history, a complete history, or a narrative history. Its purpose was to trace key historical events to a powerful source - the font of motivation for chief actors of the past who had turned to violence in a permanent war for Hindutva as the founding principle of a Hindu nation. At the centre of Savarkars writings are historical characters who not only participated in ethical warfare against invaders, imperialists, and conquerors in India, but also became Hindus in acts of violence. He argues that the discipline of history provides the only method for interpreting Hindutva. This book also shows how Savarkar developed his conceptualisation of history as a way into the meaning of Hindutva. Savarkar wrote extensively - from analyses of the nineteenth century to studies of antiquity - to draw up his histories of Hindus. He also turned to a wide range of works - from the epic tradition to contemporary social theory and world history - as his way of explicating Hindutva and history. By examining Savarkars key writings on history, historical methodology, and historiography, Vinayak Chaturvedi provides an interpretation of the philosophical underpinnings of Hindutva. He demonstrates that all critiques of Hindutva require grappling with Savarkars idea of history.