India’s independence in August 1947 was a moment of jubilation for millions, but for Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, it carried the bitter taste of division. The partition of British India into India and Pakistan represented everything Savarkar had opposed-a fractured subcontinent where his vision of an undivided Hindu Rashtra lay in ruins. The years between 1948 and 1966 would prove to be the most controversial chapter of his life, marked by accusations of conspiracy, legal battles, and a legacy that remains fiercely debated to this day.
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Independence and the shadow of partition
Savarkar viewed India’s freedom as fundamentally tainted by partition. He had long opposed the creation of Pakistan, believing it would lead to the balkanization of the subcontinent and weaken the nation. His vision of Akhand Bharat (undivided India) encompassed the entire subcontinent-from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean, from the Indus to the Brahmaputra-as the natural homeland of what he termed the “Hindu nation.”
In a bitter irony that historians have frequently noted, Savarkar himself had articulated a two-nation theory from the Hindu perspective. At the 1937 Hindu Mahasabha session in Ahmedabad, he had declared that Hindus and Muslims were two distinct nations with separate cultural, religious, and historical identities. While Savarkar’s formulation was intended to argue for Hindu primacy in an undivided India, it philosophically mirrored Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s position, which three years later would become the ideological foundation for the Pakistan Movement through the 1940 Lahore Resolution.
For Savarkar and his followers, the Congress leadership-particularly Gandhi and Nehru-bore responsibility for what they saw as the “vivisection” of Mother India. This grievance would become central to the anger brewing within certain Hindu nationalist circles in the months following independence.
The Gandhi assassination trial and acquittal
On January 30, 1948, Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated by Nathuram Godse at Birla House in New Delhi. Within days, the investigation would lead authorities to the doors of Hindu Mahasabha and eventually to Savarkar himself. Godse was a former member of both the RSS and the Hindu Mahasabha, and had long been an admirer of Savarkar. He edited a newspaper called Agrani (later Hindu Rashtra), a publication in which Savarkar had invested ₹15,000.
Savarkar was arrested on February 5, 1948, from his residence in Shivaji Park, Mumbai. He was one of eight individuals charged with conspiracy in the assassination. The trial was held at a Special Court at the historic Red Fort in Delhi, constituted under the Bombay Public Security Measures Act. The prosecution called 149 witnesses over the eight-month proceedings.
The approver’s testimony
The case against Savarkar rested primarily on the testimony of Digambar Badge, an arms dealer who had turned approver (government witness) in exchange for pardon. According to Badge, on January 17, 1948-just thirteen days before the assassination-Godse and Narayan Apte visited Savarkar at his Bombay residence. Badge claimed that when the two emerged, Apte told him that Savarkar had blessed them with the words “Yashasvi houn ya” (be successful and return). Apte allegedly also said that Savarkar had predicted Gandhi’s “100 years were over.”
However, the court found Badge’s testimony uncorroborated. The trial judge noted that it would be “unsafe to base any conclusions” on the approver’s evidence alone against Savarkar. The judgment stated there was “no reason to suppose that Vinayak D. Savarkar had any hand in what took place at Delhi on 20.01.1948 and 30.01.1948.”
On February 10, 1949, Savarkar was acquitted and ordered to be released. Godse and Apte were sentenced to death and hanged at Ambala jail on November 15, 1949. Five others received life imprisonment, while two were acquitted on appeal.
The aftermath of acquittal
Though legally exonerated, Savarkar’s reputation never recovered in the public eye. His home in Dadar was stoned by angry mobs after Gandhi’s assassination. Following his release, he was rearrested for making “Hindu nationalist speeches” and only released after agreeing to abstain from political activities. The stigma attached to the Hindu Mahasabha proved so severe that it effectively ended the organization’s political relevance, though Savarkar himself remained a revered figure among Hindu nationalists.
The Kapur Commission enquiry
The controversy did not end with Savarkar’s acquittal. In October 1964, a religious programme in Pune celebrated the release of Gopal Godse (Nathuram’s brother), Madanlal Pahwa, and Vishnu Karkare after they completed their prison sentences for their roles in the assassination conspiracy. Dr. G.V. Ketkar, grandson of the nationalist leader Bal Gangadhar Tilak, presided over the function and made a stunning revelation: six months before Gandhi’s assassination, Nathuram Godse had disclosed his intentions to kill Gandhi, and this information had been conveyed to B.G. Kher, the then Chief Minister of Bombay State.
The revelation caused a public uproar in Parliament and the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly. Under pressure, the Government of India initially appointed Gopal Swarup Pathak to investigate. When Pathak was appointed governor of Mysore, the inquiry was reconstituted on November 21, 1966, with Justice Jivanlal Kapur, a retired Supreme Court judge, as a one-man commission.
New evidence emerges
The Kapur Commission had access to evidence that had never been presented at the original trial. Most significantly, it examined the testimony of two close aides of Savarkar: Appa Ramachandra Kasar, his bodyguard, and Gajanan Vishnu Damle, his private secretary. Their statements had been recorded by Bombay police as early as March 4, 1948, but they had never been called to testify in court.
Kasar confirmed multiple visits by Godse, Apte, and their associates to Savarkar’s residence in mid-January 1948, including around January 23-24, following the failed bomb attempt on Gandhi on January 20. Damle described Godse and Apte meeting Savarkar in his garden during mid-January. This testimony corroborated what Badge had claimed-and which the court had rejected for want of independent evidence.
The commission’s conclusion
After three years of investigation, examining 101 witnesses, reviewing 407 documents, and holding 162 sittings across multiple cities, the commission submitted its report on September 30, 1969. Justice Kapur’s conclusion was unambiguous: “All these facts taken together were destructive of any theory other than the conspiracy to murder by Savarkar and his group.”
However, the commission was an inquiry rather than a criminal proceeding. By the time it concluded, Savarkar had been dead for over three years. No further legal action was taken. The controversy thus remained formally unresolved-a matter of historical and political debate rather than judicial determination.
Final years and ideological legacy
After his acquittal, Savarkar’s political activities were severely curtailed. He continued to write and speak on social and cultural aspects of Hindutva, fighting against untouchability and caste discrimination. In 1956, he publicly criticized B.R. Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism, calling it a “useless act”-to which Ambedkar responded by questioning Savarkar’s claim to the title “Veer” (brave).
Following Nehru’s death in 1964, Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri’s government began paying Savarkar a monthly pension-an acknowledgment of his contributions to the independence movement, albeit one that remained controversial. His wife Yamunabai died in November 1963, and his health declined steadily.
Death by atmaarpan
On February 1, 1966, Savarkar began what he called prayopavesha-a fast unto death-renouncing food, water, and medication. Before this, he had written an article titled “Atmahatya Nahi Atmaarpan” (Not Suicide, but Self-Sacrifice), arguing that when one’s life mission is complete and ability to serve society no longer exists, it is better to end life voluntarily rather than await death passively.
He died on February 26, 1966, at his residence Savarkar Sadan in Bombay. His funeral was attended by approximately 2,000 RSS members who formed a guard of honor. As per his wishes, his last rites were performed at an electric crematorium, and he instructed his relatives to skip the traditional 10th and 13th day Hindu rituals.
A contested legacy
Savarkar’s legacy remains deeply polarizing. For his admirers, he was a fearless revolutionary who suffered immensely for India’s freedom, a social reformer who fought caste discrimination, and the intellectual architect of Hindu nationalism. A commemorative stamp was issued in 1970, and his portrait was unveiled in Parliament in 2003. The airport in Port Blair is named after him.
For his critics, he was an ideologue whose divisive politics contributed to communal tensions, a leader who abandoned his followers when implicated in Gandhi’s murder, and a figure whose mercy petitions to the British contradict claims of unwavering revolutionary commitment. The Kapur Commission’s findings, though not legally binding, have been cited as evidence of moral culpability in the assassination of the Mahatma.
His formulation of Hindutva as a political ideology-distinct from Hinduism as a religion-continues to shape Indian politics. The concept of Hindu Rashtra (Hindu Nation), the idea that India’s identity should be defined by Hindu civilizational values, and his articulation of who qualifies as authentically “Indian” remain central to contemporary debates about secularism, citizenship, and national identity.
What do you think? Can Savarkar’s contributions to India’s freedom struggle be separated from his controversial political ideology and the shadow of Gandhi’s assassination? How should history judge figures whose legacies contain both sacrifice and division?
References
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-nation_theory
- https://polsci.institute/indian-political-thought-ll/understanding-hindutva-savarkar-ideology/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Mahatma_Gandhi
- https://www.livelaw.in/amp/articles/mahatma-gandhi-murder-case-brief-facts-247956
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kapur_Commission
- https://www.sacw.net/article2611.html
- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Vinayak-Damodar-Savarkar
- https://aeon.co/essays/how-savarkar-invented-hindu-supremacy-and-its-cult-of-violence
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