A Review of “Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History” by V. D. Savarkar

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar is the philosophical fountainhead of Hindu ‘nationalism’ (I would call it fundamentalism or even fascism) and his works are supposed to be founts of wisdom, at least for the right-wingers: even among the general Indian populace, he has the sheen of a freedom fighter who has been unfairly blacked out for his ‘politically incorrect’ views. So even though I stand diametrically opposite to his philosophy, I decided that I had to read him, because criticism without knowledge is the failing of many an intelligent person.

I accordingly read his seminal ‘Hindutva’ – the guiding philosophy of the Hindu Right – and my impressions are already provided in my review, available on these fora. This is my second attempt, and it has prompted me to say “NEVER AGAIN!”

In the beginning itself, Savarkar says that this is not a book of Indian history but a critique of it, based on his own viewpoints on certain parts of it. I would say it is not a critique, but the selective distortion of history to promote one’s own agenda.

The six glorious epochs, according to the author are:

1. The reign of Chandragupta Maurya, ably assisted by Chanakya (and the Maurya dynasty in general up to Asoka, who is excluded for reasons we shall come to later);
2. The reign of Pushyamitra Sunga;
3. The reign of Chandra Gupta Vikramaditya;
4. The reign of Yahodharma who fought against the Huns;
5. The age of the magnificent Marathas (who else?) who rid India of Muslim domination; and
6. The freedom struggle (only those who fought against the British using violent means, mind)

The moment one gets into the book, one understands the author’s intent: to extol the valour of the ‘Hindu’ nation and denigrate everyone else. For this he uses clever twisting of words (for example, Alexander letting Porus go is not magnanimity, but cunningness; while Porus accepting the terms of surrender is clever strategy of biding his time), half-truths (Pushyamitra Sunga killing Brihadratha Maurya in a coup is described as a sort of revolution desired by the population in general) and outright lies (Buddhists being traitors and promoting casteism). Thus this so-called ‘historical’ book is utter drivel: however, it would have remained harmless drivel had it only been an attempt to create a historical fantasy. But Savarkar’s real agenda, which shines through in the chapters on the fifth glorious epoch (the longest in the book) makes it extremely toxic drivel.

For the agenda of the author is to enhance the otherness of all religions other than Hinduism, and to positively demonise Islam and Christianity – and to advocate the annihilation of Muslims and the rape of Muslim women.

I will let Savarkar’s words speak for him:

An effective way of liquidating the Muslim religious authority could easily have been availed of by the Hindus of those times, if they had but done what the Muslims had been doing in their hundreds of offensives against Hindu states. The Muslims went on slaughtering wholesale the Hindu population. Similarly whenever the Hindus gained an upper hand, they could have retaliated by massacring Muslim population and making the region Muslim-less ! Devoid of Muslims ! Even their ban on re-purification would not have prevented them from doing this. For in doing this there was no question involved of eating or drinking or of having any dealings with the Muslims! But—! But if not the ban on re-purification, the suicidal Hindu creed of religious tolerance was certainly a major obstacle! From the very ancient times, the Hindus had been boasting of their high ideals of religious tolerance, of the equal status they conceded to all the religions of the world, of preaching the sameness of Ram and Rahim, of allowing everyone to follow his own faith! This they considered to be the height of their religion!

Instead of massacring en masse the hundreds of thousands of Muslims, who from time to time fell in their hands completely vanquished and utterly helpless, in order to avenge the untold wrongs and humiliation heaped by them on Hindus, the Hindus in their turn refrained themselves from doing the Muslims even the slightest harm because they were in minority, and belonged to another religion. On the contrary, the Muslins were allowed to enhance the glory and scope of their own religion without the least possible hindrance. Not only like the Hindu citizens, but even more leniently and with more facilities were the Muslims allowed, by Hindu states of those days, to enjoy the legal rights—a fact which is borne out by pages after pages of Indian history.

Is it necessary to add that these ‘cow-faced’ followers of Hinduism, proud of their utmost tolerance of other religions were not (in the least) likely to hit back the tiger-faced Muslims on religious grounds?

Religious tolerance! A virtue! Yes, It can be a virtue only where the other religion is tolerant of our own! But to tolerate the Muslim religion, the followers of which right from the Sultans like Mahmud of Ghazni and Ghori and others to the various Shahs and Badshahs thought it their religious obligation to massacre the Kafiir Hindus to celebrate their accession to the throne and had been carrying on horrible religious persecution of the Hindus for nearly a thousand years, was tantamount to cut the throat of one’s own religion! It was not tolerance towards other religions, it was tolerance of irreligion! It was not even tolerance, it was impotence! But this truth never dawned upon the Hindu society of those days even after the horrible experience of a thousand years or so. They on their own part went on tolerating even such a hideous religion as the Islam and considered it a glorious virtue of their own—a special ornament in the crown of the Hindu community!

O thou Hindu society! Of all the sins and weaknesses, which have brought about thy fall, the greatest and most potent are thy virtues themselves.

So ‘tolerance’ is the cardinal vice of Hindus – whole sale murder of Muslims is advocated.

And what about the women?

Savarakar keeps on ranting about ‘beautiful Hindu women’ being abducted and ‘living hellish life’ in the ‘prison-like homes’ of the Muslims – at the same time he laments about the ‘beautiful Muslim girls’ walking free. This is repeated again and again, ad nauseum, on page after page that I got a feeling that the author was harbouring serious rape fantasies. Especially when he writes:

Even now we proudly refer to the noble acts of Chhatrapati Shivaji and Chimaji Appa, when they honourably sent back the daughter-in-law of the Muslim Governor of Kalyan and the wife of the Portuguese governor of Bassein respectively. But is it not strange that, when they did so, neither Shivaji Maharaj nor Chimaji Appa should ever remember, the atrocities and the rapes and the molestation, perpetrated by Mahmud of Ghazni, Muhammad Ghori, Alla-ud-din Khilji and others, on thousands of Hindu ladies and girls like the princesses of Dahir, Kamaldevi, the wife of Karnaraj of Karnawati and her extremely beautiful daughter, Devaldevi. Did not the plaintive screams and pitiful lamentations of the millions of molested Hindu women, which reverberated throughout the length and breadth of the country, reach the ears of Shivaji Maharaj and Chimaji Appa?

The souls of those millions of aggrieved women might have perhaps said, ‘Do not forget, O, your Majesty, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, and O! Your Excellency, Chimaji Appa, the unutterable atrocities and oppression and outrage committed on us by the Sultans and Muslim noblemen and thousands of others, big and small. Let those Sultans and their peers take a fright that in the event of a Hindu victory our molestation and detestable lot shall be avenged on the Muslim women. Once they are haunted with this dreadful apprehension, that the Muslim women, too, stand in the same predicament in case the Hindus win, the future Muslim conquerors will never dare to think of such molestation of Hindu women.’

But because of the then prevalent perverted religious ideas about chivalry to women, which ultimately proved highly detrimental to the Hindu community, neither Shivaji Maharaj nor Chimaji Appa could do such wrongs to the Muslim women.

It was the suicidal Hindu idea of chivalry to women which saved the Muslim women (simply because they were women) from the heavy punishments of committing indescribable sins and crimes against the Hindu women. Their womanhood became their shield quite sufficient to protect them.

If one has any further doubt that political rape is being advocated here, the following passages may remove it.

The same law of nature is instinctively obeyed by the animal world. If in the cattle-herds the number of oxen grows in excess of the cows, the herds do not grow numerically in a rapid manner. But on the other hand, the number of animals in the herds, with the excess of cows over the oxen, grows in mathematical progression. The same is true of man, for at the core man is essentially an animal. Even in the pre-historic times the so-called wild tribes of the forest-dwellers knew this law quite well. The African wild tribes of to-day kill only the males from amongst their enemies, whenever there are tribal wars, but not the females, who are eventually distributed by the victor tribes among themselves. To obtain from them future progeny to increase their numbers is considered by these tribes to be their sacred duty!

Kill the men, capture the women to use as baby-making machines. According to Savarkar, it’s the natural law.

***

Savarkar’s view of Indian history is that of a continuous struggle of Hindiusm (by which he means the Vedic religion, ignoring all the diversity) which he considers the only legitimate religion of India against the demonic outsiders: the Mlechcha Greeks, the Christians, and the Muslims. A struggle which has to be through the use of arms with blood and gore aplenty – he denigrates the concept of ahimsa in the vilest terms. The emperor Asoka is seen by him as the root cause of the ‘decline’ of India, by enervating the populace through the Buddhist principle of non-violence.

There is no good Muslim. Being a Muslim is equivalent to being a fanatic. Even when Muslims do benign acts towards Hindus, it is seen as an act of low cunning: even Akbar is described as a fanatic! The exact opposite applies to the Hindu (means basically a Brahmin or a Kshatriya) – they are all the epitomes of chivalry and valour, and the atrocities committed by them arise out anger at continued oppression even in the face of extreme forbearance (ring a bell?)

In conclusion: a hate-mongering, lie-spreading, abomination of a book, which is extremely badly written to boot. Read it only to understand the venom of a racist mind.