VD Savarkar ‘never hated Muslims, wanted them to progress’, grandnephew tells court

Hindutva ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar “never hated Muslims”, rather “showed the way for their progress”, his grandnephew Satyaki Savarkar told a Pune court on Tuesday, reported Bar and Bench.

Satyaki Savarkar made the statement during his cross-examination before a special MP/MLA court in a criminal defamation trial against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. He has accused Gandhi of making false and malicious remarks about his uncle during an event in London in March 2023.

Gandhi’s lawyer Milind Pawar had asked Satyaki Savarkar what about the Congress leader’s speech had he found defamatory.

Satyaki Savarkar alleged that Gandhi claimed in the speech that VD Savarkar had written a book, in which he described him and his friends beating a Muslim man. He alleged that Gandhi claimed VD Savarkar found the act enjoyable.

“By these words, Savarkar was portrayed as an extreme hater of Muslims and as a mob lyncher,” Live Law quoted Satyaki Savarkar as saying. “Savarkar never hated Muslims. Rather, in his writings, he showed the ways and means for their progress.”

He further said that he does not know if the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh follows Savarkar’s ideology.

The RSS is the ideological parent of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and Union Home Minister Amit Shah had inaugurated a statue of VD Savarkar in the Andaman Islands on...

Read more