Savarkar's Ideology and its Impact on Hindu Nationalism in British India  

Hindu nationalism in British India witnessed a substantial transition in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This was through the disputed philosophical contributions of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. The key research challenge tackles how Savarkar methodically changed Indian nationalism from a civic, pluralistic framework into an exclusionary cultural ideology by skilfully mobilising European nation-state paradigms and reinterpreting colonial history. Savarkar’s ideology shows great European influence, especially with regard to organic nation-state concepts to present what he meant by 'nationhood', employing Western nationalist paradigms with the aim to define Indianness strictly via Hindu lenses. This generated a foundational tension between anti-colonial secular aspirations and majoritarian cultural assertion. The main objective of this research is to tackle this ideological synthesis, tracing how Savarkar’s conceptualisation of Hindutva simultaneously advanced anti-colonial mobilisation and institutionalised religiously bound national membership. The study investigates how Savarkar instrumentalised history as a political mechanism for mass mobilisation while constructing a homogeneous cultural identity. Rather than advocating historical revivalism. He viewed the construction of a historicistic narrative from the Hindu perspective as necessary to unveil the glories of ancient India by systematically marginalising periods of Islamic rule as foreign invasions. His vast literary production functioned as vehicles to articulate his vision for India under Hindu sovereignty. A qualitative historical methodology combined with critical discourse analysis and archival triangulation is used to support this investigation and facilitate a systematic analysis of ideological development by correlating literary output with administrative documentation, thus reducing colonial surveillance bias and identifying strategic rhetorical changes. Savarkar's primary texts, namely 'Hindutva: Who is a Hindu?', 'The Indian War of Independence 1857', and 'Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History' are the main corpus of this research. These are analysed alongside personal correspondence during his London exile and contemporary colonial intelligence reports for an understanding of how his ideas were received; archival documents from the India Office Records have also been used. Other sources include scholarly critiques on Hindutva as well as comparative nationalist theories. The findings indicate that Savarkar secularised religion into a territorial-political identity. He distinguished theological faith from national affiliation while culturally uniting them through ancestral lineage, sacred geography (pitribhumi and punyabhumi), and civilisational uniformity.

Hindu nationalism; Hindutva; the RSS; India; independence

View complete reference list, click here