sentenced to life imprisonment in the
Andaman Islands but was released
because of political pressure in 1924,
although he was barred from politics
until 1937. In the time after that he
served for seven years as president of
the Hindu Mahasabha, until failing
health finally forced him to resign.
Throughout his life he had sharp differ-
ences with Mohandas Gandhi, first
over the latter’s commitment to nonvi-
olence and later over the partition of
India, which Savarkar characterized as
the “vivisection” of the Indian mother-
land. Savarkar was brought to trial
when Gandhi was assassinated by one
of his former associates, Nathuram
Godse. Savarkar was acquitted, but the
accusation had a negative affect on the
rest of his life.
Savarkar’s keynote work, Hindutva,
was composed and committed to mem-
ory while he was imprisoned in the
Andamans. His central thesis was that
the Hindus were a nation, despite all of
their differences—social, regional, cul-
tural, linguistic, and religious—because
for them India was their motherland,
fatherland, and holy land. He called on
Hindus to transcend the particular iden-
tities that divided them and to gain
strength through unity to resist the
oppression of outsiders. Sarvarkar’s for-
mulation equates Hinduism and Indian
nationalism and thus marginalizes both
Muslims and Christians as “outsiders.”
His ideas profoundly influenced Dr.
K. B. Hedgewar, founder of the
Rashtriya Svayamsevak Sangh(RSS).
The RSSand its affiliates have continued
to stress some of Savarkar’s ideas, which,
during the 1990s, have gained a national
audience with the rise of the RSS-affiliated
Bharatiya Janata Party(BJP). For further
information see Lise McKean, Divine
Enterprise, 1996; and Christophe
Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement
in India, 1996.Savikalpika
(“with conceptions”) In certain schools
of Indian philosophy—among some
Buddhists, the Nyayas, and the
Prabhakara school of Mimamsa—a
term referring to complex conceptual
knowledge in which the mind puts
together and interprets data from the
senses or from memory. Since such
knowledge involves the activity of the
mind, it is susceptible to error. The
opposite sort of knowledge, called
nirvikalpaka, nonconceptual aware-
ness, is produced directly by the opera-
tion of the senses without any interpre-
tation. According to these schools, if the
senses producing this awareness have
no defect, such an awareness is true.Savitr
(“generator”) Epithet of Surya, the sun,
in his aspect as the progenitor and nour-
isher of all things. This particular name
appears in the Gayatri Mantra, a sacred
formula whose daily recitation is
required of all twice-born men.SavitrImage of the sun god Savitr, more commonly
known as Surya, sculpted in Bengal during the
Pala dynasty.