“Adversity is that power which evaluates a man’s true worth and takes hum further in life.” -Vinayak Damodar Savarkar

28th May, the birth anniversary of the great freedom fighter, SwatantraVeer Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, is just a normal day for us. The so-called leading newspapers don’t even bother to publish an article on Savarkar, let alone a photograph on the front page. I just have one question. Do they have the audacity to do the same on 2nd October?

How will the future generations know that there was a man in the history who sacrificed himself for the service of the country? I agree upon the fact that you might not be an ardent follower of his esteemed ideologies, but one just cannot deny his contribution towards our motherland Bharat.

He, who sacrificed 27 years of his life struggling against the Britishers including 11 dreadful years inside the Cellular jail of Andaman, should be remembered and duly acknowledged. But the state of the Congress regime was very pathetic. Nelson Mandela who also fought for exactly 27 years for the abolishment of Apartheid was given a “Bharat Ratna Award” even though he didn’t do anything for Bharat. But a person like Savarkar was never considered for this award or given any kind of recognition just because he believed in Hindutva.

Even though he worked relentlessly for the betterment of the country while he himself went through a lot of pain and agony, the government was always ignorant towards this great man.

Savarkar was never valued as a person for he was sentenced to jail twice even after independence just because the leaders of Pakistan were visiting Bharat.

I fail to understand the fact that how can a true patriot like Savarkar be side-lined so drastically just to shower limelight upon a Gandhi or a Nehru. Isn’t his struggle for the independence of equal importance?

Talking about his contributions, there wasn’t a field that he wasn’t proficient in. Be it social welfare, Political reform, elimination of untouchability, literature, poetry, spreading awareness, oratory etc.

• Veer Savarkar daringly revolutionised the independence movement at the International Level.
• He wrote a detailed account on the 1857 war of Independence which was proscribed by the British government even before it was published.
• The first barrister whose degree was withdrawn for the reason that he was involved in the freedom movement.
• The first poet in the world who, deprived of pen and paper, composed his poems and then wrote them on the prison walls with thorns and nails and memorized tens of thousands of lines and years later transmitted them.
• The first political prisoner in the world who was sentenced to Transportation for Life twice, a sentence unparalleled in the history of the British Empire.

Due to the vicious propaganda that was invoked against Savarkar over several decades, people in our country have completely forgotten his accomplishments towards our independence.

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