Presidential Address to the Hindu Mahasabha, Cawnpore

[p. 105] Delegates to and Members of the Hindu Mahasabha,

[p. 106] 1. You have really overwhelmed me with kindness in appreciating my services, quite limited though they are, so highly as to elect me in an unbroken succession for the sixth time to the Presidentship of the All-India Hindu Mahasabha, the highest office of honour and duty which lies at the disposal of Hindudom today. If I too on my part do not shirk to accept this responsibility for the present, in spite of the most willing resignations tendered by me from time to time requesting you to relieve me of this post in view of my ailing health, it is only due to the fact that forces from outside the camp of the Hindu Mahasabha have actually been conspiring first to waylay the Mahasabha and then capture it by some crafty coup d’etat. Some of them try to browbeat it into submission, others are scheming to kill it with kindness and all of them want it to betray that Hindu ideology and those fundamental principles of independence and integrity of Hindusthan, the Holyland and Fatherland of we Hindus, which alone form both the charter and the vindication of its existence apart from and independent of the Congress, as the foremost representative organization of Hindudom as a whole. It is consequently the imperative duty of each and all of us Hindu Sanghatanists, on whom has fallen in this generation the duty to protect Hindudom and this Mahasabha, this holy shrine of our Hindu nation. To stand on guard at each of its gates and serve the post allotted to each with unswerving fidelity. It is this special emergency that has made me take up this post which you have all summoned me again to hold.

2. Before I proceed, I must first take a rapid review of some leading events which happened during this year in connection with the Hindu Mahasabha so as to enable us to realise more precisely where we stand today and what should be our immediate programme.

[…] Savarkar recounts the Bhagalpur civil resistance campaign and a committee meeting at Lucknow.

4. Then came the Cripps Mission at the end of March. The British Government had been for years feigning to believe that the Congress represented the Hindus, the Moslem League represented the Moslems and consequently the political equation followed inevitably that the Congress and the League together representative all India. But in the meanwhile the Hindu Mahasabha had established itself so firmly as a new political power in the land challenging both the Congress and the League, whenever Hindu interest demanded it, that the British Government had to recognise the Mahasabha, by the time Cripps Mission came, as one of the three outstanding All-India Organizations and as the foremost accredited representative body of Hindudom as a whole. To the Congress and many other parties and leaders, the Cripps scheme seemed at first sight sufficiently alluring to undertake a hopeful survey to discover confidently some oasis in that political Sahara. It was the Hindu Mahasabha alone which publicly declared just at the first glance of the scheme that Sir Stafford wanted really to play to the American gallery and carried on those endless negotiations with the Indian politicians just to make them play the tune he called. Not only that but the Mahasabha unerringly and immediately discerned and pointed out the cloven foot concealed under a heap of roses on which the scheme rally stood. It was the clause laying down the condition that the declaration of freedom of India could be made by Great Britain only if the Hindus admitted the principle that provinces should be allowed to have the right of self-determination by their own majority to secede from the Central Indian Government and even to set themselves up as States independent of it. This clause constituted a veritable dagger aimed at the heart of the integrity of Hindusthan as an indivisible Nation and a centralised State. The Hindu Mahasabha rejected it unceremoniously and in rejecting the clause, it had to reject the scheme in toto. While all other parties including the Congress had tacitly accepted the clause and swallowing that camel, kept straining at the gnats of portfolios here and there, this total rejection of the scheme by the Hindu Mahasabha centralised at a stroke the attention of the whole Nation in general and the Hindus in particular on the real point that mattered most,-while the independence of India was still floating in the hazy clouds of promises alone, the integrity of India was in imminent danger of being stabbed in the back. The lead that the Mahasabha gave by rejecting the scheme at a stroke on this issue was followed after some fuss of negotiations by almost all parties in the land under this or that excuse.

The Working Committee which was immediately held regarding the Cripps scheme reasserted in its resolution that in view of the rapid developments in the political situation in the world nothing short of an immediate and unconditional declaration of India’s [p. 108] independence could animate and enthuse the whole country to mobilise its full and willing fighting strength both in men and the materials to fight out the war which then would have been our own concern as truly as it was in the case of the British people.

5. It was necessary to demonstrate that the Hindu Sanghatanists world was solidly behind the Hindu Mahasabha on these two fundamental points which compelled the Mahasabha to reject the Cripps scheme. It was, therefore, decided that an anti-Pakistan day should be observed throughout India by the Hindus under the pan-Hindu colours on the 10th of May 1942, which being the anniversary of the National rising of 1857, had been annually celebrated by the Hindu Mahasabha as the Independence Day. Accordingly, this day was observed throughout India under the auspices of the Hindu Mahasabha with intense enthusiasm on an unprecedented scale. Jammu, Peshawar, Poona, Amritsar, Lahore, Delhi, Lucknow, Patna, Calcutta, Bombay, Nagpur down to Madras almost all capital cities and hundreds of towns and villages held innumerable meetings which were altogether attended on that evening by millions and millions of Hindus who took up a public pledge to support the Hindu Mahasabha and to stand by the two fundamental principles on which it has taken its stand, the independence and the integrity of Hindusthan. Although the Moslems were conducting without let or hindrance a pro-Pakistan campaign and men like Mr. Rajagopalachari were allowed to preach vivisection of Hindusthan as freely as they liked, an illegitimate and one-sided ban was placed on the anti-Pakistan demonstrations at places like Patna, Arrah and others on this all-India anti-Pakistan day. But the Hindu Mahasabhaits defied those unjust bans, took out their processions and held meetings even though hundreds of them got arrested for the only fault of asserting their basic civic rights. The determination with which Hindudom as a whole expressed on this day its uncompromising opposition to any scheme which involved the granting to the Provinces the right of secession, proved once more the strength of the hold the Hindu Mahasabha had come to exercise on Hindu mind and how it had thus established its right to represent genuine Hindi feeling far more correctly and effectively than the self-styled Indian National Congress could ever do.

[…] Savarkar describes the Mahasabha's campaign against Rajagopalachari's tour of Madras.

Just then the Congress had almost made it clear that it meant to start some kind of civil resistance movement, under the usual non-violent dictatorship of Gandhiji. The Hindusabhaits from all parts of India grew naturally anxious to know what attitude they should adopt towards this Congressite movement which was meant to order Great Britain straightway to ‘Quit India’ forthwith. Now, it was the duty of every Indian patriot and [p. 109] especially of a Hindu patriot to join a movement which had for its goal the absolute political independence of Hindusthan. But the question of timing and the ways and means were also of outstanding importance. Even leaving it all aside, the goal to be achieved by any movement was the question of questions which must be decided to begin with. You must know before you go to fight the objective for which you have to fight. The Congress had made it crystal clear by that time that it was ready to agree even to vivisect India as an organic and centralised State in order to placate the Moslems and to persuade them to join the movement. Then again ‘Quit India’ was not the only demand which they advanced; but inconsistently enough they added to it a rider which demanded of Great Britain that though the British should leave India yet they must retain their British forces and even the American forces behind to protect India against the axis powers invading her. In short, the war-cry of the Congress movement came to ‘Quit India but keep the British army here and the Americans to boot !!’ And the price of the movement for Indian Independence was the vivisection of Indian integrity !! Under such circumstances, it became quite necessary to clear up the issue before the Hindu Mahasabha got committed to any such movement, even though it was primarily meant for freedom of India which was the proclaimed demand of the Hindu Mahasabha itself on its own initiative. Consequently, I laid down the following conditions in my speech in a mammoth meeting in Poona on the Bajirao Maidan on the 2nd of August, the report of which was broadcast and published not only in the Indian press but by the foreign press also, before the A.I.C.C. met in Bombay.

The leading conditions were as follows :- (a) The Congress should guarantee the integrity of Hindusthan from the Indus to the Seas as an organic nation and an internal centralised State. (b) The Congress should, therefore, openly repudiate the granting of any right to the provinces to secede. (c) Representation in the legislatures, etc. should be in proportion to the population of the majority and the minorities. (d) Public services should go by merit alone. (e) That the Hindu Mahasabha should be recognized as the representative body of Hindudom and consequently no step should be taken affecting Hindu rights without its consultation and sanction. (f) All minorities should be given effective safeguards to protect their language, religion, culture, etc. but none of them should be allowed to create ‘a state within a state’ as the League of Nations put it, or to encroach upon the legitimate rights of the majority as defined above. (g) The residuary powers should be vested in the Central Government.

[…] Savarkar quotes Gandhi's offer to the League, answers Congress critics, and reviews the Mahasabha's unity talks.

12. Till a couple of years ago it were only the Moslems, who were fighting for Pakistan and all our arguments, we had to address to them; but since the Cripps Mission and the Congressites yielding to the Pakistan demand in its worst form as I have shown in paragraph 7 of this speech, a preposterous position has arisen. There has sprung up, politically speaking, a hybrid of pro-Pakistani Hindus and they have been infecting the Hindu mind as rapidly as a contagious and loathsome disease would do. Some of these Congressite are good Hindus, but they have been duped into believing that it is in the interest of the Hindus also to allow the Moslem provinces to secede and bring about a final and everlasting unity. Then there are very statesmanly Hindu personalities who recognise no affiliation to any party or body as it behaves statesmanship but whose commitments, views and votes are nevertheless bound to be counted as Hindu ones. It is regrettable that many of these esteemed persons should have been ready to admit the principle of provincial secession and thus ‘statesmanly’ enough betray not only the Hindu cause but what they worship like a fetish, the Nationalism as well . How these pro-Pakistani Hindus are working to persuade the Hindus and even to persuade the Government to compel the Hindus to get persuaded can best be illustrated by the untiring effort of Mr. Rajagopalachari. This ‘Acharya’ has really been exerting himself with more sincerity and perverse fanaticism than any mad-Mullah known to history. Consequently, the real danger to the integrity of India rises now more eminently from the mentality of the Pakistani Hindus than from the efforts of the Pakistani Moslems. I deliberately choose some of these points to argue, which I know from personal knowledge to weigh heavily on the minds, especially on that section of our Hindu brethren who still belong to the Congress persuasion but who nevertheless have a Hindu heart.

[…] Point by point, Savarkar argues against provincial secession and Pakistan, then calls on Hindus to stand firm.

Just as in America, Germany, China and every other country not excluding Russia, so also in Hindusthan, the Hindus by the fact that they form an overwhelming majority are the Nation and Moslems [p. 123] Are but a community because like all other communities they are unchallengeably in a minority. Therefore they must remain satisfied with whatever reasonable safeguards other minorities in India get and accept as reasonable in the light of the world formula framed by the League of Nations. We may adapt it to Indian circumstances by concessions more or less on minor questions but no minority in India shall be allowed to demand to break up the very integrity of Hindusthan from Indus to the Seas as a condition of their participation in the Central Government or Provincial ones. No province whatsoever, by the fact that it is a province shall be allowed to claim to secede from the Central State of Hindusthan at its own sweet will. Hindusthan as a nation can have a right of self-determination but a Province or a District or a Taluka can have no right to run counter by the strength of their own majority to the law and the will of the Central Government of Hindusthan. All we can in fairness promise is to grant a representation to all Indian citizens on the general principle of ‘one man one vote’ or if that is not found to the taste of the Moslems we may go a step further and base all representation strictly on population proportion. We know for certain that those minorities like Parsis, Christians and others who have expressed unmistakably their loyalty to united, undivided and indivisible Indian Nation and the Indian State with reasonable safeguards are with the Hindus and willing to work shoulder to shoulder for Indian independence. It will be well for the Moslems even in their own interest to bear faithful allegiance to the Indian nation on the same conditions offered to other minorities. But if the Moslems mistaking the pseudo-national yielding attitude of Congress for the attitude of Hindudom as such persist in their outrageous and treacherous demand for Pakistan or the principle of provincial self-determination then it is time, you Oh ! Hindu Sanghatanists, that you must proclaim your formula from the very tops of the Himalayas. ‘We don’t want Hindu-Moslem unity at all on such conditions.’ ‘If you come, with you, if you don’t without you, and if you oppose, in spite of you, we shall fight as best as we can do secure independence and defend the integrity of Hindusthan !

Hindusthan shall and must remain an integral and powerful nation and a Central State from the Indus to the Seas, treating any movement on the part of any one to vivisect it, as treacherous and strongly suppress it just as any movement of Negrosthan would be promptly punished by the American nation !!

[…] Savarkar reviews Hindu history and sets out a wartime programme, including military recruitment.

16. All our present programmes, it need not be mentioned, are based on the assumption that Britain comes out at any rate so successful, of this World War, as to continue to be the Sovereign power in India. Nothing has happened so far, so cataclysmic as to undermine the probability of this assumption. But then the forces of Japan are hanging on so persistently on our eastern borders undislodged to any appreciable measure and on the other hand the Axis powers have been surrounded at any rate for the moment by a veritable hornet of irritated nations, that no one even among the most optimistic statesmen or commanders or dictators is in a position to predict with any certainty or definiteness the results of the war. Till that along with those nations who cannot but helplessly watch their destinies tied up with the fortunes either of the powerful combatants on both sides, India too disarmed as it is must bide her time and tide.

The dice of Destiny are loaded already and recklessly thrown on a world battlefield ! All nations are thrown in the crucible ! The very seas are on flames, and the skies are garrisoned with and showering thunderbolts day and night. No nation after this world war can emerge just as it was. Many of those who were at the pinnacle of their power will be reduced to the dust. Many who were trampled down in the dust may all of a sudden find themselves in a position to rise and come to their own. The face of the earth is bound to get revolutionised in any case and in that revolutionary upheaval which at present lies in the lap of the War Gods, one thing only could be said with some certainty so far as India is concerned that she also cannot but be one of the factors whose future is bound to get revolutionised though we cannot and may not point out definitely the course and the [p. 127] aspects of it. One thing you may rest assured that all possible courses and aspects are already viewed as carefully as human ingenuity can and neither the continuation nor the termination of the war can find the Hindu Mahasabha unprepared to take full advantage of every revolutionary phase the war passes through, near or far off, so as to press on the Hindu cause. As has happened so many times in the Hindu History that it was precisely in the darkest hour that the Avatar destined to deliver us was born, it is not quite unlikely, nay, it is more likely than not, that the spirit of Renaissance of the Hindu Race may find an opportunity to assert itself and as if by a miracle similar to those our Puranas sing, Hindudom emerges triumphant over all the forces of evil which are attacking it today.

About possibilities and even about probabilities wise men should not assert anything more definitely in such cases than pious hopes ! All that they should do is to conserve the forces of their nation in the meanwhile, and wait for the probable time and tide so that they may not be found wanting, if the probability does arise all of a sudden.

Hindu Sabhaits and Hindu Sanghatanists ! Only see to it that on the eve of such a probable, miraculous development in near future, do not play coward to your conscience under the weight of the present or get stampeded by the pseudo-nationalistic forces into any unbecoming pacts and do not sell your birth-rights for the mess of pottages, and play coward to your own conscience ! Hold fast to the programme chalked out above for the present, plain though it may seem and get not yourselves trapped into any untimely outburst, which, instead of bringing you near success may only serve to find you entirely disabled, to catch the tide of fortune which in all probability is likely to reach your shores under the pressure of the war !

In any case, hold fast to the crux of the Hindu Sanghatanist ideology which shall serve you in any event, the Future may unfold, namely :-

‘Hinduise all politics and Militarise Hindudom !’

Hindu Dharm ki Jaya ! Hindu Rashtra ki Jaya !

Vande Mataram