Hindu Rashtra Darshan (1949) — Savarkar's Mahasabha Addresses हिन्दू राष्ट्र दर्शन

Who was V. D. Savarkar?

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883–1966) was a revolutionary nationalist, poet and political thinker. Sentenced in 1911 to two terms of transportation for life, he spent about a decade in the Cellular Jail in the Andamans, and in 1923 published Essentials of Hindutva, which defined a Hindu as one for whom India is both fatherland and holy land. From 1924 to 1937 he lived under restrictions in Ratnagiri district, barred from politics. When these were removed in 1937 he was elected president of the Hindu Mahasabha, and was re-elected every year until 1943. He was tried in the Gandhi murder case in 1948 and acquitted. He remains one of the most admired and most criticised figures in modern Indian politics.

When and why it was written

The Hindu Mahasabha, founded in 1915, had long worked partly within the orbit of the Congress. Savarkar's presidency changed that. His addresses were delivered at a time when the Government of India Act of 1935 had brought elected ministries to the provinces; the Muslim League under Jinnah was growing, and in 1940 adopted the Lahore (Pakistan) resolution; the Second World War began in 1939; and the Congress moved from office to individual satyagraha (1940) and the Quit India movement (1942). In each speech Savarkar set out his ideology and the Mahasabha's tactics in response to these events.

The addresses circulated as pamphlets and in the press when they were given. They were gathered into a book in 1949 by L. G. Khare, who published it from Girgaon, Bombay, with all rights reserved by the author. That edition contains the six speeches — Ahmedabad (Karnavati) 1937, Nagpur 1938, Calcutta 1939, Madura 1940, Bhagalpur 1941 and Cawnpore 1942 — followed by statements of 1942–43, in about 309 pages. A later edition from the Maharashtra Prantik Hindusabha, Poona, has the same six addresses and an appendix with his 1943 statement on resigning the presidency and a telegraphic message of 1944. The speeches also appear in the collected Marathi and English editions of his works.

The publisher's introduction presented the volume as a handbook of the Hindu Sanghatan (Hindu organisation) movement. Coming out after Partition and soon after Savarkar's acquittal, it served as a record of the positions he had taken in the decade before independence.

Address by address

• 19th session, Karnavati (Ahmedabad), 1937 — Savarkar's first presidential address, given soon after his release from restrictions. He sends greetings to the king of Nepal as the head of the only independent Hindu kingdom, and to Hindus settled abroad; restates his fatherland-and-holy-land definition of a Hindu; and argues that for Hindus there is no conflict between communal and national duty. He calls for an Indian state on the rule of one person, one vote, with equal rights and protection of religion, language and culture for minorities, but no special weightage or separate privileges. In the passage most cited by later historians, he states that India is not yet one homogeneous nation and that there are, in the main, two nations in India — Hindus and Muslims. He ends by urging Hindus to vote only for candidates pledged to defend Hindu interests and to support shuddhi (reconversion).
• 20th session, Nagpur, 1938 — A long historical argument. Savarkar traces the Hindu nation as an organic growth over millennia, then the rise of the idea of a territorial Indian nation and the founding of the Congress, whose ideal he calls noble but mistaken. Territorial unity alone, he argues, does not make a nation, and he cites the Malabar rebellion of 1921 and the case of the Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia as warnings. Hindus, he says, are the nation in India and Muslims a minority community; Hindu nationalists need not be apologetic, since Congress's nationalism is also communal in its own way. He calls on Hindus to withdraw support from the Congress and form a solid Hindu nationalist front to capture political power.
• 21st session, Calcutta, 1939 — Delivered in the first months of the war. Savarkar reviews the Mahasabha's civil resistance campaign against the Nizam's government in Hyderabad, in which thousands of Arya Samajists and Mahasabha volunteers courted arrest, and a temple dispute in Delhi, arguing that the Congress would not defend Hindu causes. He restates the basic tenets of the Hindu movement, including that Goa and Pondicherry belong to India's national territory. On the war, he asks Britain to declare that India would receive Dominion Status. He outlines an economic policy that welcomes machine production, seeks a fair share of wealth for peasants and workers, and calls for the national coordination of class interests rather than class war.
• 22nd session, Madura (Madurai), 1940 — The first Mahasabha session held in Tamil Nadu, which Savarkar attended despite serious illness. He reviews the movement's growth, the situation of Hindus in Sindh and support among Hindu princes, and recommends books for new members to read. Its centre is the war: Savarkar urges Hindus to join the armed forces and war industries so as to gain the military training and industrial strength the war had made available, and rejects the Gandhian doctrine of absolute non-violence as impractical and, in his view, immoral when it forbids armed resistance to aggression. He distinguishes this from relative non-violence, which he accepts as a virtue.
• 23rd session, Bhagalpur, 1941 — The Bihar government banned this session. Savarkar, re-elected for a fifth year after twice offering to resign, explains why the ban made him stay on, and states that the Mahasabha was going to Bhagalpur to defend its rights rather than to challenge the government. The session was held in defiance of the ban and Savarkar was imprisoned during the civil resistance. The address claims rising strength for the movement, insists that Muslims should receive political representation only in proportion to their population, and sets a two-point programme for the coming years: vote only for candidates on a Hindu Mahasabha ticket, and militarise.
• 24th session, Cawnpore (Kanpur), 1942 — Savarkar's sixth and last address as president, given after the Quit India arrests. He reviews the Bhagalpur struggle; explains the Mahasabha's rejection of the Cripps proposals because they allowed provinces to secede; describes an anti-Pakistan day; attacks C. Rajagopalachari and others in the Congress for conceding the principle of Pakistan; and sets out the conditions on which the Mahasabha would have joined a Congress movement. He criticises the Congress at length, proposes a Mahasabha delegation to Britain, America and China, presses the campaign for military recruitment and against untouchability, and closes on the uncertainty of the war, ending with his best-known slogan.
• Appendix — The 1949 edition closes with statements from 1942–43; the Poona edition prints Savarkar's statement of 31 July 1943 announcing that he would not stand again as president, and a message of 1944.

Key arguments

The Hindus are a nation. Savarkar's addresses apply the definition of Essentials of Hindutva to politics: Hindus, bound by land, descent and culture, form the nation, and their interests are identical with those of India as a whole.

One state, no weightage. He repeatedly proposes a single, undivided Indian state with one person, one vote and protection for minority religions, languages and cultures — but opposes separate electorates, reserved weightage and any right of provinces to secede.

Two nations in practice. Alongside the constitutional ideal of equal citizenship, he describes Hindus and Muslims as two nations divided by centuries of antagonism. Readers have debated ever since how these two positions fit together.

Against the Congress and the League. The Congress, he argues, sacrificed Hindu interests to buy Muslim support; the League sought domination or partition. The Mahasabha is offered as the true representative of Hindus.

Militarisation and modernisation. From 1939 the addresses press Hindus to use the war to gain military training and industrial capacity, and to welcome machines and modern science, rejecting absolute non-violence.

Social unity. The speeches link political strength to the removal of untouchability and caste division, and to shuddhi, as ways of strengthening the Hindu community.

In the author's words

Hinduise all politics and Militarise Hindudom!

Reception and criticism

Admirers. For the Hindu Mahasabha and Savarkar's followers, these speeches are the movement's basic ideological statement. Admirers point to the constitutional ideal of a single state with equal rights and one person, one vote; to Savarkar's consistent opposition to partition; to his modernism — his welcome of machines and science and his rejection of untouchability; and to his call for Indians to gain military skills, which they regard as far-sighted. Sympathetic biographers such as Vikram Sampath, in Savarkar: A Contested Legacy, 1924–1966 (2021), present the Mahasabha years in this light.

Two nations. The most discussed passage is the 1937 statement that India contained two nations. B. R. Ambedkar, in Thoughts on Pakistan (1940; later Pakistan or the Partition of India), argued that Savarkar and Jinnah, though opponents, agreed that India held two nations and differed only on the terms on which they should live — Jinnah wanting separate states, Savarkar one state in which Hindus would predominate — and warned that Savarkar's scheme was dangerous for India's security. Critics have since cited the speech to argue that Savarkar anticipated the two-nation theory; defenders reply that he described an existing conflict while opposing partition, and that the Muslim League's own campaign was decisive.

The war years. Historians critical of the Mahasabha note that while the Congress launched Quit India in 1942 and its leaders were jailed, Savarkar urged Hindus to enlist in the British war effort, and the Mahasabha took part in provincial governments, including in Bengal and Sindh. Critics read this as cooperation with colonial rule; Savarkar's defenders see it as a tactical choice to win military training for Hindus.

Minorities and citizenship. Critics argue that the speeches' description of Hindus as the nation and Muslims as a community, and their stress on loyalty and the holy land, sit uneasily with the promise of equal citizenship. Supporters reply that the addresses explicitly guarantee minorities their religion, language and culture and object only to special privileges. Debates over these speeches continue in Indian politics and scholarship.

Where to read it

The speeches are in copyright in India until the end of 2026. The first edition was published by L. G. Khare, Bombay (1949), and later editions have been issued by the Maharashtra Prantik Hindusabha, Poona, and by other Indian publishers; the speeches are also included in collected editions of Savarkar's works (Samagra Savarkar Vangmaya). Library copies of the 1949 edition are recorded by the National Library of India. From 1 January 2027 the text enters the public domain in India.

For Ambedkar's critique, see Pakistan or the Partition of India, reprinted in Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches, Vol. 8 (Government of Maharashtra).

Read more on this site

• "Essentials of Hindutva" (1923)Books & Ideas
• V. D. SavarkarThinkers
• Veer Savarkar — lifeGreat Lives
• B. S. MoonjeThinkers
• Glossary: Hindu RashtraShabdakosh
• B. R. AmbedkarGreat Lives

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