The dangerous cult of absolute non-violence (Madurai, December 1940) V.D. SAVARKAR (1883–1966)

The dangerous cult of absolute non-violence (Madurai, December 1940) V.D. SAVARKAR (1883–1966)

Savarkar had been a militant revolutionary before he became a champion of

Hindutva. In 1907, on the fiftieth anniversary of the revolt of 1857, he had

held up the uprising’s armed and united (Hindu and Muslim) resistance to

the British as a model for action in the present. He was convinced that

British rule could be overthrown only through violence and his hatred for

non-violence was visceral. He argued that non-violence made men

effeminate. He delivered this speech at the twenty-second session of the

Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha. His views were the ideological

inspiration for Nathuram Godse who became Savarkar’s protégé. ere is a

direct link between Savarkar’s views and those of Godse as put forward in

his trial speech.

main speech

Relative non-violence on the whole, is doubtless a virtue so pre-eminently

contributing to human good as to form one of the fundamentals on which

human life whether individual or social can take its stand and evolve all

social amenities. But absolute non-violence, that is, non-violence under all

circumstances and even when instead of helping human life whether

individual or national it causes an incalculable harm to humanity as a whole,

ought to be condemned as a moral perversity. It is on the whole condemned

likewise by those very religious and moral schools which lauded relative

non-violence as the first and foremost human virtue.

It should be noted in particular that the ahimsa preached by Buddhism or

Jainism is directly opposed to the absolute ahimsa or the absolute nonl

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violence as Gandhiji interprets it, condemning all armed resistance under all

circumstances. e very fact that the Jains reared up kingdoms, produced

heroes and heroines who fought armed battles and Jain commanders in

chief leading Jain armies without being ostracized by the Jain acharyas,

prove the point to the hilt that the ahimsa of the Jains cannot be the rabid

ahimsa of the Gandhist school. e Jain scriptures openly assert that armed

resistance to incorrigible aggression is not only justifiable but imperative.

Lord Buddha also gave the same ruling when questioned by the leaders of a

clan as to whether they should take to armed resistance as soldiers against

the armed aggression, of another clan. ‘Soldiers may fight against armed

aggression,’ said Lord Buddha, ‘without committing a sin if but they fight

with arms in defence of a righteous cause.’

Call it a law of nature or the will of God as you like, the hard fact remains

that there is no room for absolute non-violence in nature.

Man could not have saved himself from utter extinction and nor could he

have led the precarious and wretched life of a coward had he not succeeded

in adding the strength of artificial arms to his natural arms. roughout the

paleolithic and neolithic periods, the bronze age and the iron age, man

could maintain himself, multiply and master this earth chiefly through his

armed strength. In all honesty, the ‘defensive sword was the first saviour of

man’.

You may perhaps add something new to history but you cannot add to or

take away a syllable from the iron law of nature itself. Even today if man

hands over a blank cheque to a wolf or a tiger to be filled in, with a human

pledge of absolute non-violence, no killing of a living being, no armed force

to be used, even then the wolves and the tigers will lay waste all your

mandirs and mosques, culture and cultivation and ashrams. In face of such

an iron law of nature can anything be more immoral and sinful than to

preach a principle so anti-human as that of absolute nonviolence

condemning all armed resistance even to aggression? Yet it is curious to find

that even those who condemn this doctrine of absolute non-violence as

impracticable, still seem to believe that though it is impracticable for us

worldly men, this doctrine is nevertheless highly moral and evince some

mahatmaic excellence, some superhuman sanctity. is apologetic tone

must be changed. It raises these prophets of this eccentric doctrine in their

own estimation and makes them feel they had really invented some moral

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law raising human politics to some divine level. Seeing that even their

opponents on practical grounds attribute to them a superhuman saintliness

owing to the very eccentricity of their doctrine, they grow, perhaps

unconsciously all the more eccentric and have the insane temerity to preach

in all seriousness to the Indian public that even the taking up of a lathi

(stick) is sinful. e best means of freeing India from the foreign yoke is the

spinning-wheel. Not only that, but even after India becomes independent

there would not be any necessity of maintaining a single armed soldier or a

single warship to protect in the streets, and that there are men who after

passing the intermediate examination are engaged as cycle peons. ere are

LLBs who have accepted very humble positions in the excise, registration

department and other departments—positions which they would not be

allowed to accept in England by virtue of certain traditions of the English

bar. Taking the practical view of the position, may I be permitted to ask

how long can any government and how long can any society, shut its eyes to

the reality of the situation? How long can it profess to be a martyr to this

illusive cry of knowledge and culture if that is going to be the end of our

young men? People in England, France, Switzerland, and Italy have realized

this and they are now giving a different turn to their education.

Do not go away with the idea at all that I am opposed to university

education. Frankly, I would throw open the doors of universities as wide as

possible to everyone of you, provided I was assured that you would benefit

by that education and provided I was assured that you would then, after you

have completed your university education, become useful economic units of

society and useful members of the Indian community.