Vinayak Damodar
Savarkar’s name continues to create controversy over half a century after his
death, and repeatedly. The controversy over Savarkar’s presence in a state
government ad celebrating Indian freedom fighters ahead of Independence Day had
just died down when another controversy has erupted over one of the most
critical leaders of the Hindu Mahasabha.

A class 8 Kannada
textbook in Karnataka says Vinayak Savarkar used to fly on the wings of birds
to visit his motherland when he was incarcerated at Andaman jail. “There was
not even a keyhole in the cell where Savarkar was incarcerated. But, Bulbul
birds used to visit the room, and Savarkar used to sit on their wings and fly
out and visit the motherland every day,” a paragraph in the new textbook says,
NDTV reported.

The passage
has once again raised questions about the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)
attempting to “rewrite history.” The BJP regards Vinayak Savarkar as one of its
ideological founding fathers. Teachers have objected to the paragraph in question
saying it reads as if Savarkar actually travelled on birds’ wings.

To this, Rohit
Chakrathirtha, the man who leads Karnataka’s curriculum revision committee,
said, in a written statement, “One wonders if the intellectual level of our
intellectuals has really sunk to such a low level. Savarkar, who was unable to
see what was happening in the world around him, was sitting on a bird’s wing
and touching the distant homeland, which is a kind of literary decoration. This
can be called Utprekshalankara.”    

“Any
connoisseur will know that in the sentence Savarkar used to go to the
motherland sitting on the wings of a bird, it does not mean that Savarkar used
to sit on the wings of a bird himself. But, our so-called intellectuals have
found a problem in this sentence, it means there is something wrong with their
intellectuality,” Chakrathirtha’s statement read. He has also said that
everything the textbook committee has done has been politicised from day one,
The Print reported.