Recently a needless brouhaha broke out after the Defence Minister of India, Rajnath Singh claimed that it was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi who advised Veer Savarkar to file a petition for his release. Rajnath Singh in a book launch said “Lies were spread about Savarkar. Time & again, it was said that he filed mercy petitions before British Govt seeking his release from jail.It was Mahatma Gandhi who asked him to file mercy petitions.Taking this statement of Rajnath Singh, people from the left side of the political spectrum started to create a needless Shor- Sharaba. Many self appointed custodians of truth, self appointed intellectuals and self appointed historians started to make fun and mock Rajnath Singh for his statement and as usual started making fun of the great son of Mother India. Starting from Leftist Politicians to Madarsachapps to the greatest Intellectual Dhruv Rathi everyone joined the queue. Asaduddin Owaisi ,the AIMIM chief also came up to join the queue and said “They are presenting distorted history. If this continues, they’ll remove Mahatma Gandhi & make Savarkar the father of the nation, who was accused of the murder of Mahatma Gandhi & was pronounced complicit in the inquiry of Justice Jeevan Lal Kapur”. Intellectually dishonest Marxist Historian Irfan Habib too jumped into the bracket to showcase his intellectual bankruptcy and openly displayed his lack of knowledge. He wrote ” Yes, monochromatic history writing is really changing, led by the minister who claims Gandhi asked Savarkar to write mercy petitions. At least it is accepted now that he did write. No documentary evidence needed when minister makes a claim. New history for New India.”. It is obvious that Irfan Habib was going to jump into the matter because the attempt of making the history correct might close the shops of these Marxist historians.

But coming together and screaming can never change the historical facts. The fact does’nt change that it was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi who advised Veer Savarkar to write a petition. Historian Vikram Sampath who wrote the biography of Veer Savarkar in many of his interviews and also in his book categorically mentioned the incident in which MK Gandhi advised the Savarkar brothers to write a petition to the Britishers in 1920 and also made a case for his release through an essay in Young India 26 May 1920. The10th Chapter of first Volume of the Vikram sampath’s book on the biography of Veer Savarkar, talks about the incident in which Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi advised the Savarkar brothers to file a petition. On 17th of January 1920, Narayanrao ( brother of Veer Savarkar) from his clinic in Girgaum, Bombay wrote a letter to a man who was ideologically very different from his brother, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi but was emerging as a major political voice in the country. Narayanrao sought Gandhi’s help and advice in securing the release of his brother. One week later, on 25 th of January, 1920 the letter came from Gandhi where he surprisingly wrote that he will not be able to do much to secure the release of Veer Savarkar. However several months later on 26th of May, 1920 Gandhi wrote an article in “Young India” titled “Savarkar brothers” and built a case for their release by the government.

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