Their [Hindus and Muslims] present relation was one not of rulers and ruled, foreigner and native, but simply that of brothers with the one difference between them of religion alone. For, they were both children of the soil of Hindusthan. Their names were different, but they were all children of the same Mother.
(The Indian War Of Independence, V. D. Savarkar, Bombay: 1909)
Hindus are not merely the citizens of the Indian state because they are united not only by the bonds of the love they bear to a common motherland but also by the bonds of a common blood. They are not only a Nation but also a race — jati…. All Hindus claim to have in their veins the blood of the mighty race incorporated with and descended from the Vedic fathers, the Sindhus.
(Who is a Hindu?, V. D. Savarkar, 1923)
Even now we proudly refer to the noble acts of Chhatrapati Shivaji and Chimaji Appa, when they honourably sent back the daughter in law of the Muslim governor of Kalyan and the wife of the Portugese governor of Bassein respectively. But is it not strange that when they did so, neither Shivaji nor Chimaji Appa should ever remember the atrocities and the rapes and the molestation perpetrated by Mahmud of Gazni, Muhammad Ghori, Alla-uddin Khilji and others on thousands of Hindu ladies and girls like the princess of Dahir, Kamaladevi, the wife of Karnaraj or Karnawati and her extremely beautiful daughter, Devaladevi…
But because of the then prevalent perverted religious ideas about chivalry to women, which ultimately proved highly detrimental to the Hindu community, neither Shivaji Maharaj nor Chimaji Appa could do such wrongs to the Muslim women.
(Six Glorious Epochs Of Indian History, V. D. Savarkar, Late 1920s)
Read more:
Why Savarkar cannot be placed alongside Bhagat Singh
Savarkar’s Bravado: Fact or Fiction?
Savarkar First Spoke of the Two-Nation Theory: Irfan Habib
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar: An Icon of the Indian Right
