Past Imperfect Episode 7: Vinayak Chaturvedi on Savarkar's Reading of History

SPJIMR Prof. Dinyar Patel is in conversation with Dr Vinayak Chaturvedi, University of California, Irvine. As the political fortunes of Gandhi and Nehru have waned in the past decade, those of V. D. Savarkar have skyrocketed. In Hindutva and Violence, Vinayak Chaturvedi confronts head-on a liberal proclivity to avoid engaging with Savarkar, his writings, and his ideas. What he finds is the powerful role of history—and, specifically, a history of violence—in conceptualizing Hindutva. “Hindutva is not a word but a history,” Savarkar once wrote. History from Savarkar’s perspective could be innovative, questionable, disturbing, and even surprising.