Maharashtra: BJP election manifesto proposes Bharat Ratna for Savarkar

With the Maharashtra and Haryana elections just around the corner, the Maharashtra BJP has proposed that Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian award, be conferred to Hindutva ideologue Veer Savarkar, along with social reformers like Jyotirao Phule and Savitribhai Phule. The statement was made in the election manifesto released Tuesday, multiple media reports claimed. While such suggestions have been made in the past before, the fresh statements take on a distinctly political garb.

In September, Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray had said Pakistan would not have come into existence had Savarkar been the country's prime minister at the time, and demanded that he be awarded the Bharat Ratna. "Savarkar must be awarded the Bharat Ratna. We don't deny the work done by Gandhi and Nehru, but the country saw more than two families being born on the political scene," Thackeray said. "I'd have called Nehru as Veer (brave) if he had survived jail for 14 minutes against Savarkar who stayed in prison for 14 long years." 

Saffron outfits have long clamoured for the cause. Akhil Bharat Hindu Mahasabha (ABHM) had requested the Central government in 2018 to replace the picture of Mahatma Gandhi from the Indian currency with the picture of Savarkar. ABHM chief Swami Chakrapani also demanded a Bharat Ratna for the man. The ABHM said that Savarkar paid a great role in India's freedom movement and hence should be paid respect by featuring him on the currency.

Writing in THE WEEK, BJP MP Tarun Vijay, in 2016, had made a case for Bharat Ratna to be conferred to Savarkar. "Savarkar was quintessentially a rebel, who didn’t accept the beaten path, neither of the arrogant, high-caste, ritualist Brahmins nor of the slavish mindset of the leftists who hobnobbed with the British to worm their way into the Congress and sabotage the freedom movement," he wrote. 

"An uncompromising and unapologetic pride in our Hindu dharma alone will protect minority rights and constitutional democracy. If India has to save itself from going the way of our Islamic neighbours, we need to look at what Savarkar said. He was not against any community, but wanted India to retain its core values of the Hindu civilisational spirit. If at all someone deserves to be decorated as Bharat Ratna, who else but Savarkar. However, he has grown much beyond any decorations or citations. He is an icon of faith in nationalism and Hindu rejuvenation. No state decoration or award can enhance it further," he wrote.