A great freedom fighter and Patriot whose name have been removed from the history as part of a treacherous conspiracy! A Hero mention of whose name alone is enough to create terror in the hearts of the corrupt political leaders for his selfless sacrifice!
1. The first revolutionary known for his opposition to the condolence proposal for Queen Victoria at Nasik.
Why the condolence? Did the British ever hold a condolence on the death of any great Indian?
2. Veer Savarkar was the only Patriot who called for a boycott of the coronation festival of Edward the seventh. There were huge posters at Tryambakeshwar asking people not to take part in the festivities of slavery!
3. The first person to burn down the first lot of foreign made clothes against the Bengal partition movement on the 7th of October, 1905 in Pune.
4. Bal Gangadhar Tilak in his paper Kesri openly supported the movement of boycott of Foreign made goods and compared the action of burning foreign clothes by Savarkar to Chhatrapati Shivaji. At the same time a newspaper called Indian opinion in South Africa strongly opposed the movement in an article by the editor, Mr. Gandhi!
5. 16 years later on the 11th of July 1921 Mr. Gandhi first called for a boycott of Foreign clothes at Parel in Mumbai.
6. Savarkar was the first Indian who was rusticated from the Ferguson College in Pune and fined Rs.10/-. A general strike was observed in opposition to the order, Tilak wrote an editorial in support of the strike in his journal Kesri!
7. Veer Savarkar was the only Barrister who after passing out the Grad in exam refused to read the oath of being faithful to the King of Britain and for this reason was not awarded the title of a Barrister.
8. He was the first author who called the revolution of 1857 as the first war of independence, which the British always called a Mutiny!
9. Savarkar was the first author whose work, "1857, the first war of independence," was banned before it was even published!
10. The book, 1857, the first war of independence," was printed and published in foreign countries. Sardar Bhagat Singh was the first person to get the book printed it in India at his own payment. Each copy was sold at Rs.300, an exorbitant price at the time. It turned out to be like a holy book for the freedom fighters. On Police raids this was the book that was most confiscated during the raids along with Bhagavad Geeta.
11. Veer Savarkar was the first revolutionary who during his transfer from Britain to India as a prisoner in a ship to escape by jumping into the sea(English channel) on the 8th of July, 1910 and escape to the coast of France.
12. Savarkar was the first revolutionary whose litigation had gone to the international Court at Hague but due to the combined conspiracy of Britain and France was unable to get Justice. He was ordered to be transferred to British India as a prisoner!
13. Veer Savarkar was the first revolutionary in the world and the only Patriot in India who was sentenced a punishment of imprisonment till his death(not Life imprisonment which was 20 years at the time and now is 14 years).
15. Savarkar was the first Patriot who on hearing two sentences of Life imprisonment laughed and said, "it's nice that the Christians ultimately accepted the reincarnation and rebirth philosophy of the Hindus!"
15. Veer Savarkar was the first political prisoner in the Cellular jail at Andaman who during serving his sentence had to extract 30 pounds of mustard oil from a Mill each and every day for more than 10 years!
16. Veer Savarkar was the first prisoner at Cellular jail who wrote poems on the walls of his cell with charcoal and memorized 6000 such verses!
17. Veer Savarkar was the first Patriot the ban on whose works stayed till years after independence.
18. Veer Savarkar was the first author who defined the word Hindu as,
"Asindhu Sindhu poryonta yasya Bharat bhumika,
Pitrivu Punyavu schaiva sa vai Hinduriti smrito!"
One who considers the land from the Sea to the Himalayas and River Indus as his fatherland and a sacred land!
19. Veer Savarkar was the only Patriot who after suffering imprisonment from the British Government for 30 years pre independence was again imprisoned in 1948 by Nehru on the false charge of Gandhi's murder and was forced to free him when the Court found out he was falsely implicated! Both the foreign and the Indian Government feared him for his patriotic ideals!
20. Veer Savarkar was the only revolutionary on whose death on the 26th of February 1966 when a condolence proposal was made by some Parliamentarians the proposal was refused on the trivial ground that he was not a member of the Parliament and at the exposed their double standard by performance of a condolence on the death of Winston Churchill at the same time!
21. Veer Savarkar was the only patriotic revolutionary whose idol was placed on the 26th of February 2003 in the same Parliament where even his condolence proposal was refused after his death!
22. Veer Savarkar was the first nationalist, to stop whose picture from being placed in the Indian Parliament the Congress President Sonia Gandhi wrote a letter to the President Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam. But the President not only refused to abide her request, he himself went out of the way to unveil the picture with his own hands.
23. Veer Savarkar was the only Patriot whose name was erased from the list of freedom fighters on the pillar of the Cellular jail in Andaman by UPA cabinet Minister Mani Shankar Aiyyar to be replaced by the name of Gandhi who had never been to Cellular jail!
24. Veer Savarkar was the only son of mother India, all attempts were made to erase whose achievements from history even after his death. But even after so much strong opposition he is recently again emerging as an ideal for the youths of the country!
Writer - Debal Dev Basu.
