There are many conversations around Veer Savarkar, but very few of them are well-informed or well-researched, and Vikram Sampath's book will fill that gap, said Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
She added there is a need for more Vikram Sampath's and more such endeavours from Vikram Sampath.
Minister Sitharaman spoke at the launch of the second and final volume of Vikram Sampath's book about Veer Savarkar titled "Savarkar: A Contested Legacy", published by Penguin Random House India.
The book's first volume, titled "Savarkar: Echoes from a Forgotten Past" was published by Penguin Random House India in August 2019.
Describing the hysterical environment at the time, Sampath said anybody who shared the stage with Veer Savarkar had to pay the price with his career.
Narrating his experience, Sampath said, "For decades, there was a complete stranglehold by the Darbaris and the Marxists on History writing. Twenty years ago it'd have been unthinkable that someone like me would receive a Nehru Memorial fellowship to write on Savarkar."
The nature of hostility was such that scores of Maharashtrian Brahmins were butchered after Mahatma Gandhi's assassination for the crime of being from the same caste as Nathuram Godse.
The Leftist historians never allowed the truth about Veer Savarkar to come out. And the Congress politicians of the day helped such historians. The result was a massive disinformation campaign to malign the character and sacrifices of Veer Savarkar.
Veer Savarkar was born in 1883 in Maharashtra and passed away in 1966 in Mumbai. He spent several years in jail in harsh conditions for the freedom of his motherland.
Sampath writes, "Savarkar found himself arrested, unfairly tried for sedition, transported and incarcerated at the Cellular Jail, in the Andamans, for over a decade, where he underwent unimaginable torture."
