Mahatma Gandhi told Savarkar...': Rajnath Singh's claim on 'lies' over mercy petitions to British https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS9eS7ZMfYw Oct 12, 2021
At an event in Delhi, India's defence minister Rajnath Singh alleged a conspiracy to defame historical figure Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. The BJP leader said that lies have been spread regarding Savarkar's mercy petitions to the British during his incarceration at Cellular Jail in the Andamans. Singh claimed that it was MK Gandhi who had told Savarkar to write the petitions. The minister was speaking at the launch of a book titled 'Veer Savarkar - The Man Who Could've Prevented Partition'. Watch the full video for more.
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ALT News by Pooja Chaudhuri
Did Savarkar write mercy petitions on Gandhi’s advice as claimed by Rajnath Singh? https://www.altnews.in/did-savarkar-write-mercy-petitions-on-gandhis-advice-as-claimed-by-rajnath-singh/ 14TH OCTOBER 2021
Mercy petitions - 1911 & 1913: Savarkar filed the first mercy petition in 1911. Mahatma Gandhi was in South Africa when the clemency plea was made. He only returned to India four years later. Savarkar filed a second mercy petition on November 14, 1913. This was also before Gandhi returned to India in 1915.
(Mercy Petitions 1920 ) It was not until 1920 that Gandhi advised Savarkar’s younger brother Narayan Damodar Savarkar to file a petition stating that VD Savarkar’s offence was purely political.
The letter that Narayan Savarkar wrote to Gandhi in 1920 says, “Yesterday [17 January] I was informed by the Government of India that the Savarkar brothers were not included in those that are to be released . . . It is now clear that the Indian Government have decided not to release them. Gandhi, in his reply on January 25, 1920, advised Narayan Savarkar to “frame a petition setting forth the facts of the case bringing out in clear relief the fact that the offence committed by your brother was purely political.” He also wrote that he is “moving in the matter” in his own way
(1942) After Savarkar gained prominence as a Hindutva ideologue, Gandhi became clearer in his criticism. “To demand the vivisection of a living organism is to ask for its very life. It is a call to war. The Congress cannot be party to such a fratricidal war. Those Hindus who, like Dr Moonje and Shri Savarkar, believe in the doctrine of the sword may seek to keep the Mussalmans under Hindus domination. I do not represent that section. I represent the Congress,” Gandhi said addressing the AICC at Bombay in 1942.
SAVARKAR'S MERCY PETITION A.G. NOORANI 08 APRIL 2005
https://frontline.thehindu.com/the-nation/article30204154.ece/amp/ an account (including text) of Savarkar's mercy petitions:
G S by Whats app According to the same account that Rajnath Singh goes by, Gandhi also clearly said : …Both these brothers have declared their political opinions and both have stated that they do not entertain any revolutionary ideas and that if they were set free they would like to work under the Reforms Act4, for they consider that the Reforms enable one to work thereunder so as to achieve political responsibility for India. They both state unequivocally that they do not desire independence from the British connection. On the contrary, they feel that India’s destiny can be best worked out in association with the British…
AA: There were communists in the same jail. They did not submit mercy petitions. There were Congressmen also there, who did not. Was not Vaikam Mohammed Basheer, who later became a well known author in Malayalam there, from the Congress? Without signing any mercy petition?
SS