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October 29, 2012

Savarkar's advocacy of rape as revenge

[Thanks to Dilip Simeon for sending the comment and the below reference from V.D. Savarkar]

Here's the man whom [Perry] Anderson considers a 'revolutionary' (true enough, if The Fuhrer is also considered as such). But then, fascism is a 'category mistake' when applied to India...


Women and the Hindu Right article on Surat, Savarkar and Draupadi by Purushottam Agrawal; citing V.D. Savarkar in Six Glorious epochs of Indian History, Rajdhani Granthagar, 1963, translated 1971.

The Muslim women never feared retaliation or punishment at the hands of any Hindu for their heinous crime (of playing a devilish part in the mutilation and harassment of Hindu women). Suppose if from the earliest Muslim invasions , the Hindus also, whenever they were victors in the battlefield decided to pay the Muslim fair sex in the same coin or punish them in some other ways that is, by conversion even by force, then with this horrible apprehension in their heart, they would have desisted from their evil design against Hindu ladies.. Even now we proudly refer to the noble acts of Chatrapati Shivaji and Chinaji Appa when they honourably sent back the daughter-in-law of the Muslim governor of Kalyan or the wife of the Portuguese governor of Bassein respectively. Did not the plaintive screams and pitiful lamentations of the millions of molested Hindu women which reverberated throughout the length and breadth of the country reach the ears of Shivaji Maharaj and Chinaji Appa? Once they (Muslims) are haunted with the dreadful apprehension that the Muslim women to stand in the same predicament as is the case with Hindu women, the future Muslim conquerors will never dare to think of such molestation of Hindu women. ... But because of the then prevalent perverted religious ideas (sadguna vikriti), about chivalry to women which ultimately proved highly detrimental to the Hindu community, neither Shivaji Maharaj nor Chinaji Appa could do such wrongs to the Muslim women .. It was the Hindu idea of chivalry which saved the Muslim women simply because they were women from heavy punishment for committing heinous crimes against Hindu women.. their womanhood became their shield sufficient to protect them..
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