‘Audience will decide if he was veer’

If you thought Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi were antagonists given that the former was accused of playing a part in the latterrsquos assassination plot actor Randeep Hooda will tell you differently ldquoThey had completely different ways of going about it but their end goal was the same Akhand Bharatrdquo he says ldquoIn fact when Savarkar was in Kala Pani Cellular Jail it was Gandhiji who advised his brother Narayanrao about how to draft the bail pleardquo It has been claimed that Savarkar swore allegiance to the British if he was releasedHooda plays the controversial man in his directorial debut Swatantra Veer Savarkar due to release on March 22 and is now a veritable expert on his life likes dislikes and ideologies ldquoBut this movie is not a history lessonrdquo he laughs ldquoItrsquos supposed to be entertaining as wellrdquo The ldquoantipropaganda filmrdquo as he calls it is a retelling of Savarkarrsquos life The intellectualwriter developed the nationalist political ideology Hindutva in Ratnagiri in 1922 and was a leading figure in the Hindu Mahasabha He was also sentenced to two lifeterms at Kala Pani after he was found guilty of supplying the pistol used to assassinate the then collector of Nasik AMT Jackson in 1909 and composed 6000 poems when incarcerated His book The Indian War of Independence about the first war for freedom in 1857 was banned before it came outThe movie Swatantra Veer Savarkar is as Hooda says a ldquoretellingrdquo of the activist and writerrsquos lifeHowever members of the Hindu Mahasabha turned against him when he distanced himself from Nathuram Godse and others accused of playing a part in Gandhirsquos assassination plot during their trial Though Godse had claimed full responsibility for the assassination court approver Digambar Badge had said that Godse had a meeting with Savarkar before the assassination where Savarkar told them all ldquoYashasvi houn ya be successful and returnrdquo He was branded a traitor and coward and though the Bharatiya Janata Party has tried to rebrand him as ldquoVeerrdquo the nasty names continue to follow him around We meet Hooda in Juhu and he is in good spirits wanting to delve deep into Savarkarrsquos psycheExcerpts from an interviewWhat was your first introduction to SavarkarI think Kala Pani and Savarkar were synonymous for me when I was a child When I started digging deep I found there was so much missing from the public domain I wondered why it has been swept under the carpet My wellwishers told me ldquoWhy are you getting into this Why become political You are an artisterdquo I replied ldquoHis story needs to be told whatever it takesrdquo The kind of namecalling that happens in his name is unjustified I just pursued the goal to correct that wrong with all sincerity I ended up cowriting the film and directed it as well Itrsquos taken me two years of only thinking about Savarkar I have put everything on the linemdashemotionally monetarily physically And Irsquom so grateful people will know his special storyWhat was the research involvedI read books in English Hindi spoke to Maharashtrian filmmakers and historians who have written about him I read about him and I read what he wrote He is such a profound writer People have just heard things through ldquoWhatsApp universityrdquo and keep calling him maafiveer apologist He was not that He was just 26 and sentenced to serve two life terms He went to Kala Pani in 1911 and the date of his release was 1960mdashhe would have been 76 He used to keep writing bail pleas but they were too flowery Then Gandhiji asked him to keep it short and thatrsquos how he got out Narayanrao was lynched after Gandhijirsquos murdermdash8000 Brahmins were lynched in Maharashtra So much for nonviolence People donrsquot know about most of thisHe had a complicated relationship with GandhiThey had opposing ideologies and both were very stubborn They met three timesmdashin 1907 at Londonrsquos India House and once at a restaurant on Vijay Dashmi and gave speeches together Then in 1927 Gandhi visited him in Ratnagiri when he was placed under house arrest They started at opposite ends but met in the centre united by one purpose A united India But both of them were not part of the government much like revolutionaries all over the world Revolutionaries fight politicians take control Was Savarkar less about religion and more about nationYes Till 1920 everyone was one In 1920 a caliphate movement started in Rae Bareli Many Muslim leaders thought that India was a sultanate when the British came and that it should go back to being a sultanate when they left They didnrsquot want to be a part of the Congressrsquo democratic process where they were a minority To get them involved Gandhiji became president of the Khilafat Movement and there on began the process of appeasement They were given more seats and electoratesThis irked Savarkar He came up with the Hindutva philosophy in response he held that everyone who lived in the region between the Indus river to the sea were Hindus Whatever caste religion or community as long as you love Hind you are a Hindu This angers people but thatrsquos a geographical definition He said anybody who calls the land between the river and the sea the home of their ancestors are HindusAre the movie and you defending SavarkarI hope it does but thatrsquos not its purpose I have made it as a thriller it will enthrall you Itrsquos for young people I have laid out the facts I donrsquot call him veer you will have to decide if he was oneWhat did you learn the most by playing SavarkarSaam Daam Dand Bhed by any and all meansmdashthatrsquos what he believed in Itrsquos what I have used to make this movie and get it released One should do whatever it takes once one has decided the purpose of his life And also ldquoDushman ko kiye hue vaade nibhaaye nahin jaaterdquoWhat do you want people to take away when they leave the hallsThat there is a bias in the telling of our history documentation has been very onesided Also you will get entertained and learn more about the freedom struggle than whatrsquos available at first look