NEW DELHI: Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat on Sunday said that the prestige of India’s highest civilian award Bharat Ratna would increase if it is conferred to Hindutva ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar.
The remark drew an immediate and sharp response from the Congress, which questioned both the merit and the intent behind the demand.
Speaking at a public interaction in Mumbai to mark the RSS centenary, Bhagwat said that the long-pending demand for honouring Savarkar deserved serious consideration.
“Bharat Ratna’s prestige will increase if the award is given to Savarkar,” he said, reiterating a position that has been echoed by sections of the Sangh Parivar and the BJP over the years.
Bhagwat commented while responding to questions on a range of issues, including the Uniform Civil Code, nationalism and the role of the RSS in public life. The programme was attended by several prominent personalities from the film and cultural world.
‘On what grounds should he be awarded Bharat Ratna?: Congress launches sharp attack
The Congress reacted strongly to Bhagwat’s statement. Party MP Imran Masood questioned the basis on which Savarkar should be awarded the Bharat Ratna and accused him of contributing to the idea of India’s partition.
Speaking to reporters in Varanasi, Masood said, “On what grounds should he be awarded the Bharat Ratna? For what merit? For causing the partition of India and Pakistan?”
“It was Savarkar who first propagated the idea of two nations within the country and laid the ideological foundation for the division between India and Pakistan,” he added.
The latest exchange comes against the backdrop of a long-standing and politically charged debate over Savarkar’s legacy. While the BJP and its ideological affiliates project him as a freedom fighter and a key ideologue of Hindutva who suffered incarceration under British rule, the Congress has consistently opposed any move to honour him with the Bharat Ratna, citing his controversial views and alleged links to the conspiracy in Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination.
The issue first gained major political traction in 2019, when the BJP’s Maharashtra unit included a promise in its election manifesto to seek the Bharat Ratna for Savarkar. The Congress had then hit out sharply, with senior leader Manish Tewari saying that conferring the award on Savarkar, especially around Mahatma Gandhi’s 150th birth anniversary, would be deeply inappropriate.
At the time, the BJP defended the demand, arguing that Savarkar was a freedom fighter who spent years in harsh imprisonment in the Andaman Cellular Jail and that many national leaders, including BR Ambedkar and Sardar Patel, received the Bharat Ratna long after Independence.
The demand resurfaced in 2024 as well, when Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray questioned why the BJP-led Centre had not yet honoured Savarkar despite repeated assurances and letters from BJP leaders themselves. Thackeray said that the ruling party had no right to lecture others on Savarkar if it failed to act on its own promises.
