Karnataka minister’s remarks on Savarkar triggers row

Karnataka health minister Dinesh Gundu Rao’s remarks that Hindutva ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar used to eat meat and was not against cow slaughter sparked a political row on Thursday, with the BJP saying it has become a “habit of the Congress to insult freedom fighters” of the country.

The Congress, however, defended Rao, saying he believes in the secular fabrics of the country, and accused the BJP of politicising the matter.

Rao was addressing an event in Bengaluru on Wednesday when he said: “Savarkar, a ‘Chitpavan Brahmin’, used to eat meat. He was a non-vegetarian and he was not against cow slaughter. He was modern in a way.”

Rao also said that Mahatma Gandhi was a vegetarian and had a firm faith in Hinduism “but his actions were different”. “(Founder of Pakistan Muhammad Ali) Jinnah was another extreme. He was a hardcore Islamist believer. He used to drink wine and it is said that he used to eat pork as well but he became a Muslim icon after the two-nation theory and politics. But Jinnah was not a fundamentalist but Savarkar was a fundamentalist,” he said.

The BJP attacked the Congress on Thursday over the minister’s comments.

Rao’s statement is “unfortunate, insulting and highly condemnable”, BJP national general secretary Tarun Chugh said. “Insulting Veer Savarkar, who was an inspiration to revolutionaries in the country, is akin to spitting on the moon,” he said, adding it has become a “habit” of the Congress to always “insult freedom fighters and soldiers of the country”.

Karnataka Congress leader Nagaraj Yadav said “the BJP is making a political statement to keep things alive”. “The BJP just wants to find fault in Dinesh Gundu Rao. What he was trying to say was that this country belongs to everybody… beyond caste and religion, we are Indians irrespective of our personal habits,” he said.

Amid the controversy, Rao explained the context in which he made the comments. He said there was a discussion on Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination during a book release at the event.

“It was basically an observation on the contrast between Mahatma Gandhi and Savarkar. How Mahatma Gandhi was a religious man and how Savarkar was an atheist, how Mahatma Gandhi was a person who was vegetarian and had a lot of beliefs in religion. Savarkar was a non-vegetarian and he was a modernist… I was talking about the contrast between Savarkar and Gandhi, the ideology of the two of them and how they were different personalities,” he said.