South Asia, History, Modern India, Savarkar, Intellectual History
Hindutva and Violence tells the story of the place of history in Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s political thought. It traces Savarkar's role as the most controversial Indian thinker of the twentieth century through a study of his arguments about Hindutva and violence. It examines Savarkar’s central claim that “Hindutva is not a word but a history.” By analyzing Savarkar’s key writings on history, historical methodology, and historiography, Vinayak Chaturvedi provides an interpretation of the philosophical underpinnings of Hindutva. He demonstrates that all critiques of Hindutva require grappling with Savarkar’s idea of history. [Read "Introduction"]
US and World Edition: SUNY Press (Publication date: Hardcover: 2022; Paperback: 2023).
South Asian Edition: Permanent Black (Publication date: 2022).
Select Essays/Articles:
'Notes from a Roman Holiday," The American Historical Review (Forthcoming 2025).
‘Savarkar did not consider Hindutva as the equivalent of Hinduism’, The Hindu (June 29, 2023).
‘University Campuses Will Be a Tool in the Hands of Hindu Nationalists’, co-authored with Mark Levine, Jacobin, (March 31, 2023).
"The Hindu Right and Attacks on Academic Freedom in the US," The Nation (December 1, 2021).
"Vinayak & Me: Hindutva and the Politics of Naming," Social History (2003).
"Would V.D. Savarkar have condoned plagiarism?" Scroll.in (February 24, 2022).
"Beyond the Usual Debate, There is Also the All-Too-Human Savarkar," The Wire (February 12, 2022).
"Reading Savarkar: Was the Hindutva icon actually Hinduphobic?" Scroll.in (September 6, 2021).
