It is reported that Savarkar's portrait is to be unveiled in Parliament on February 26. This disgaceful act denigrates the memory of Mahatma Gandhi, the most revered leader of our national movement, in whose murder the protagonist of Hindutava was deeply implicated. The following objections  to the installation of the portrait should also be noted.

1. Savarkar’s chief claim to national recognition is based on his earlier record  which led to his incarceration in the Cellular Jail in Port Blair, Andaman Islands. However, from jail he addressed mercy petitions to the British Raj. His mercy petition dated November 14, 1913 is published in R.C. Majumdar’s book  Penal Settlement In Andamans. In his mercy petition Savarkar wrote: which in the excited and hopeless situation of India in 1906-1907 beguiled us from the path of peace and progress. Therefore if the government in their manifold beneficence and mercy “Now no man having the good of India and humanity at heart  will blindly step on the thorny paths release me  I for one cannot but be the staunchest  advocate of  constitutional progress  and loyalty to
the English government which is the foremost condition of that progress.”

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In accordance with this undertaking Savarkar never thereafter took part in the freedom movement.

2. On August 15, 1943 Savarkar declared: “I have no quarrel with Mr Jinnah’s two-nation theory. We Hindus are a nation by ourselves and it is a historical fact that Hindus and Muslims are two nations.” (Indian Annual Register, 1943, Vol II, p.10)