New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi after landing in Marseille, France made a special mention of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. He recalled what he termed Savarkar’s “courageous escape” from captivity.
He said on February 12:
“Landed in Marseille. In India’s quest for freedom, this city holds special significance. It was here that the great Veer Savarkar attempted a courageous escape. I also want to thank the people of Marseille and the French activists of that time who demanded that he not be handed over to British custody. The bravery of Veer Savarkar continues to inspire generations!”
But Arun Shourie, a senior minister in the first National Democratic Alliance government and author most recently of The New Icon: Savarkar And The Facts, which busts myths built around the founder of the Hindu Mahasabha and a once-accused in the case of the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, has dismissed the story of Savarkar’s escape as pure invention.
‘No stormy seas’
He told Karan Thapar in The Interview for The Wire on January 28, 2025:
“You see, in December 1909, a magistrate in Nasik, a man called A.M.T. Jackson, was killed and the pistol with which he was killed was traced–was one of 20 that were smuggled into India and the British found that it was some Savarkar who was instrumental in smuggling them from Europe into India.
“So, Savarkar was arrested in London and was being brought back in a ship from London and it had berthed in the dock in Marseille on July 7, 1909.”
Shourie also told Thapar,
“What had happened was the ship was berthed; Savarkar one morning said ‘I need to go to the toilet’, he went there and from the porthole he jumped and then he said to have battled the stormy seas, he comes on to the shore, he runs, he’s caught by a French policeman, two policemen who were sent from Bombay to escort him back, also catch him and bring him back into the ship.”
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