Manish Patel

If only we had listened to Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Swatantrya Veer Savarkar claims, India would have been liberated from British rule much earlier than 1947. Randeep Hooda’s biopic, in which he also stars as Savarkar, wholeheartedly embraces his subject’s advocacy of militarism. The movie projects the Hindutva exponent as the glue joining revolutionaries across space, time and ideology, from Khudiram Bose to Bhagat Singh. Savarkar’s Zelig-like influence extends to BR Ambedkar and Subhas Chandra Bose. According to Hooda and co-writer Utkarsh Naithani, the real “Father of the Nation” is not than the man to whom Indians have given the title. It is Savarkar.