Savarkar Would Fly Out Of Andaman Jail Every Day By Sitting On Bulbul Birds’ Wings: Karnataka School Book

The mere mention of the name of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Veer Savarkar for his patrons is enough to flare up controversy, even if it’s just for the sake of a reference.

Bengaluru: The mere mention of the name of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, Veer Savarkar for his patrons is enough to flare up controversy, even if it’s just for the sake of a reference. Something similar has been reported from the southern state of Karnataka where a “brand-new” hullabaloo has burst open over the much familiar and banal charges of “rewriting history” by the BJP-led government. This time it is at the school level, class 8 to be precise, as the textbook revision committee has reportedly inserted a section on Savarkar in the revised high-school syllabus in the state, reports NDTV.

The allusion in question is from the class 8 Kannada textbook in which it is reportedly mentioned that during his time of incarceration at the Cellular Jail, also known as Kala Pani colonial prison in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Savarkar would “fly out of the Andaman jail by sitting on the wings of a bird” to visit the homeland.

“There was not even a keyhole in the cell where Savarkar was incarcerated. But, Bulbul birds used to visit the room, and Savarkar used to sit on their wings and fly out and visit the motherland every day,” a passage in the new textbook says, as reported by NDTV.

A controversial figure, Savarkar’s role in the Indian freedom struggle has been a point of huge tussle between the Sangh Pariwar (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or RSS), the ideological mentor of the BJP, and the rival Congress and several other parties.