When Vinayak Damodar (Veer) Savarkar reflected on what holds a nation together, he looked beyond geography or race. For him, true national unity demanded not only shared ideals but also a shared language (a Rashtrabhasha) — a medium through which those ideals could live, circulate, and bind people together.
Savarkar viewed communication as the ‘lifeblood of a civilization’. Without a common language, he argued, the dream of a united India would remain heterogeneous and fractured by misunderstanding and provincialism. The latter would subsequently hamper the efforts of the Hindus to forge a Hindu Sanghatan, an organized and cohesive Hindu society. He therefore urged Indians to adopt a ‘national link language’ — one that could serve as the primary medium of administration, education, and inter-provincial communication. For Savarkar, that language was Hindi written in the Devanagari script.
Language as a Bridge, Not a Barrier
Savarkar’s advocacy for linguistic cohesion did not stem from a desire for a strict and inflexible uniformity. On the contrary, he envisioned language as a bridge of mutual understanding — a tool to strengthen India’s diversity, not erase it. He recognized that India’s richness lay in its multitude of tongues, each carrying centuries of literature, thought, and cultural expression.
As a Marathi speaker himself, Savarkar understood the deep emotional and cultural importance of regional languages. He therefore insisted that while these languages must be preserved and nurtured as carriers of local identity and literature, they should remain subordinate to a pan-Indian lingua franca that could unify the nation’s many voices.
A Critic of the “Three-Language Formula”
Savarkar can thus be described as an early critic of the three-language formula — an educational and administrative policy framework that sought to accommodate India’s linguistic pluralism through the use of multiple official languages (Hindi and English at the national level, alongside a regional language at the state level). He was likely doubtful about the effectiveness of such pluralistic and accommodationist models, believing that they risked diluting national unity. Instead, he advocated for an integrationist and hierarchical language strategy designed to promote cohesion and national strength.
A Lesson from History: When Language Divides a Nation
Savarkar’s reflections on language acquire even greater significance when viewed through later historical events. The tragic example of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) stands as a stark warning. There, the imposition of Urdu as the sole national language by the West Pakistani elite — combined with political oppression of the Bengali people and their Bengali-language — ignited one of the most powerful language movements in modern history.
What began as a struggle for linguistic recognition grew into a fight for cultural survival, culminating in the Bangladesh War of Independence and the genocide of approximately three million Bengali people. The episode revealed how a state’s failure to balance linguistic pride with national cohesion can tear nations apart.
Final Thoughts – Savarkar’s Enduring Insight
Savarkar’s vision of a shared national language was therefore not a call for domination, but for unity through mutual intelligibility — a pragmatic attempt to bind India’s immense diversity within a single communicative framework. His ideas serves as a reminder, while linguistic diversity is a vital element of a nation’s cultural heritage, the absence of a common language has the potential to turn communication into a profound vulnerability that weakens national cohesion.
💭 What do you think? Do you think a shared national language strengthens unity — or does it risk suppressing regional identities? Can a civilization truly be united without a common medium of communication? Is linguistic pluralism an obstacle to national integration, or a source of strength? What lessons can India learn from the language conflicts in East Pakistan that led to Bangladesh’s independence? How does Savarkar’s vision of a “national link language” compare with the current language policies in India? If Savarkar lived today, how might he view the dominance of English in administration and higher education?
👉 Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Sources:
SAVARKAR, Shridhar and Gajanan Madhav JOSHI. (Eds.). 1992. Historische Statements (Prophetic Warnings). Statements, Telegrams & Letters. 1941 to 1965 by Veer Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. Veer Savarkar Prakashan: Bombay (Mumbai).
SAVARKAR, Vinayak Damodar .2007. Hindu Rashtra Darshan. Bharat Bhushan. Abhishek Publications: New Delhi.
SAVARKAR, Vinayak Damodar. 1969. Hindutva: Who Is a Hindu? 5th ed. Mumbai: Veer Savarkar Prakashan.
SAVARKAR, Vinayak Damodar. 1941. Whirlwind propaganda:Statements, messages and Extracts from the President’s Diary of his Propagandistic Tours, Interviews from December 1937 to October 1941, (Ed. by A. S. Bhide, Bombay).
WOLF, Siegfried O. 2009. Vinayak Damodar Savarkar und sein Hindutva-Konzept. Die Konstruktion einer kollektiven Identität in Indien [“Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and his concept of Hindutva: The construction of a collective identity in India.”]. Online Dissertation: Heidelberg University: Heidelberg.
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