The Whirlwind

Tag: Bengal

  • The Free India Society: Savarkar’s Revolutionary Vanguard in London

    The Free India Society: Savarkar’s Revolutionary Vanguard in London

    As soon as Vinayak Damodar Savarkar established himself in London, he founded the Free India Society in 1906. The organization became a crucible of revolutionary thought and action at the heart of the British Empire. Publicly open but ideologically radical, the Society was modeled after Giuseppe Mazzini’s Young Italy and served as the overseas face…

  • Savarkar’s Abhinav Bharat and the Dream of a New India

    Savarkar’s Abhinav Bharat and the Dream of a New India

    In 1904, a young Vinayak Damodar Savarkar stood solemnly before a portrait of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, and proposed a bold and electrifying idea. He renamed his earlier organization, Mitra Mela, to Abhinav Bharat – meaning “New India” – a title that soon echoed as a threat in the corridors of British power, not just in…

  • Bonfire of Foreign goods at Fergusson College, Poona

    Bonfire of Foreign goods at Fergusson College, Poona

    In 1905, being in his early twenties, Vinayak Damodar (Veer) Savarkar emerged as a fiery student leader in Poona, galvanizing youth against British imperialism. A staunch proponent of Swadeshi, Savarkar saw the boycott of foreign goods as the moral counterpart to the political opposition to the Partition of Bengal by Viceroy Lord Curzon planned to…