Hindutva ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar regarded cows only as “useful” animals and criticised the idea of worshipping them, his grandnephew Satyaki Savarkar acknowledged before a Pune court on Tuesday, Live Law reported.

VD Savarkar believed that to regard an animal as a deity “is an insult not merely to humanity but to the very concept of divinity”, his grandnephew said.

Satyaki Savarkar made the statement during his cross-examination before a special MP/MLA court in a criminal defamation trial against Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.

During the examination, Gandhi’s counsel brought a book titled Vigyan-Nishtha Nibandha or Essays based on Scientific Reasoning, the legal news outlet reported. Satyaki Savarkar admitted that the book was written by his granduncle.

Satyaki Savarkar also acknowledged that the Hindutva leader had written that a cow was as useful to humankind as a dog, horse or donkey and, like those animals, should be protected rather than worshipped.

“The animal becomes a god, while a godlike human being is treated as an animal,” VD Savarkar had written. “What better example can there be of how, under the stamp of religion, sheer inconsistency, irrationality, and folly come to appear as wisdom, virtue, and sanctity, and how human reason itself is destroyed?”

Gandhi’s counsel further referred to a passage from the book in which VD Savarkar wrote that when a cow ceases to be useful and instead becomes harmful under certain circumstances, its slaughter could become necessary, Live Law reported.

In his book, VD Savarkar further argued that while a cow may be referred to as Gaumata or Mother Cow in a metaphorical sense, the expression should not be interpreted literally. He also criticised the practice of treating cow dung and cow urine as “sacred” substances and consuming them.

The case stems from a complaint filed by Satyaki Savarkar in April 2023 against Gandhi, accusing him of making false and malicious remarks about the Hindutva ideologue during an event in London in March 2023.

In a hearing of the case on July 1, Satyaki Savarkar had told the court that the Hindutva ideologue was released from prison because of political pressure and not due to the mercy petitions he wrote to the British colonial administration.

VD Savarkar was lodged at the Cellular Jail in the Andaman and Nicobar islands from 1911 from 1921. He was then transferred to the Ratnagiri jail in present-day Maharashtra, from where he was granted conditional release in 1924. From 1924 to 1937, Savarkar was confined to the Ratnagiri district and was barred from taking part in politics.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.

Also read: Read what VD Savarkar wrote: Care for cows, do not worship them

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