As the influence of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar in Indian public life has risen, so has the insistence on his honorific, Veer—heroic, brave, courageous or warrior-like. When a plaque was put up in the Andaman Cellular jail, it was to Veer Savarkar. When roads are renamed, they are usually to Veer Savarkar, rarely to V.D. Savarkar. Nor is it only Savarkar’s admirers who are taken by the honorific—now newspapers and other media sources use it too. Savarkar has become inseparable from his honorific.
We do not know much about how the honorific originates. Its earliest confirmed use, Niranjan Takle notes, was by a journalist in the 1920s. That Savarkar himself may have played a role in coining and popularising the honorific cannot be ruled out. Soon after his release from prison, the book Life of Barrister Savarkar was published. Its author is identified simply as Chitragupta; only many years later did people learn that Savarkar himself was its author. That book, available online, glows with rapturous admiration for Savarkar, for his valour and bravery. What...
