Was Vinayak Damodar Savarkar a conservative? Is a variety of conservatism possible based on his ideas? Is Savarkarite conservatism an oxymoron of sorts? These questions have an abiding relevance in contemporary times where the name of Savarkar has been associated with multifaceted ideas and movements. This piece contributes to the ever growing discussion over ideas of Savarkar and seeks to explore his fraught relationship with Indian conservatism. When we begin to search in Savarkar a conservative ideologue of some hue, we’re faced with the challenge to define what exactly conservatism stands for! This is an unsettled query as conservatism unlike liberalism and socialism acquires a local disposition at every place it inhabits. However distinctive the issues raised by conservatism of different countries, they are uniquely united by affection for the ancient, preservation of traditions and accumulated heritage, glorification of nation and the rule of law and order. Our inquiry should be concerned with these traits of conservatism. The defining theme of Vinayak Damodar Savarkar’s life was his idea of Hindutva (literally Hinduness). He clung to this idea from the time he propounded it in his essay: “Essentials of Hindutva” written in 1923 until his death in 1966. Hindutva, Savarkar tells us, has been “to mankind a subtle source of life and inspiration”. For Savarkar “Hindutva is not a word but a history which includes the history of the whole Indian civilization”. Emphasising a distinct streak of inclusiveness, Savarkar maintains that “Hindutva embraces all the departments of thought and activity of the whole Being of our Hindu race.” Savarkar’s idea of Hindutva is the root of the tree which is Indian nationalism. Hindutva is an indelible expression of unyielding love and undying faith in the entity which we refer to as Bharatvarsha. Hindutva is like a soaring eagle which springs its wings over the whole of the Indian subcontinent. Apart from being novel, it was the most daring and original contribution to the conception of Indian nationhood expounded by any Indian political thinker. There is no stiltedness, no staleness in his ideas. Rather his idea is invigorating and innovative. Savarkar’s Indian nation was rooted in a specific territory starting “from the Indus to the seas” that was inhabited by Vedic ancestors of yore who had already “developed a sense of nationality”. The virtue of Savarkar’s conception of nationhood lies in the fact that it exhorts an escape from the entropy, preventing embezzlement of any sort. Savarkar declares in his treatise that those who considered India as their fatherland and holy land were all Hindus. This audacious attempt has often been decried by Savarkar’s detractors as a vice, as  “territorial fundamentalism” termed by Professor Janki Bakhle in her book on Savarkar. Bakhle is critical of the fact that in Savarkar’s doctrine of Hindutva, territorial inhabitation occupies a central place. She seems oblivious of the significance that geography occupies in the idea of any nation. People don’t exist in vacuum. They reside in a specific territory and hence are attached to it from times immemorial, building and expanding their community and heritage with the aim to transpose it to the next generation. Now, we must contemplate and navigate the possibility of a rudimentary search for Savarkarite Conservatism in his doctrine of Hindutva. Savarkar, as rightly discerned by Janki Bakhle, shrugs off his celebrated rationalism and submerges into the sea of mythology to discover the island of nationhood using the “language of belonging”. His ability to use the cultural symbols, invoking sacred geography to bind Hindus into one political unit welds his nationhood project to conservatism. The foundational underpinnings of the espousal of Cultural Nationalism in its most mature and concrete form is developed in this treatise of Savarkar. Savarkar is tenaciously aware of the need for vitality and is aware that our national self- consciousness could only be sustained through values of  “valour and strength”. Progressives are certain to be filled with a feeling of revulsion at any mention of cultural nationalism. They scoff at the idea of sacred geography considering it as a putrid remnant of past seeding from superstitious beliefs. The fundamental difference between progressive and conservative vision of nation is the reason for the unending conflicts between both sides. The progressive starts from 1947 as year zero, his civic patriotism is not organic and derives from the document of constitution embodied in the phrase of constitutional patriotism. By contrast, the conservative believes that India is a living civilization and existed before 1947, he has inherited his cultural heritage from his ancestors and wants to protect it from abuse and decay, as Roger Scruton put it eloquently. His patriotism is borne out of love for his culture. The conservative ideologue in Savarkar is most explicit in his open embrace of the movement of language purification. Savarkar led the movement to remove the overwhelming influence of foreign languages like Persian and Urdu from Marathi. Savarkar was only emulating his idol Shivaji Maharaja in this aspect who promoted Sanskrit and Marathi instead of Persian and Arabic. The yearning to go back to the roots is fundamentally a conservative one, quite reactionary in a crude sense. Such a tender desire was supplanted in Savarkar’s doctrine. Despite his flair for conservative themes, Savarkar has almost never been regarded as a conservative ideologue. His personality has been observed by biographer Vikram Sampath as a combination of 3Rs: Reformer-Rebel-Revolutionary. It would be historically hazardous for any conservative ideologue to disaffirm these progressive hues on Savarkar’s persona. Radical and progressive he indeed was, as he articulated the vision of radical transformation in an unflinching manner. Even identifications and institutions that represent our nationhood can shift with the forceful sweep of time, as Savarkar unhesitatingly wrote in Essentials of Hindutva: “The system of four varnas…grew in popularity to such an extent that kings and emperors felt it a distinction to be called one who established the system of four varnas. Reaction in favour of this institution grew so strong that our nationality was almost getting identified with it” but Savarkar is not afraid to repudiate those institutions which have served their cause, he writes: “The system of four varnas may disappear when it has served its end or ceases to serve….” Savarkar’s readiness to do away with the traditional institution is always a source of contention for Indian conservatism which is far from being resolved. His utilitarian attitude on cows has also earned him wrath very often from traditionalists, even Gandhi’s position is more closer to the conservative position of considering cows as sacred than Savarkar’s one. Savarkar’s “Essentials of Hindutva” treatise draws parallels to Burke’s pamphlet of “Reflections on the Revolution in France” in not just the flowery prose but also with respect to the occasional flights of imagination undertaken to nourish the arguments with rhetorical flourish. Burke was writing after being horrified at the terrible violence that accompanied the revolution and the frightening prospect of spread of revolution to Britain and quite similarly Savarkar was agitated by the ferocious intensity of violent riots and massacres that were threatening Hindus and alienating Muslims from Indian nationalism. Both are not only the founding texts of conservatism in their respective regions but arguably the most influential text of conservative traditions as well, inspiring generations after generations in the common goal of preservation of culture and heritage. Both texts also have a seeming urgency contained within themselves, for Burke wants to halt the pernicious growth of French revolution while Savarkar wants to dispel the darkness of Khilafat movement and weeding it out from Indian nationalism. While Burke’s stature has been cemented upon as the father of conservatism, Savarkar has still remained the unsung father of Indian nationalism.