Savarkar grandnephew asserts Savarkar did not hate Muslims in Pune court

Satyaki Savarkar, the grandnephew of Hindutva ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, testified in a Pune court on Tuesday that his granduncle never hated Muslims, directly contradicting statements allegedly made by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi. The testimony came during cross-examination in a criminal defamation case Satyaki filed against Gandhi over a 2023 speech in London.

The case centers on Gandhi's alleged remarks during that speech, which Satyaki claims falsely portrayed Vinayak Savarkar as an extreme hater of Muslims and a mob lyncher. During Tuesday's proceedings before Judicial Magistrate Amol Shinde, Gandhi's advocate, Milind D. Pawar, asked Satyaki to identify the exact defamatory words from the speech. Satyaki recounted a passage in which Gandhi allegedly stated that Savarkar and five or six friends had assaulted a Muslim man and found the act pleasurable.

"By these words, Vinayak Savarkar was portrayed as an extreme hater of Muslims and as a mob lyncher," Satyaki told the court. He then asserted, "Savarkar never hated Muslims. Rather, in his writings, he showed the ways and means for their progress." The complainant has maintained that no such incident appears in...