As Randeep Hooda essays the role of VD Savarkar, he tells Brut why he wants to clear the “perception” about the Hindutva ideologue.
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00:00History is not truth.
00:01Then how do you figure out what the truth is?
00:03I have figured out. I have interpreted.
00:06When you've read a book, which was written by the man himself,
00:10he would have written it in the way that he saw the world, right?
00:12Right.
00:13So then that...
00:14I'm making a movie in a way that he saw the world.
00:16By the time I started reading about him, I got really inspired and I was
00:21kind of angry that his only one side of something he said is made into such a big thing.
00:30I want to start by asking questions about your most recent film,
00:33Swatant Ravi Savarkar.
00:34This movie was in the making for more than two years.
00:36Yes.
00:37Why would this be a good time to release it?
00:39Well, I tried to release it on the last Independence Day.
00:42Then I tried to release on 26th January because there were big dates for the country
00:48and I wanted a story to come out then.
00:50But then it didn't work out for many, many reasons.
00:55And then Shaheed-e-Diwas was the next big date we filmed
00:59because it's about the armed revolution.
01:02And so we got the Friday on the 22nd.
01:05So we're releasing it at this time.
01:08Maybe Mr. Savarkar wished it that it comes in between elections.
01:12He also put religion in a lot of focus in his work, in his struggle.
01:17And then India became a secular country.
01:21So how do you justify glorifying a figure like that in modern India?
01:27He wasn't into politics at all, in fact, in his young age.
01:34And he was not into religious politics.
01:37He coined the term Hindutva.
01:39But that was much later in his life.
01:41By the time I started reading about him, I got really inspired.
01:44And I was kind of angry that only one side of
01:51his something he said is made into such a big thing.
01:55And that colors the whole perception.
01:58Historians have also backed it.
02:00So I'm sure it's not one thing that was taken out.
02:04History is written by the victors.
02:07Indian National Congress was selected, not elected,
02:10to form the government in 1947.
02:14Post that, it was only a glorification
02:16that only Indian National Congress got us our freedom.
02:20And it happened only through nonviolence,
02:22which is absolutely incomplete truth.
02:25History is written by the victors.
02:26The hunter lies writes the history.
02:28And when the lion wrote the history,
02:31his hands were shaking, his first bullet went over there.
02:34History is a point of view.
02:36It can be looked at in many, many shades, many, many ways.
02:40History is not truth.
02:42Then how do you figure out what the truth is?
02:45I have figured out. I have interpreted.
02:48When you've read a book, which was written by the man himself,
02:51he would have written it in the way that he saw the world, right?
02:54So then that...
02:56I'm making a movie in a way that he saw the world.
02:58But I've read other books.
03:00I've read national archives.
03:02Like, for example, this pension thing they say.
03:05It was an allowance given to all prisoners.
03:08Stith grahat, you're stationary and you cannot work.
03:14Political prisoners, when they were put under custody
03:19or they were put behind bars, they used to get an allowance.
03:24Mr. Gandhi for...
03:26This is one I have.
03:27I don't know how much allowance he used to get.
03:29At Aga Khan Palace, he used to get 500 rupees a month.
03:32And his guard used to get 100 rupees a month.
03:35All the guards, 100 rupees each.
03:37Mr. Savarkar was given 60 rupees allowance
03:40five years after his release from prison
03:43while he was in house arrest in Kalapani.
03:47And this happened around 1929, they gave him.
03:50And then he received it, 60 rupee allowance,
03:52because he could not work.
03:54His books were banned.
03:56His things were banned.
03:58His college degree from Ferguson College was taken away.
04:02Grey's Inn in London didn't give him a degree.
04:05He could not write articles.
04:06He could not participate in anything.
04:08So he lived in punery.
04:10So that allowance was given to him for a purpose of
04:16the government not allowing him to earn a living.
04:20That's allowance when you're positioned in a way
04:23which you cannot make a living.
04:24It is an allowance.
04:26So that debunks the pension part.