Savarkar on role of Britishers in Hindu Muslim divide

 Savarkar on role of Britishers in Hindu Muslim divide

Savarkar was one such commentator who called this spade a spade. In the 1939 Hindu Mahasabha address in Calcutta, he spoke about this:

It is also instructive and therefore, necessary to point out here that this theory of 'the third party' also constituted a Congress superstition which was responsible for so many of its errors. They always used to fancy that the Moslems, if left to themselves, would never have indulged in any anti-national, ulterior, anti-Hindu designs. The Moslems-including Messrs. Jinnah, [Fazal-ul] Huq [sic], and [Sikandar] Hayat Khan, were very simple-minded folk incapable of any political subterfuges and as devotes of Islam, peace and goodwill, had no aggressive political aims of their own against the Hindus. Nay, even the Frontier tribes, the brave brothers Moplas', the Moslem populations in Bengal or Sindh who indulge in such horrible outrages against Hindus have no taste for it all, nursed within themselves; but were almost compelled to rise and revolt against the Hindus by 'the third party' the Britishers [sic]. When the British did not step in we Hindus and Moslems lived together in perfect amity and brotherly concord and Hindu-Moslem riots was [sic] a thing simply unheard of. Thousands of Congressite Hindus are observed to have been duped in to this silliest of political superstitions. As if Mahamad Kasim, Gazanis, Ghoris, Allauddins, Aurangzebs were all instigated by the British, by this third party, to invade and lay waste Hindu India with a mad fanatical fury. As if the history of the last ten centuries of perpetual war between the Hindus and Moslems was an interpolation and a myth. As if the Alis or Mr. Jinnah or Sir Sikandar were mere school children to be spoiled with the offer of sugar pills by the British vagabonds in the class and persuaded to throw stones at the house of their neighbours. They say, 'before the British came, Hindu-Moslem riots were a thing unheard of. Yes, but because instead of riots, Hindus-Moslems wars was the order of the day.

Ref Savarkar A Contested Legacy vol two page 258 by Vikram Sampath