Sep 28 2025 to Sep 28 2025 11 a.m.

EVENT HAS ENDED

Where

Bangalore International Centre

7 4th Main Rd, Stage 2, Domlur 560071

Event Description

Between Gandhi and Savarkar lies the story of India’s unresolved future.

The future of India has long been caught between two irreconcilable visions. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar were not just men, but embodiments of two enduring ideologies: Hind Swaraj and Hindutva. Their contest was never merely personal; it was a struggle over what India could, and should, become.

Partition was one gash on the body of the nation, its scars still visible. Can India afford new wounds? To even attempt an answer, we must return to the old antagonisms – between communities, yes, but also within Hindu society itself. Few rivalries have been as sharp, or as consequential, as that between Gandhi and Savarkar.

Based on his new book, Hindutva and Hind Swaraj, this talk reflects on the unresolved gulf between Gandhi and Savarkar. Not as history, but as a question that remains open: can such differences ever be bridged, or are they the fault lines of India’s future?

Speaker

Makarand R Paranjape
Director of Education, Access Health Care Physicians, Spring Hill, Florida
Makarand R. Paranjape is a poet, novelist, critic, and public intellectual whose work spans political thought, literature, and education. Formerly Professor of English at Jawaharlal Nehru University and Director of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, he has held visiting professorships at leading universities worldwide. He is currently Director of Education, Access Health Care Physicians, Spring Hill, Florida, and the Sri Aurobindo Chair (Honorary), Vedere University.

Author/editor of over 50 books and 200 academic papers, he also writes widely in newspapers and magazines. His recent works include Hindutva and Hind Swaraj: History’s Forgotten Doubles (Penguin, 2025), Mahatma Gandhi: Mrityu aur Punarutthan (Penguin Swadesh, 2024), Identity’s Last Secret (BluOne Ink, 2023), JNU: Nationalism and India’s Uncivil War (Rupa, 2022), and Swami Vivekananda: Hinduism and India’s Road to Modernity (HarperCollins, 2020).