Much of this recent scholarship hides behind theoretical jargon, invoking ‘historicism’ and even Leo Strauss to justify re-readings of Savarkar’s thought. The claim that India’s political theory remains ‘underdeveloped’ because of historicist tendencies is intellectually dishonest. The so-called ‘poverty’ of Indian political thought arises from the refusal of a plural society to be captured by the singular logic of Western abstraction. ADVERTISEMENTTo accuse ‘historicist scholarship’ of diminishing Savarkar’s originality is to misunderstand what that scholarship reveals. Savarkar’s thought, on the other hand, is soaked in majoritarian resentment.

Source: The Telegraph January 27, 2026 01:39 UTC