list of holidays 2020 for J&K after the center scraps two public holidays

Prime Minister <keyword id="6354477" type="PERSON" weightage="20" keywordseo="Narendra-Modi">Narendra Modi</keyword> will review next week the implementation status of some key decisions taken by the Union Cabinet, including those taken way back in July 2014. 

	Scheduled for February 17, this will be the second such review meeting that Modi will undertake with the Council of Ministers in just about three weeks.
 

	The 27 decisions of the Cabinet and the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs whose implementation status would be reviewed include the amendments to the Factories Act and the Apprentices Act, which were cleared over one and a half years ago in July 2014, sources told PTI.
 

	PM Modi had chaired a similar meeting of the Council of Ministers on January 27 as well.
 Other decisions slated for implementation status review are setting up of a <keyword id="974618" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Credit-Guarantee-Fund">Credit Guarantee Fund</keyword> for providing guarantees to loans extended under the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana, operationalisation of Budget announcement of 2015-16 on the Atal Pension Yojana, the Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana and the Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana. The prime minister will also check progress in the <keyword id="2473706" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Pradhan-Mantri-Jan-Dhan-Yojana">Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana</keyword>, the <keyword id="6562839" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="20" keywordseo="Swacch-Bharat-Mission">Swacch Bharat Mission</keyword> for urban areas, the Housing for All by 2022 mission, the <keyword id="946830" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="20" keywordseo="National-Skill-Development-Mission">National Skill Development Mission</keyword>, the National Health Mission and the Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana. 

	Other such decisions relate to the National Ayush Mission, amendment to the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Bill, 2014, setting up three new All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) at Mangalagiri, Nagpur and Kalyani and strengthening of the drug regulatory system.
 

	The decisions relating to setting up of six new IITs and IIMs, amendment to the Payment of Bonus Act, 1965, and the nationwide celebration of 125th birth anniversary of BR Ambedkar will also figure in the status review.

PM Narendra Modi to review implementation status of Cabinet decisions for the second time in 3 weeks

Presenting his third budget, <keyword id="42575" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Arun-Jaitley">Arun Jaitley</keyword> today announced some key new schemes while presenting the <keyword id="3206186" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Union-Budget-2016">Union Budget 2016</keyword>. Here are the highlights- 
 
AGRICULTURE

	 
	Stating that agriculture and the security of farmers are a chief area of focus for the government, he went ahead to state that under Fasal Bima Yojana, farmers would have to pay a nominal amount of insurance premium and a highest ever compensation in case of crop loss. 
	To ensure this is done, he has allocated Rs 5,500 crores in the Budget. 
	 
	The allocation to Pradhan Mantri’s Gram Sadak Yojna to be increased to Rs 19,000 crore. 
	 Additionally, to give further income security to the very people who ensure our food security, <keyword id="6355261" type="POSITION" weightage="20" keywordseo="Finance-minister">Finance Minister</keyword> Arun Jaitley promised to double the income of farmers by 2022. Thus, an amount of Rs 35,894 crore has been set aside for the welfare of farmers this year. 
	The Pradhanmantri Krishi Sinchaai Yojana is thus strengthened and implemented in mission mode. 
	 
	 
	LPG GAS CONNECTION FOR BPL FAMILIES 
	 
	Jaitley also announced launching another initiative to provide cooking subsidy to BPL families so as to rid them from the adverse effects of chura cooking. 
	 
	He explained that the government would provide a LPG connection to families in the name of the woman members. A sum of Rs 2,000 crore has been allocated to meet the initial cost of providing the LPG connection. According to the Finance Minister, approximately 1,50,00,000 BPL houses. 
	 
	The scheme is expected to continue for more than two years and will cover atleast 5 crore houses. 
	 
	This will not only ensure universal coverage of cooking gas in the country but will also improve women’s health and provide employment in supply chain of the cooking gases for the youth in rural areas. 
	 
	 
	DIGITAL LITERARY SCHEMES 
	 
	As part of the government's increased rural push, Jaitley also launched two new digital literary schemes for rural India. 
	 
	 
	SWACCHH BHARAT ABHIGYAN 
	 
	Additionally, Rs 9000 crore has been allocated for Swacchh Bharat Abhigyan in a bit to put an end to open defecation. 
	 
	 
	HEALTH INSURANCE 
	 
	There’s also the health protection scheme which guarantees a health cover of Rs 1,30,000 for senior citizens. There will be an additional topup of Rs 30,000 per family and 300 generic drug stores to be opened under Pradhan Mantri Jan Aushadi Yojana. 
	 
	 
	STANDUP INDIA 
	 As far as Standup India is concerned, Jaitley has allocated Rs 500 crore to ensure <keyword id="107737" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="Entrepreneurship">entrepreneurship</keyword> to ST/SCs and women. He wants them to be job-givers and not seekers. Under this, two projects will be promoted ber bank per branch per category. 
	 
	“On the occasion of B.R Ambedkar’s 125th anniversary, we must ensure that this must be the year of <keyword id="352701" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="Economic-Development">economic development</keyword> for ST/SCs,” he said. 
	 
	 
	NATIONAL SKILL DEVELOPMENT MISSION 
	 
	Also, under the National Skill Development Mission which has imparted training to 76 lakh youth, 1500 multi skill-training institutes would be set up, Jaitley announced. 
	 
	Under the Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana, the aim would be to skill 1 crore youth in the next 3 years. 
	 
	BI VIEW: In times of distress, the Modi government turned to rural India. The cooking subsidy, digital literary scheme is bound to make a statement, so is the push for farmers' welfare in light of the drought and farmer suicides. Additionally, after Rohith Vermula's tragic death that captured the appetite of Indian citizens, encouraging entrepreneurship for SC/STs is undoubtedly a welcome change. 
	 
	Image credit: PIB India

Budget 2016: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's big scheme announcements focus on rural India, agriculture and SC/STs

Full text of President Ram Nath Kovind's first address to the Parliament as the 17th Lok Sabha gets underway

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><a href="http://pictures.reuters.com/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult&amp;VBID=2C0BXZ1X3E74F&amp;SMLS=1&amp;RW=1440&amp;RH=720#/SearchResult&amp;VBID=2C0BXZ1X3E74F&amp;SMLS=1&amp;RW=1440&amp;RH=720&amp;POPUPPN=26&amp;POPUPIID=2C0BF1FW8JQF1">REUTERS/Neil Hall</a>Protestors hold banners in Parliament Square during a 'March for Europe' demonstration against Britain's decision to leave the European Union, central London, Britain July 2, 2016.</div></div></div>In the aftermath of the United Kingdom's vote to leave the European Union, we are left with more questions than answers. What <a href="https://www.cer.org.uk/sites/default/files/pb_piris_brexit_12jan16.pdf" target="_blank">kind of relationship</a> will the UK now forge with the EU, and how will that affect economic relations and migration? Will <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-scotland-politics-36621030" target="_blank">Scotland</a> and <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/06/what-does-brexit-mean-northern-ireland" target="_blank">Northern Ireland</a> opt to leave? What is the future of British <keyword id="6358883" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="Politics">politics</keyword>, given turbulence within both the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/26/conservative-leadership-rift-widens-brexit" target="_blank">Conservative</a> and <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/26/eu-referendum-hilary-benn-sacked-from-shadow-cabinet-by-jeremy-c/" target="_blank">Labour</a> Parties? Will a successful Brexit set a precedent for other EU members -- perhaps even some <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-36615879" target="_blank">eurozone members</a>-- to leave the union? What are the long-term economic consequences of the resulting uncertainty? Will Brexit even happen at all, given the <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-eu-referendum-campaigners-there-is-no-plan-next-pm-tory-leadership-contest-a7104711.html" target="_blank">absence</a> of a clear post-referendum plan, the apparent <a href="http://qz.com/717182/a-brexit-conspiracy-theory-nails-the-no-win-situation-boris-johnson-now-finds-himself-in/" target="_blank">unwillingness</a> of 'Leave' campaign leaders to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, and the fact that the referendum was <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/26/fightback-against-brexit-on-cards-remain-eu-referendum-heseltine" target="_blank">advisory and non-binding</a>? Answers to these questions will make themselves evident in the coming weeks, months, and years.But there's a bigger question worth asking: What are the implications of Brexit for democracy? Arguably, Brexit represents the first major casualty of the ascent of digital democracy over representative democracy. This claim deserves an explanation.When historians look back at the world of the past 25 years, they will likely associate it not with terrorism or growing inequality but with the twin phenomena of the "<a href="http://www.economist.com/node/11402606" target="_blank">rise of the rest</a>" (particularly China and India) and of globalization. Globalization involves the easier, faster and cheaper flow of goods, people, capital and information. One big enabler of globalization is the internet, the global network of networks that allows billions of people to cheaply and easily access enormous amounts of digital information.The rise of service and high-technology industries, trade liberalization, <a href="http://www.vox.com/2015/1/22/7869319/largest-container-ship" target="_blank">container shipping</a>, and the development of <a href="http://www.mckinsey.com/global-themes/employment-and-growth/financial-globalization" target="_blank">financial markets</a> have also been important enablers, as is the increased ease and lower cost of travel, particularly <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/how-airline-ticket-prices-fell-50-in-30-years-and-why-nobody-noticed/273506/" target="_blank">by air</a>.Many <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/113272/eric-schmidt-and-jared-cohenthe-new-digital-ages-futurist-schlock" target="_blank">technology optimists</a> have assumed that globalization would lead to the democratization of information and decision-making, and also greater cosmopolitanism. Citizens would be better informed, less likely to be silenced, and able to communicate their views more effectively to their leaders. They would also have greater empathy and understanding of other peoples the more they lived next to them, visited their countries, read their news, communicated, and did business with them. Or so the thinking went.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Reuters/Neil HallFormer Mayor of London Boris Johnson (L) and Britain's Secretary of State for Justice Michael Gove pose at a Vote Leave rally in London, Britain, June 4, 2016.</div></div></div>But there has been little to justify such panglossianism. There is <a href="https://www.amazon.in/Internet-Freedom-2-1-Developing-Democracies-ebook/dp/B00U32PWKI" target="_blank">some evidence</a> for a correlation between greater information, political democratization and economic progress, in that all three have advanced steadily, if at different paces, over the past two decades.But that correlation is weak. Instead, digital democracy -- the ability to receive information in almost real time through mass media and to make one's voice heard through social media -- has contributed to polarization, gridlock, dissatisfaction and misinformation. This is as equally applicable to the countries in which modern democracy took root -- in the United States and Europe -- as it is to India, the biggest and most complex democracy in the developing world.The ascent of digital democracy around the world has some shared features. One characteristic is that access to greater information has, rather counterintuitively, contributed to a "<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/fact-checking-in-a-post-fact-world/2016/05/19/d37434e2-1d0f-11e6-8c7b-6931e66333e7_story.html" target="_blank">post-fact</a>" information environment. Nick Cohen -- speaking of British pro-"Leave" journalists-turned-politicians Boris Johnson and Michael Gove --<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/25/boris-johnson-michael-gove-eu-liars" target="_blank">called out</a> their use of bold claims, their contempt for practical questions, their sneering disregard for expertise, and their transgressions of the bounds of political spin.These tactics are not all that dissimilar to Donald Trump's assertions about Barack Obama's birth certificate or <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/261303-feds-push-back-on-myth-syrian-refugee-stat-used-by-trump" target="_blank">immigration policies</a>, or Subramanian Swamy's <a href="http://scroll.in/article/810515/mentally-not-fully-indian-swamys-attack-on-rajan-reflects-paradox-of-bjps-approach-to-nris" target="_blank">insinuations</a> about the nationality of senior Indian policymakers.But leaders only exploit the vulnerabilities of a post-fact world. The conditions have been laid by the digital sphere. A recent example springs to mind. There is a widespread belief on Indian social media that US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is somehow anti-India, pro-Pakistan, and/or anti-Modi. I am no supporter of Ms. Clinton, but as someone who worked on foreign affairs in Washington and knows many of her advisors, I found these claims baffling.In fact, Clinton's political opponents (whether <a href="http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/jun/15clinton.htm" target="_blank">Barack Obama</a> in 2008 or <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/world/world-news/donald-trump-hillary-clinton-foundation-india-us-nuclear-deal-amar-singh-cii-2875427/" target="_blank">Donald Trump</a> in 2016) have accused her of being too close to India, while Pakistanis often view her as <a href="http://www.dawn.com/news/1114535" target="_blank">critical</a> of their country and Prime Minister Modi appears to enjoy <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/clintons-meet-narendra-modi/" target="_blank">cordial relations</a> with her. After some inquiries, and a few tips, I managed to trace these sentiments to a single publication, a poorly sourced and misleading <a href="http://www.sunday-guardian.com/news/obama-quietly-reverses-hillarys-get-modi-policy" target="_blank">column</a> that gained widespread circulation upon its release. The article's contents were deemed sufficiently credible to have now become instilled as absolute fact in the minds of many Indians active online. In a digital democracy, a lie or (better yet) a half-lie if told enough times becomes truth.Another outcome of digital democracy may be a variation of what the psychologist Barry Schwartz has <a href="https://books.google.co.in/books?id=g422yyua-P8C" target="_blank">called</a> the paradox of choice. Quite possibly, the greater abundance of political choice leads to less satisfaction, and the result is citizens increasingly voicing their displeasure with their available political and policy choices.The political platforms of mainstream parties rarely adhere entirely to individual voters' views. That may explain why many voters are gravitating towards parties, factions or leaders who offer the simplest messages, and project themselves as alternatives to the mainstream.A third result of digital democracy, and one that has been better documented, is the political echo chamber. Social media, rather than creating connections with people who possess differing views and ideologies, tends to reinforce prejudices. As the psychologist Nicholas DiFonzo has <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/04/21/barack-obama-and-the-psychology-of-the-birther-myth/the-echo-chamber-effect" target="_blank">noted</a>, "Americans across the political spectrum tend to trust the news media (and 'facts' provided by the media) less than their own social group."This makes it easier for views and rumours to circulate and intensify within like-minded groups. Similar digital gerrymandering was evident in the EU Referendum in Britain and the polarization is palpable in the Indian online political space.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Olivia Harris/ReutersNigel Farage.</div></div></div>Finally, instant information has increased the theatricality of politics. With public statements and positions by governments, political parties and individual leaders now broadcast to constituents in real time, compromise, a necessary basis of good governance, has become more difficult. When portrayed as a betrayal of core beliefs, compromise often amounts to political suicide.Political grandstanding also contributes to legislative gridlock, with elected representatives often resorting to <a href="http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/walkout-in-ls-over-v-k-singhs-remark/" target="_blank">walkouts</a>, <a href="http://www.wired.com/2016/06/house-sit-went-people-made-happen/" target="_blank">sit-ins</a>, or <a href="http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/dennis-skinner-called-prime-minister-7734873" target="_blank">insults</a> -- all manufactured for maximum viral effect -- instead of trying to reach solutions behind closed doors. Even as ease of travel allows legislators to spend more time in their constituencies, making them more sensitized to their constituents' concerns, less gets done at the national or supranational level. It is a trend that, once again, applies equally to the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/01/us/politics/congress-shutdown-debate.html?_r=0" target="_blank">United States</a>, <a href="http://www.euractiv.com/section/social-europe-jobs/news/merkel-freezes-germany-s-debate-over-new-immigration-law/" target="_blank">Europe</a>, and <a href="http://www.firstpost.com/politics/parliament-logjam-can-congress-beat-bjps-record-of-disruption-2361104.html" target="_blank">India</a>.The unintended consequences of digital democracy -- misinformation and discontent, polarization and gridlock -- mean that the boundary between politician and troll is blurring. The tone of democratic politics increasingly reflects that of anonymous online discourse: nasty, brutish, and short. And successful politicians are increasingly those who are able to take advantage of the resulting sentiments. Exploiting divisions, appealing to base instincts, making outlandish claims, resorting to falsehoods, and pooh-poohing details and expertise. All that could just as easily describe the playbooks of populists around the world, on the right and left: Marine Le Pen, Frauke Petry, Donald Trump or Subramanian Swamy as much as Jeremy Corbyn, Beppe Grillo, Bernie Sanders or Arvind Kejriwal.<div itemprop="articleBody">In all these cases, populists are willing to cross the lines that mainstream parties have flirted with, becoming forces that the centre cannot hold. US Republicans <a href="http://nbclatino.com/2013/07/24/poll-anti-immigrant-rhetoric-hurts-republicans-in-battleground-states/" target="_blank">fanned</a> the anti-immigration sentiments that first the Tea Party and then Trump are only taking to their natural conclusions, just as mainstream Democrats' economic protectionism has been seized upon by Sanders.Cameron's <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/bagehot/2011/11/britain-and-eu-0" target="_blank">euroscepticism</a>, explained away initially as constructive criticism, spiralled out of control with Brexit, just as those who pronounced the <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/8026708/Ed-Miliband-New-Labour-is-dead.html" target="_blank">death of New Labour</a> helped paved the way for Corbyn. Will the same one day apply in India, to the economic populism of the Congress, of which Kejriwal has become a new torchbearer, or to the chauvinism of the right, which Swamy now threatens to run away with?Brexit is not anti-globalization so much as a product of globalization. It is also a product of democracy rather than an affront to it. But it is a democracy of a different sort, one that many of its ideological forebears anticipated.<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">REUTERS/Neil HallVote leave supporters wave Union flags, following the result of the EU referendum, outside Downing Street in London, Britain June 24, 2016.</div></div></div>When James Madison <a href="http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa10.htm" target="_blank">warned</a> of "the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority," or John Stuart Mill <a href="https://books.google.co.in/books?id=7DcoAAAAYAAJ" target="_blank">cautioned</a> against "a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression," or BR Ambedkar <a href="https://books.google.co.in/books?id=Eio8BQAAQBAJ&amp;pg" target="_blank">argued</a> (in a slightly different context) that "political tyranny is nothing compared to social tyranny," they could just as easily have been speaking in 2016 as in 1787, 1859, or 1936. Democrats around the world may not yet be married to the mob, but plenty have been betrothed.None of this should be interpreted as some kind of nostalgia for an older, simpler world. That world was not necessarily simpler, but it was more <a href="http://www.amazon.in/Better-Angels-Our-Nature-Violence/dp/0143122010" target="_blank">violent and chaotic, prejudiced and unfair</a>, and <a href="http://www.amazon.in/Great-Escape-Health-Origins-Inequality/dp/0691165629" target="_blank">poor and backward</a>. It may be hard to discern amid the smoke and noise, but there are some benefits to digital democracy. Information is no longer in the hands of the few.It is easier than ever to bring injustices to light. And the same process can throw up mainstream leaders from backgrounds that are far from privileged, such as a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2015/05/26/heres-how-the-first-president-of-the-social-media-age-has-chosen-to-connect-with-americans/" target="_blank">Barack Obama</a>, <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/12/01/quiet-german" target="_blank">Angela Merkel</a>, or <a href="https://books.google.co.in/books?id=sJUfAwAAQBAJ&amp;pg=PT54#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false" target="_blank">Narendra Modi</a>. Two of the three, Obama and Modi, rose to power on the backs of unprecedented social media movements.But representative democracy as we have come to know it is under threat, and Brexit represents the first major casualty. Rather than fight the tide, a collective rethink is needed about how to make democracies resilient and productive in the digital age. It won't be easy.</div> <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/the-us-navy-just-flexed-its-muscles-in-the-worlds-most-contested-region-2016-6">The US Navy just flexed its muscles in the world's most contested region</a></h3> <div> <div> <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="pjZ21hNDE68K5rW-eqJMqAdR3UKOkBx3" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div> </div> </div> </div>

The Brexit is the first major casualty of digital democracy

In 1906, in a lodging house for Indian students in Highgate, a pleasant area of north London, a young lawyer called Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi dropped in on a law student called Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, who happened to be frying prawns at the time. Savarkar offered Gandhi some of his meal; Gandhi, a vegetarian, refused. Savarkar allegedly retorted that only a fool would attempt to resist the British without being fortified by animal protein.
The meeting is said to have begun hostilities between the two young Indian nationalists; whether or not the story is apocryphal, there were real reasons for antipathy.
The two men had very different approaches to the struggle against Britain. Gandhi, who became leader of the Indian National Congress (INC), was a pacifist with an inclusive attitude towards Muslims and Christians. Savarkar, who would lead the Hindu Mahasabha, was a right-wing majoritarian who spawned the idea of hindutva, or Hindu-ness--the belief that the Hindu identity is inseparable from the Indian identity. Congress eclipsed the Mahasabha and, since history belongs to the victors, the story of India's independence movement became one of non-violence. But the strand of thought that Savarkar represented was more important than is generally recognised, and is enjoying a revival.
A member of the Mahasabha broke away to form the paramilitary Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), or national volunteer organisation, in 1925, modelled, some say, on the British army. A social rather than explicitly political organisation, it presented itself as the world's largest non-governmental group, in which like-minded, khaki-uniformed men could gather for dawn calisthenics. It recruited boys at an impressionable age, as the Jesuits did, the better to inculcate them with discipline and with passion for the cause. One such was the eight-year-old Narendra Modi. The future prime minister attended training sessions with the RSS, was subsequently inducted as a cadet, and in 1985 was assigned by the RSS to its political wing, the Bharatiya Janata Party, which he rose to lead.
Mr Modi is India's strongest leader since Indira Gandhi, and its most controversial. The source of controversy is his failure in 2002, when chief minister of Gujarat, to avert a massacre of Muslims, which opponents attribute to a hostility to Muslims born of the ideology that Savarkar spawned. Mr Modi has never apologised for the massacre, though he said last year that he felt regret over them, as he would at seeing a puppy run over in the street. Nor has he made any attempt to distance himself from the RSS.
The RSS, meanwhile, is becoming more overtly political. Mohan Bhagwat, its current leader, is somewhat in the mould of Savarkar, paraphrasing his beliefs and promoting Hindutva. In August this year Mr Bhagwat directly echoed Savarkar by saying all who live in "Hindustan" are in fact Hindus, whatever Muslims, Christians or secular Hindus might say. More striking, the RSS leader has switched the organisation's methods. Now, far from eschewing party politics, the group has become an enthusiastic and effective actor within it. The RSS's millions of members and volunteers (no one knows just how many active ones there really are) played a big role in electing the BJP by a landslide in 2014. At least 19 ministers in government, including Mr Modi, have a background in the RSS. Its leaders are seconded to senior posts in the party too. So the ideas of the man who inspired the RSS matter more than ever before.
<h3>The naked jumper</h3>
The lawyer described by a British official in 1906 as "a small man with an intelligent face and a nervous manner" does not sound like the muscular hero that Indian nationalists crave, but Savarkar clearly had a certain dash. In 1910, while he was in London, he was charged with conspiring to wage war against the king and with providing weapons used to assassinate a Briton in the Indian civil service, sentenced to two life terms--50 years--in jail and sent back to India. While the steamship "Morea" was berthed in Marseille harbour, he slipped away from his guards, leapt, almost naked, into the sea and swam ashore. Unfortunately for the eulogists, he was promptly caught by French police and bundled back to the ship.
His daring did, however, win him fame, and also created legal history. France's government, annoyed that Britain had overseen an arrest on its territory, wanted Savarkar returned. Britain refused so the matter went to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. It ruled his arrest was indeed "irregular", but decided Savarkar might as well stay in India. The case was one of the earliest heard by the tribunal.
Savarkar's next stop was the Andaman Islands--a group of islands in the Bay of Bengal. This palm-fringed tropical paradise served as a penal colony for the British. Cellular Jail in the capital, Port Blair, is now a memorial for freedom campaigners. In a park opposite stands a row of statues of independence heroes. One is of a slender man with a pinched face behind round spectacles. A pen protrudes from his jacket pocket, one hand rests on a part-furled umbrella and the other wags a finger at the sky. You might mistake him for a prissy bank manager, but a plaque identifies him as Vinayak Damodar Savarkar. The park is named after him.
Ranjit Savarkar, his great-nephew, who runs the Savarkar trust, says that he showed great fortitude in jail. A trained yogi, he overcame thoughts of suicide. Other inmates nicknamed him "Barrister Babu", for his London legal training. Already a published historian and poet, he used Cellular Jail to work on his writing--literally: he wrote on its walls. He spent a decade there before being moved to the mainland in 1921. He was subsequently freed, after pledging to keep out of politics--a promise which the ideology he was developing in jail suggests he did not intend to keep.
A fierce nationalist, he adored Guiseppe Mazzini, who fought for the unification of Italy, writing about him in the hope of inspiring resistance to the British in India. Savarkar believed that India is really composed of, and must only be run by, Hindus. In his 1924 book, "Hindutva", he drew on cultural, philosophical and religious practices of ancient Hinduism, a rich faith that allows immense variety in how it is followed. But he also distinguished the ideology of hindutva--an attempt to unite disparate Hindus in a political project--from the religion. He himself was an atheist, and disapproved of aspects of traditional Hindu belief, dismissing cow worship as superstitious--a stance that would upset many today. He was an early outspoken opponent of caste discrimination. In the 1920s and 1930s others among the emerging Indian political elite opposed "untouchability", the rejection as sub-human of those considered "below caste". But Savarkar went further, saying modern India should drop altogether the idea of dividing people by caste.
His attitude towards Muslims, who made up a quarter of the population before partition, and other non-Hindus was less liberal. He regarded them as alien and separate, in effect not as real Indians. He was fiercely opposed to the formation of Pakistan and what his great-nephew calls the "appeasement" of Muslims. He believed that they, along with the Europeans, had crushed Hindus for a millennium--a sentiment echoed by Mr Modi in an address to parliament after his election this year, when he spoke of ending "1,200 years of slave mentality" in India.
Aside from his view of Muslims, the big difference between Savarkar and the nationalists in the INC lay in their contrasting attitudes to violence. He also wrote one of the first Indian accounts of the uprising in 1857, centred in Delhi. Known as the "Mutiny" to the British, it is referred to by many Indians as the "first war of independence"--echoing the title of Savarkar's book, "The Indian War of Independence". It was a gruesome episode, in which hundreds of thousands were killed, but Savarkar was untroubled by the violence, and seemed to justify the murders of British women and children. His works are steeped in a desire for revenge against those who have humiliated Hindus, and his frustration with the passivity of his co-religionists: "I want all Hindus to get themselves re-animated and re-born into a martial race." In his early years, he circulated manuals on bomb making. He approved of--and probably assisted in--the assassination of colonial administrators. He was suspected, for example, of encouraging a student radical who shot dead Sir Curzon Wyllie, a government official, one summer night on a Kensington street in 1909.
<h3>Rewriting history</h3>

Today, some Indians adulate him. On the day your correspondent called in at Cellular Jail, a party of jovial men in their 80s and 90s, an official "Eminent Committee of Freedom Fighters", was also visiting. Among the last surviving veterans who battled the British in the Quit India movement in the 1940s, they raised gnarled fists to chant "Jai Hind", posed for pictures and praised Savarkar as strong. The local MP called veer (brave) Savarkar a "ferocious, dangerous man who frightened off the British". Rashida Iqbal, the jail's curator, assessed him as "one of the most important freedom fighters". Port Blair's airport, like the park, bears his name. Some 2,000km away, in his native Maharashtra, a street and a park in Mumbai also each carry his name. (In London a blue plaque identifies his former home in Highgate.)
Savarkar's enthusiasm for violence sits uncomfortably with conventional ideas of how India got its independence. India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and then the Congress party (successor to the INC) promoted a pacifist narrative of history, the idea that Gandhi and the likes of B.R. Ambedkar, a social reformer who inspired the Modern Buddhist Movement, triumphed through non-violent resistance. That meant downplaying the bloodshed of 1857, in which atrocities were perpetrated by both sides, and also the roles of Savarkar, Subhas Chandra Bose and Vallabhbhai Patel.
Bose, the Bengali leader of an Indian National Army against the British in the second world war and an ally of Hitler and imperial Japan, led some 40,000 soldiers against the British. (He didn't get far, though the Japanese briefly handed him control of the Andamans.) Patel, the "Iron Man of India", had the Bismarckian task of uniting the country. He oversaw the integration of 562 princely states into India, threatening and using military force. Operation Polo in 1948, a five-day conquest of Hyderabad, a wealthy and Muslim-run state in the south, was bloody indeed. Official estimates, only made public in 2013, suggest the fighting and subsequent Hindu-Muslim clashes there killed between 27,000 and 40,000 people. Some historians claim the real toll might have been five times higher.
The way the story of Indian independence is told is beginning to change. Mr Modi and the BJP are keen to celebrate muscular, nationalist figures. Patel is likely to have a much higher profile in future: in the national budget, in July 2014, the government set aside $32m to erect a statue of him in Gujarat, twice the size of the Statue of Liberty, by 2018. And while Mr Modi frequently invokes Gandhi's name and beliefs, he refers almost as often to Swami Vivekananda, a 19th-century nationalist who revived Hinduism and promoted it abroad. Mr Modi is said to be named after him (the swami was originally called Narendra Nath Datta) and frequently poses before his photograph. Vivekananda's ideas on invigorating Hinduism foreshadowed Savarkar's hindutva project.
Savarkar's profile is lower, but is also rising. Educational comics, hagiographies and patriotic films retell parts of his life story. In 2008 Mr Modi, then chief minister of Gujarat, inaugurated a website (savarkar.org) that promotes a man "largely unknown to the masses because of the vicious propaganda against him and misunderstanding around him that has been created over several decades", and in 2012 he launched a Gujarati-language biopic. A previous BJP-led government put Savarkar's portrait in parliament. On his birthday this year, May 28th, the prime minister paid homage to him there. Mr Modi tweeted about Savarkar's "tireless efforts towards the regeneration of our motherland". Ranjit Savarkar's group plans various events to mark the 50th anniversary of Savarkar's death in 1966. (Aged 83, he submitted to what he called atmaarpan--refusing food, water or medicine in order to die. It took 20 days.)
Yet Savarkar remains immensely divisive. He was a fiercely outspoken critic of Gandhi, still India's top national hero: he called Gandhi weak, a "sissy" and far too willing to collaborate with Britain. Gandhian talk of man's common humanity he regarded as utopian to the point of naivety. In articles from the 1920s to the 1940s Savarkar lambasted Gandhi as a "crazy lunatic" who "happens to babble...[about] compassion, forgiveness", yet "notwithstanding his sublime and broad heart, the Mahatma has a very narrow and immature head." Gandhi promoted ahimsa, a Buddhist rejection of violence which Savarkar called "mealy-mouthed". He said Gandhi was a hypocrite for supporting violence by the British against Germany in the first world war. Nor did he cheer Gandhi's prominent backing for the Ottoman Caliphate Movement, designed to win Indian Muslims to oppose British colonial rule.
Over the years, Savarkar was eclipsed by his rival. During the 1920s and 1930s, the INC benefited from its ability to claim plausibly that it spoke for Muslims as well as Hindus, which made it a more credible interlocutor with the colonial authorities. Perhaps more important, it had an impressive organisation and, in Gandhi and later in Nehru, accomplished political leaders.
By the mid 1940s Savarkar and his supporters in the Mahasabha (which he led until his death) had a new gripe against Gandhi. They were enraged at the prospect of Pakistan seceding from India. Gandhi, in their eyes, did nothing to stop that "vivisection". Worse, he seemed to favour Pakistan when it sent forces to violently seize Kashmir, evidence to Savarkar that warlike Muslims were again crushing passive Hindus. When Nehru applied economic sanctions on Pakistan (refusing to pass on its share of central-bank funds from before independence), Gandhi launched a fast in protest and forced him to back down. To Savarkar's followers in the Mahasabha, that constituted national betrayal.
On January 30th 1948 Gandhi was assassinated in Delhi. The killer, Nathuram Godse, was a member of the Mahasabha, edited its newspaper and was an associate of Savarkar's. Godse's explanation of his actions echoed Savarkar: he said he murdered Gandhi for his "false notions of Hindu-Muslim unity" and in fury over the secession of Pakistan. Savarkar was arrested and tried as a plotter in the murder. He denied all and was acquitted. That did not convince everybody. As the leader of the Mahasabha, who had praised the efficacy of violence and railed against Muslims, it was reasonable to suspect he had at least inspired Gandhi's killer. A.G. Noorani, author of a book on Savarkar and Godse, goes further. He draws a parallel to the Kensington murder of Wylie in 1909, saying the elder man had twice pressed others to pull the trigger. "I would definitely call him complicit in the assassination of Gandhi," he concludes. He points, too, to an official commission of inquiry into Gandhi's death, in the late 1960s, which drew on testimony unavailable at the original trial. It found the evidence was "destructive of any theory other than the conspiracy to murder by Savarkar and his group". Following Gandhi's murder the RSS was also banned, for a year. Yet the final reason why Savarkar should remain unacceptable in modern India goes beyond suspicion over Gandhi's murder. It lies in his attitude to his fellow, non-Hindu, Indians. In his own writing he relates joyfully how as a 12-year-old boy he led a gang of schoolmates to stone his village mosque and smash its windows and tiles, in the aftermath of Hindu-Muslim riots. Relating how "we vandalised the mosque to our heart's content", he adds that when confronted by Muslim boys, he and his pals wielded knives and sticks and chased them away.
Throughout his writing he sets out Muslims as savage, immoral, sensual and eager to destroy the Hindu way of life. In 1937 he wrote of there being "two antagonistic nations living side by side in India", an idea that relies on using religion as the defining characteristic of any Indian, one utterly against the secular constitution of India. And while he occasionally wrote admiringly of the political and religious fervour of Islam, or rather of Muslim political leaders, he did so to encourage his fellow Hindus to match or exceed it.
In India today the fear of communal clashes--between Hindus and Muslims--should not be overblown. But it is never far away. Especially before elections, parties exploit religious tensions. Those who promote hindutva and echo Savarkar whip up stories of "love jihad", alleging that Muslim men convert large numbers of Hindu women by seducing them. Earlier this month a BJP parliamentarian praised Godse as a "patriot" equal to Gandhi. Members of the increasingly influential RSS feel emboldened. Such majoritarian politics, when a larger religious group sets out to absorb or flatten a minority, is utterly destructive. One need only look at the failure of Pakistan as a reminder of that. Sarvarkar could be a brilliant, eloquent and progressive leader. He could also be extremist, violent and divisive. If his influence grows, India's tolerance and moderation will be at risk.
"Notwithstanding his...broad heart, the Mahatma has a very narrow and immature head," wrote Savarkar
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Savarkar (back row, second left) was arrested and tried as a plotter in Gandhi's murder. He was acquitted
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