"Back in mainland India, a new movement was brewing. It is important to understand this issue because it sets the context in which Vinayak penned his magnum opus on Hindutva and his belief in the need for Hindu society to organize itself politically. The concept of Hindutva continues to be a contentious one in Indian politics even today..... Meanwhile, it was in the dark confines of Ratnagiri prison that Vinayak began writing his magnum opus on his political philosophy—his conception of what constituted a ‘Hindu nationalist identity’. These were distilled from his experiences in the Andaman and Ratnagiri jails with respect to the conversions, his own attempts at shuddhi and sangathan and the raging debates in the country surrounding the Khilafat agitation. The word that he popularized and which holds immense political currency in contemporary India was ‘Hindutva’ or ‘Hindu-ness’."
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Vinayak Damodar Savarkar
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (May 28, 1883 – February 26, 1966) was an Indian politician and ideologue. Savarkar developed the Hindu nationalist political ideology of Hindutva while confined at Ratnagiri in 1923. The prefix "Veer" (meaning 'brave') was given by himself when he penned his own biography under the pseudonym Chitragupta. He was a leading figure in the Hindu Mahasabha.
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