Vinayak Damodar Savarkar is the new icon in Bollywood. Randeep Hooda's Swatantra Veer Savarkar, written by Utkarsh Naithani, is already making news for suggesting that the Hindutva star inspired Bhagat Singh, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose and Khudiram Bose. Hooda, an old hand at playing real characters, really got into the persona, losing 26 kg for the role. Its tagline, #WhoKilledHisStory suggests a conspiracy of silence around Savarkar. Produced by real estate developer-turned producer Anand Pandit and Sanjay Leela Bhansali's former associate Sandeep Singh, it's not the only Savarkar film in the works. Ram Charan has announced he is producing The India House, about Savarkar's years in London. India House was a student residence that existed between 1905 and 1910 in north London, and under the patronage of lawyer Shyamji Krishna Varma, it promoted nationalist views among Britain's Indian students. Prime Minister Narendra Modi famously got Varma's ashes back to India from the Switzerland government when he was the chief minister of Gujarat in 2003. The India House will have Varma played by Anupam Kher, with Nikhil Siddhartha who was in the sleeper Kannada hit Karthikeya 2, playing the Hindu Mahasabha President Savarkar. Now comes the announcement that writer-director Yogesh Soman is making a Hindi web series, Veer Savarkar: Secret Files. Savarkar's role is being played by Saurabh Gokhale. But perhaps the first filmmaker in recent times who paid tribute to Savarkar should not be forgotten. That was Priyadarshan who featured Savarkar's character in his 1996 film Kaalapani, the local name for the Cellular Jail in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Played by Annu Kapoor, he was shown in a heroic light, as a protester against the inhuman prison conditions and as an evangelist of tolerance and liberalism inherent in Hinduism. Utkarsh Naithani says "Swatantra Veer Savarkar is yet again telling a story that we have known of, but somehow were conditioned to think that his story is inappropriate for cinema. Else, we would've had half-a-dozen movies made on such a dramatic life. When Randeep and I worked on the scenes, we often felt a special sense of responsibility, like we were sharing something precious that had been kept hidden from us." The next series of pro-Hindutva films to be announced? Watch this space for more movies like Accident or Conspiracy Godhra, based on the 2002 riots in Gujarat and the Nanavati Commission.

Matthew Macfadyen

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