“80:20”. Yogi Adityanath’s opening gambit for UP elections.

Corrosive. Divisive. Ugly.

Is that the conversation India needs at 75? Is this faultline even real?

As fights over history & Hindutva dominate our national life, historian VIKRAM SAMPATH lays bare the story of the complex & controversial founder of the ideology: Veer Savarkar.

What was the context in which these ideas took root? What were the mistakes made by different leaders? Was there a white-washing of history? Can revisiting it heal?

How did a man who believed India to be “rainbow of religions” transform into a Hindutva ideologue? Why did the father of Hindutva scorn the RSS?

“India has a beautiful capacity to pull the far right & far left to the centre,” says Sampath. “By the time Savarkar came to a position of power in the Hindu Mahasabha, he had dropped many of his own extreme ideas.”

This wide-ranging & fascinating conversation has many surprises.