The Origin of Indian Nationalism: Mazzini's Influence on Savarkar, Gandhi and other Freedom Fighters

Abstract

This thesis examines the ideological and intellectual influence of Giuseppe Mazzini, the Italian revolutionary nationalist, on Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, a central and contested figure in the articulation of Hindutva and militant Indian nationalism. Situating Savarkar within a modernist framework of nationalism, the study analyses how Mazzini’s political thought—particularly his conception of freedom as a sacred moral duty—was selectively interpreted, reconfigured, and embedded within Indian anti-colonial discourse. The thesis also situates Savarkar’s engagement with Mazzini within a wider spectrum of Indian nationalist responses, encompassing political, spiritual, and ethical reinterpretations.

By tracing Indian intellectual encounters with Mazzini’s writings, with particular attention to Savarkar’s formative years in London, the study demonstrates that European revolutionary traditions were not merely admired but systematically adapted to local cultural, religious, and political contexts. Drawing comparative parallels with the Italian Risorgimento, the thesis shows how Indian revolutionaries appropriated Mazzinian principles of national unity, sacrifice, and political commitment in their struggle against British colonial rule.

Whereas Mazzini’s nationalism was grounded in a Christian conception of divine obligation, Savarkar reformulated these ideas into a secular, geopolitical ideology of Hindutva aimed at consolidating a unified Hindu nation-state.

The thesis further examines the varied receptions of Mazzini’s ideas among other Indian nationalist figures, including Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Sri Aurobindo Ghosh, and Lala Lajpat Rai, who engaged with his call for militant self-assertion and political activism. In contrast, Mohandas Gandhi selectively appropriated Mazzini’s conception of freedom as a moral duty while rejecting his endorsement of violence, instead advancing non-violence (ahimsa) and truth (satya) as the ethical foundations of India’s freedom struggle.