UK Legacy & Historical Footprint
Vinayak Damodar Savarkar arrived in London on 3 July 1906, having sailed from Mumbai on the S.S. Persia after winning the Shivaji Scholarship from Pandit Shyamji Krishna Varma to study law. His move to London marked a decisive phase in his evolution — his charisma and ideological clarity drew Indian students together and gave their nationalism organisation and purpose.
He took up residence at India House in Highgate and founded the Free India Society in 1906 to organise Indian students abroad and promote complete independence. He was admitted to Gray's Inn to study law on 26 July 1906, but his real work was the press, the lecture hall, and the archive. He produced newsletters and articles advocating a national Indian army, documented parliamentary debates on India, and — after Shyamji Krishna Varma relocated to Paris in 1907 — took charge of India House itself, which the London press came to call "The House of Mystery."
In May 1907 Savarkar led a defiant counter-celebration at India House marking fifty years since 1857, insisting that the events be remembered not as a "mutiny" but as the "First War of Indian Independence." That conviction became his most influential book, The Indian War of Independence 1857, researched in the India Office library and pursued to publication despite a British ban. He also designed an early flag for a free India, unfurled by Madame Bhikaji Cama at the International Socialist Congress in Stuttgart in August 1907.
The assassination of Sir Curzon Wyllie by his associate Madan Lal Dhingra on 1 July 1909 led to the closure of India House and intense police pressure on Savarkar. He moved between lodgings, recuperated briefly in Brighton — where, by the sea, he composed the Marathi poem Sāgarā Prāṇ Talmalā — and convalesced from pneumonia in Wales. Re-arrested at London Victoria on 13 March 1910 under the Fugitive Offenders Act, he was held at Brixton Prison; on the orders of Home Secretary Winston Churchill he was returned to India on the S.S. Morea on 1 July 1910, four years after he had arrived.
Chronological Timeline
- 9 June 1906 — Sails from Mumbai on the S.S. Persia.
- 3 July 1906 — Arrives in London; takes up residence at India House.
- 26 July 1906 — Admitted to Gray's Inn to study law.
- May 1907 — Leads the India House commemoration of the 1857 "First War of Independence."
- August 1907 — His flag design is unfurled by Bhikaji Cama at Stuttgart.
- 1909 — Publishes The Indian War of Independence 1857.
- July 1909 — India House closes after the Curzon Wyllie assassination.
- 13 March 1910 — Re-arrested at London Victoria; held at Brixton Prison.
- 1 July 1910 — Deported to India aboard the S.S. Morea.
Legacy
Savarkar's years in Britain transformed a provincial revolutionary into a figure the Empire regarded as one of its most dangerous adversaries. The networks he built at India House — touching figures such as Lala Har Dayal, Madame Bhikaji Cama, V. V. S. Aiyar and Madan Lal Dhingra — extended the Indian freedom struggle into the heart of London. His writing reframed how Indians remembered 1857, and his insistence that "independence is never given; it is always taken" influenced a generation of revolutionaries, including Bhagat Singh, who republished his banned history. His London chapter remains one of the most consequential episodes of the Indian revolutionary movement abroad.