India, June 19 -- The recent acknowledgment in a Pune court by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar's grandson that Savarkar submitted ten mercy petitions to the British Government has once again reignited a familiar political controversy. Predictably, the usual chorus has returned. For decades, Savarkar's detractors have seized upon these petitions to label him "Maafiveer," portraying him as a man who capitulated before the British Empire. Yet the fact that these petitions existed has never been hidden from history. Scholars, biographers, researchers, and even Savarkar's admirers have acknowledged them for years. The issue, therefore, is not whether the petitions were written. The real issue is why they were written, under what circumstances they we...