Was Savarkar Convicted For Attempting Rape On An English Woman In 1908? Know The Viral Truth Here!

A claim accusing V.D. Savarkar of attempted rape of an English woman named Margaret Lawrence in 1908 is going viral on social media. The claim is going viral in the context of the Bilkis Bano case, where eleven convicts who were serving life sentences for rape and murders were released from prison on 15 August.

Claim:

The following claim is viral across Twitter: "Savarkar's first conviction was for the attempted rape of Margaret Lawrence in 1908. He confessed to the crime and was sentenced to 4 months in jail. This 'sanskari' low criminal is Sangh Parivar's role model today. No wonder most of them are rapists. #BilkisBetrayed".

Actor and activist Mona Ambegaonkar also shared this tweet with a similar claim. However, she later deleted the tweet. Below you can see the screenshot.

It is being widely shared on Facebook and Twitter with a similar claim.

The Logical Indian received several messages on our WhatsApp fact check no. +91-6364000343 requesting to fact check the claim.

Fact Check:

The Logical Indian fact check team verified the viral claim and found it to be false. We found that a person named Agamya Guru committed the crime.

We conducted a keyword search with relevant keywords such as 'Margaret Lawrence Savarkar'. We found this article published in Telegraph India on October 19, 2009.

The article describes the Nasik Conspiracy Case of 1909. In the case, on 21 December 1909, A.M.T. Jackson, the then collector of Nasik, was murdered in a theatre. The article states that Savarkar was accused of supplying the pistols which were used by his assassins. Following this, a special magistrate in Nashik issued an arrest warrant on 17 January 1910.

As per the Telegraph article, Savarkar fled away to Paris but returned to London on 13 March 1910. "There is a story that he was missing Margaret Lawrence, his girlfriend, but his supporters consider it slander." the article states.

We searched through biographies written on V.D. Savarkar with relevant keywords such as Margaret Lawrence. We looked through historian Vikram Sampath's biography of Savarkar, 'Savarkar: Echoes from a Forgotten Past, 1883-1924'

The book provides context through the Nashik Conspiracy Case of 1909, where Anant Lakshaman Karkare shot dead the district magistrate of Nasik. In this case, Savarkar was implicated as a suspect, leading to his arrest and deportation. As per Sampath, British officials were determined to prosecute Savarkar and began building up a case against him for sedition in India. Out of these accusations, one included him falling prey to a "honeytrap Margaret Lawrence", which as per the author, the British agencies had set up for him.

On page 247, Sampath terms these accusations baseless, saying, "this insinuation has no basis, and there has been no reference or details available about the lady. These are as wild and contradictory to the other often repeated innuendos about Vinayak that 'he had been a consumer of opium for years."

We conducted a keyword search in Dhananjay Keer's biography on Savarkar, Veer Savarkar, using terms such as 1908. On page 24, we came across an incident involving Savarkar and a person named Agamva Guru.

As per an archived copy of the book, Savarkar met Agamva Guru on February 23, 1906, as a leader of the students' delegation. As per Keer, the author remarks that the meeting between Savarkar and the Guru soured, terming the Agamya Guru as "abstruse". Keer then states, "Nobody knows what happened to this mystic except that early in 1908 he was found guilty of outraging the modesty of an English girl in London and was released after undergoing a term of four months in a British jail."

We then conducted a keyword search to find whether Savarkar had commented on the Agamva Guru. We came across the biography 'Inside the Enemy Camp' by V.D Savarkar.

On pages 62-63 of the book, Savarkar wrote, "My contact with the Guru was very short…." He noted that he met Dadarao Karandikar, a follower of Lokmanya Tilak, who said the following about Agamya Guru: "I met Agamya Guru in London in 1908, and later, he was sent to prison for trying to molest an English girl.' Savarkar adds, "I met Agamya Guru after he had served his sentence, and that was the end of it."

In our Fact Check, we conducted a keyword search for Agamya Guru and came across a New York Times article published on July 12, 1908. The title states, 'Mahatma Goes to Prison: Agamya Guru's Career Ended by Girl's Charges."

In our Fact Check, we also came across tweet replies to Mona Ambegaonkar's deleted tweet. Historian Vaibhav Purandare, author of Savarkar: True Story of the Father of Hindutva, rubbished the claims made by Ambegaonkar, saying that the British kept extensive records against Savarkar. "No way they wouldn't mention such a thing if it ever happened," he said.

Vikram Sampath, the noted historian and author of two biographies on Savarkar, termed the claims "fake news." He said, " No British records or the case files running into thousands of pages on the Nasik Murder case & conspiracy case has any mention of such an incident."

Conclusion:

We found that Savarkar's biographies did not mention any such cases against him. Margaret Lawrence is mentioned as his partner and even a honeytrap, but in both cases, historians have rubbished the claims as unsubstantial.

Through our Fact Check, we found that a person named Agamya Guru committed the alleged incident. The Guru had minimal contact with Savarkar, and the Hindutva leader acknowledges his sexual misconduct in his memoir. Thus, we can ascertain that the claim is false.

If you have any news that you believe needs to be fact-checked, please email us at factcheck@thelogicalindian.com or WhatsApp at 6364000343.

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