Nashik in the freedom struggle: the Savarkar brothers and Abhinav Bharat

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar was born on 28 May 1883 at Bhagur, a small town near Nashik, as were his brothers Ganesh (Babarao) and Narayan. Their family home in Bhagur is now kept as a memorial.

As a student in Nashik, Vinayak started a youth group called the Mitra Mela in 1899. In 1904 it became Abhinav Bharat, a secret society that wanted to end British rule, if necessary by force.

In 1909 Babarao Savarkar was sentenced to transportation for life for publishing patriotic poems. On 21 December that year, the Nashik Collector A. M. T. Jackson was shot dead at the Vijayanand Theatre in the city by eighteen-year-old Anant Kanhere.

Kanhere and two companions, Krishnaji Karve and Vinayak Deshpande, were hanged in April 1910. The investigation that followed, known as the Nashik Conspiracy Case, led to dozens of arrests.

Vinayak Savarkar, then in London, was arrested in 1910. While being taken to India by ship he tried to escape at Marseilles in France, an event that later went to an international court. He was sentenced to two terms of transportation for life and sent to the Cellular Jail in the Andaman Islands in 1911, where Babarao was also held.

He was later moved to India and released under restrictions in 1924. His later political life and ideas remain a subject of debate, but his early years tie him closely to Nashik.

Bhagur is about 15 km from Nashik, near Deolali. The Savarkar birthplace memorial is a short visit and can be combined with the Pandav Leni caves and the Phalke Smarak on the same side of the city.