Savarkar used to eat meat, was not against cow slaughter, says Min Dinesh Gundu Rao

Karnataka Health Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao has claimed that Hindutva ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar used to eat meat and was not against cow slaughter.

“Savarkar, a ‘Chitpavan Brahmin’, used to eat meat. He was a non-veg eater and he was not against cow slaughter. He was modern in a way,” he said at an event here on Wednesday.

“Some say that he used to eat beef as well. As a Brahmin, he used to eat meat and was openly propagating eating meat. So he had that thinking,” the Minister claimed.

Rao added that Mahatma Gandhi was a vegetarian and had a firm faith in Hinduism “but his actions were different. He was a democratic person.” “(Founder of Pakistan Muhammad Ali) Jinnah was another extreme. He was a hardcore Islamist believer. He used to drink wine and it is said that he used to eat pork as well but he became a Muslim icon after the two-nation theory and politics. But Jinnah was not a fundamentalist but Savarkar was a fundamentalist,” he said.