వినాయక్ దామోదర్ సావర్కర్
On 8 November 1963, Savarkar's wife, Yamuna, died. On 1 February 1966, Savarkar renounced medicines, food and water which he termed as "atmaarpan" (fast until death). Before his death he had written an article titled "Atmahatya Nahi Atmaarpan" in which he argued that when one's life mission is over and ability to serve the society is left no more, it is better to end the life at will rather than waiting for death. He died on 26 February 1966 at the age of 83. He was mourned by large crowds that attended his cremation. He left behind a son Vishwas and a daughter Prabha Chiplunkar. His first son, Prabhakar, had died in infancy. His home, possessions and other personal relics have been preserved for public display.There was no official mourning by the then Congress party government of Maharashtra or at the centre
.The indifference to Savarkar continued long after his death
Although Savarkar is regarded as a Hindu Nationalist, he professed atheism (nastika) and therefore did not belong to any orthodox school of Hindu faith. It should however, be noted that atheism within Hinduism is different from it's Western counterpart. Many Hindus do not profess belief in deities or a God, as it is not a single religion, but a collection of many diverse philosophies and faiths. Savarkar still had spirituality, and a mystical view of life, and gave great importance to mythology and symbolism.
వినాయక్ దామోదర్ సావర్కర్
Savarkar wrote more than 10,000 pages in the Marathi language. His literary works in Marathi include ""Kamala"", ""Mazi Janmathep"" (My Life Sentence), and most famously "1857 - The First War of Independence", in which Savarkar popularised the term "First War of Independence" for what the British referred to as the "Sepoy Mutiny". Another book was "Kale Pani" ("Black Water" which means "life sentence" on the island prison on the Andaman islands), which reflected the treatment of Indian Independence activists by the British. To counter the then British propagated view that India's history was a saga of continuous defeat, he wrote an inspirational historical work, "Saha Soneri Pane" (Six Golden Pages), recounting some of the "Golden periods" of Indian history. At the same time, religious divisions in India were beginning to be exacerbated. He described what he saw as the atrocities of British and Muslims on Hindu residents in Kerala in the book, "Mopalyanche Band" (Muslims' Strike) and also "Gandhi Gondhal" (Gandhi's Confusion), a political critique of Gandhi's politics. Savarkar, by now, had become a committed and persuasive critic of the Gandhian vision of India's future.