atheist, Savarkar regards being Hindu as a cultural and political identity. He often stressed social and community unity between Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains, to the exclusion of Muslims and Christians. Savarkar saw Muslims and Christians as "misfits" in the Indian civilization who could not truly be a part of the nation. He argued that the holiest sites of Islam and Christianity are in the Middle East and not India, hence the loyalty of Muslims and Christians to India is divided. After his release from jail on 6 January 1924, Savarkar helped found the Ratnagiri Hindu Sabha organisation, aiming to work for the social and cultural preservation of Hindu heritage and civilisation. Focusing his energies on writing, Savarkar authored the Hindu Pad-pada-shahi – a book documenting the Maratha empire – and My Transportation for Life – an account of his early revolutionary days, arrest, trial and incarceration. He also wrote and published a collection of poems, plays and novels. He also wrote a book named Majhi Janmathep ("My Life-term") about his experience in Andaman prison. Hindu orthodoxy He was an ardent critique of Hindu religious practices he saw as irrational and viewed them as a hindrance to the material progress of the Hindus. He believed that religion is an unimportant aspect of "Hindu identity". He was strictly against the caste system and in his 1931 essay titled Seven Shackles of the Hindu Society, he wrote "One of the most important components of such injunctions of the past that we have blindly carried on and which deserves to be thrown in the dustbins of history is the rigid caste system". Fascism In a speech before a 20,000 strong audience at Pune on 1 August 1938, Savarkar stood by Germany's right to Nazism and Italy's to Fascism; their achievement of unprecedent glory in the world-stage and a successful inculcation of national solidarity justified those choices. Savarkar criticized Nehru for denouncing Germany and Italy, proclaiming that "crores of Hindu Sanghatanists in India [..] cherish[ed] no ill-will towards Germany or Italy or Japan." He proclaimed his support for the German occupation of Czechoslovakia in the same breath. As World War II become imminent, Savarkar had initially advocated a policy of neutralism centered on India's geostrategic equations but his rhetoric grew coarser with time and he expressed consistent support for Hitler's policy about Jews. In a speech on October 14, it was suggested that Hitler's