Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (), Marathi pronunciation: [ʋinaːjək saːʋəɾkəɾ]; also commonly known as Veer Savarkar (28 May 1883 – 26 February 1966), was an Indian politician, activist, and writer. Savarkar developed the Hindu nationalist political ideology of Hindutva while imprisoned at Ratnagiri in 1922. He was a leading figure in the Hindu Mahasabha. He started using the honorific prefix Veer meaning "brave" since he wrote his autobiography. Savarkar joined the Hindu Mahasabha and popularized the term Hindutva (Hinduness), previously coined by Chandranath Basu, to create a collective "Hindu" identity as an essence of Bharat (India). Savarkar was an atheist but a pragmatic practitioner of Hindu philosophy. Savarkar began his political activities as a high school student and continued to do so at Fergusson College in Pune. He and his brother founded a secret society called Abhinav Bharat Society. When he went to the United Kingdom for his law studies, he involved himself with organizations such as India House and the Free India Society. He also published books advocating complete Indian independence by revolutionary means. One of the books he published called The Indian War of Independence about the Indian Rebellion of 1857 was banned by the British colonial authorities. In 1910, Savarkar was arrested and ordered to be extradited to India for his connections with the revolutionary group India House. On the voyage back to India, Savarkar staged an attempt to escape jumping from steamship SS Morea and seek asylum in France while the ship was docked in the port of Marseilles. The French port officials however handed him back to the British government. On return to India, Savarkar was sentenced to life terms of imprisonment totaling fifty years and was moved to the Cellular Jail in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. He was released in 1924 by the British officials after he wrote a series of mercy petitions to the British. He virtually stopped any criticism of the British regime after he was released from jail. After 1937, he started traveling widely, becoming a forceful orator and writer, advocating Hindu political and social unity. In 1938, he was a president of Marathi Sahitya Sammelan in Mumbai. Serving as the president of the Hindu Mahasabha, Savarkar endorsed the idea of India as a Hindu Rashtra (Hindu Nation). Savarkar assured the Sikhs that "when the Muslims woke from their day-dreams of Pakistan, they would see established instead a Sikhistan in the Punjab."