Savarkar wrote the pamphlet while imprisoned in Ratnagiri jail. It was smuggled out of the prison and was published by Savarkar's supporters under his alias "Mahratta."
An atheist, Savarkar regards Hinduism as an ethnic, cultural and political identity. Hindus, according to Savarkar, are patriotic inhabitants of Bharatavarsha, those who consider India (Bharat) to be their fatherland (pitribhumi) as well as their "holyland" (punyabhumi). Savarkar thus extends the concept of Hindu beyond religious adherence to a term of ethnic nationalism and irredentism, identifying Hindus with the inheritors of a postulated Aryan race "indigenous" to Greater India. Sarvakar includes all Dharmic religions in the term "Hindusim" and outlines his vision of a "Hindu Rashtra" (Hindu Nation) as "Akhand Bharat" (United India), stretching across the entire Indian subcontinent.
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