Oh Martyrs

The Battle of Freedom once begun and Handed down from sire to son
Though often lost is ever won!!
Today is the tenth of May! It was on this day that in the ever memorable
year of 1857, the first campaign of the War of Independence was opened by
you, Oh Martyrs, on the battlefield of India. The Motherland, awakened to
the sense of her degrading slavery, unsheathed her sword, burst forth from
the shackles and struck the first blow for her liberty and for her honour. It
was on this day that the war-cry ‘Maro Feringhi Ko’ was raised by the
throats of thousands. It was on this day that the sepoys of Meerut, having
risen in a terrible uprising, marched down to Delhi, saw the waters of the
Jumna, glittering in the sunshine, caught one of those historical moments
which closed past epoch to introduce a new one, and ‘had found, in a
moment, a leader, a flag and a cause, and converted the mutiny into a
national and a religious war.
All honour be to you, oh Martyrs. For it was for the preservation of the
honour of the race that you performed the fiery ordeal of a revolution when
the religions of the land were threatened with a forcible and sinister
conversion, when the, hypocritc threw off his friendly garb and stood up
into the naked heinousness of a perfidious foe breaking treaties, smashing
crowns, forging chains and mocking all the while our merciful mother for
the very honesty with which she believed the pretensions of the white liar,
then you, oh Martyrs of 1857, awoke the mother, inspired the mother, and
for the honour of the mother, rushed to the battlefield terrible and
tremendous with the war-cry ‘Maro Feringhi Ko’ on your lips, and with the
sacred mantra of God and Hindusthan on your banner! Well did you do in,
rising. For otherwise, although your blood might have been spared, yet the
stigma of servility would have been the deeper, one more link would have
been added to the cursed chain of demoralising patience, and the world
would have again contemptuously pointed to our nation saying, ‘She
deserves slavery, she is happy in slavery.’ For even in 1857, she did not
raise even a finger to protect her interest and her honour!’
This day, therefore, we dedicate, oh Martyrs, to your inspiring memory! It
was on this day that you raised a new flag to be upheld, you uttered a
mission to be fulfilled, you saw a vision to be realized, you proclaimed a
nation to be born!