भारतीय इतिहास के ६ स्वर्णिम पृष्ठ (वीर सावरकर - विदेशी आक्रान्ताओं पर विजय गाथा)

(b) Then again what had come of the movement of sending a general and
mob petition—of which you did not speak in your last. That idea should not
be dropped at all. I believe you have only postponed it in order to put it
foreward more effectively at the end of the war. If it is so, all right. In the
meanwhile, I saw in one of the letters here that a petition for the release of
P.P.s had been forwarded to Montague, while he was in India. How far is
this correct? (c) The campaign of the meetings of which, once you spoke,
should be kept in view and not only once but almost every year, it should be
carried on. (d) The Congress, the P. conferences, the petitioning of the
individual members, families, special series of meetings arranged for this
purpose, the constant attention of the press, questions in the Viceregal and
Provincial Councils and in the Parliament: all this and each of this must be
systematically and persistently carried year in and year out till, the amnesty
question becomes a necessity of the politics there. In each of your letter,
please give me a summary of what could be done in each of these
directions, and forget not to make clear the meaning of the ‘political
prisoners’ whenever resolutions and articles talk about it to the people and
the Government as well.
Throughout the discussion, I must frankly admit, I have aimed not so
much at the result of the agitation as to the moral effect of it. I know and
have clearly written to the Government in one of my petitions last year that
the question of a general amnesty of the political prisoners is closely and
inevitably bound up with the question of the establishment of a progressive
and really constitutional Government in India. So, the chances of such an
amnesty being actually granted are not and cannot be immediately and
primarily expected. But though, thus, we should fully realize the
impossibility of any actual results being attained, yet we should not lose
sight of the moral ones, which would reward our efforts immediately by an
elevation of the national tone and character and which, by reminding the
nation of the sufferings of their martyrs and soldiers and victims that fought
for the success of the common cause, and more enthuse the people to see
the fight continuned and fought out to its ultimate victory. Gratefully
remembering the soldiers, who fell, is the most effective way of recruiting
more soldiers to continue the fight.
In the petition, to which I referred to above, I had put before Mr.
Montague and the Viceroy, a frank statement of the case of such an
amnesty as this. The main points being that while they were considering