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

of blood of the Hindu men and women, children and old people, began to
flow through every house and every street. Not a single young Hindu
woman escaped kidnapping. Not a single cow was spared her life. The
innocent blood of the cows, too, flowed like water. Those Muslim demons
were neither satisfied with nor tired of this brutality. On the country, in order
to adorn these devilish acts of theirs with their diabolic artistic sense, they
travestied the ceremony of the Hindu Rangpanchami, which happened to be
at that time. And how? Big cauldrons and vessels full of Hindu blood newly
shed, were kept at different places at short intervals, and the Muslim
solidiers with large syringes in hand went on drenching the Hindus in every
street and every home in their own blood. The same was the miserable fate
of the next town of Gokul, Vrindavan. But the moment he got the news that
Rughunathrao had left Indore and proceeded with a large army to destroy
him, that self-styled Shahenshah, Abdali, hurried for life to Delhi with all his
army and thence to Lahore and onwards straight to Kabul!
1078. Although the very same Maratha force that had beaten back
Abdali’s army straight beyond the (North West) frontier (of India) were now
returning to the Deccan after glorious victories in Punjab and were visiting
the same holy places of Mathura [wrongly spelt Mattra, CHI (1939) and by
other writers] Gokul, Vrindavan, and while they were performing their
religious rites and having ceremonial baths in the holy rivers, while again
they were listening to the harrowing accounts of the Muslim atrocities on
the Hindus and their religion, perpetrated only a year ago, while still the
Hindu blood spilled profusely by the Muslims on the well-built banks (घाट
ghats) of the Jamuna at Mathura had not yet completely dried away, while
again the ditches filled with the beef of cows (slain by the Muslims) had
been putrefying along the streets, the heads of this Mathura army were not
excited with anger at these Muslim brutalities! Nobody of them was beside
himself with shame and indignation! None of them was infuriated and none
of them vowed revenge of this religious persecution! The victorious general
of the Hindus, the brave Raghunathrao, did not issue any order to his army
to the effect that they should retaliate with the same atrocities on the
Muslims as were indulged in by the latter, that the Muslims as a whole were
to be slaughtered, that just like (the ruined) heaps of the Hindu temples, the
Muslim masjids should be pulled down without any exception, that the
Muslim women should be put to the same indescribable humiliation and
shame as the Hindu women folk were done by the Muslims, that it was their

duty to take such a revenge for the wrongs done to Hindu religion and
Hindu society! Abdali had but done it!!
1079. We have explained the inestimable wrong done to the Hindu society
by this suicidal disease of the perverted conception of virtues so fully in
Chapter 8 of this book, that it is needless to repeat it here again. We hereby
urge upon every reader to read the above-mentioned Chapter 8 over and
again and very carefully.
1080. The most fortunate thing for the Hindus was only this, that the
catastrophe, which threatened to extinguish very flame of life of the whole
Hindu nation, as a consequence of the silly Hindu religious notions (as the
ones described above), was averted by their retaliatory deed of valour and
more especially by those of the Marathas on the political and military
fronts. Although the Marathas are guilty of not taking revenge of the
Muslim vandalism on Mathura-Vrindavan, while on their triumphal march
from Punjab, the glorious victory that they won on the Muslims in Punjab
in this continuous millennial Hindu-Muslim war and the terrible blow that
they gave to the Muslim imperial power, establishing the independence of
the Hindu nation and their own political hegemony in the north
incapacitated the Muslims from completely destroying the Hindus in India,
just as they had completely annihilated the other ancient nations in Asia.
Babylon became Baghdad, but Mathura could not be transformed into
another Mecca! Fighting incessantly and indefatigably for ten long
centuries, Mathura still exists as a holy Hindu place. The traces of Muslim
domination have been wiped out! From the millions of Hindu throats, the
triumphant chants of the divine valour of Shree Krishna still resound the
Ghats of Jamuna and the temples unmitigated!

Not Only Attock—Even Beyond It!
1081. सरदार पदरचे कसे कुणि सिंह जसे कुणि शार्दुल गेंडे।
अरे ज्यानी अटकेंत पाव घटकेंत रोविले झेंडे॥
—प्रभाकर
(Of what caliber were the Sardars under (him)? Some were veritable lions,
others were tigers, whereas some others were rhinoceroses indeed! Why,
within a quarter of a ‘Ghataka’ (a period of 24 minutes), they planted their
flags in Attock!’
1082. As has been told in the previous Chapter, while Raghunathrao was
returning to the Deccan after his unprecedented triumph in Punjab, along
with his numerous Sardars and warriors, the tidings of his victory had
already been reaching Maharashtra from time to time. One day, all the
Maratha forces gathered together at Indore, the next day they were
collecting the Chauth and Sardeshmukhi taxes from all over Rajputana;
later on, they were reported to be rushing into the Antarvedi, punishing the
Rohillas and Pathans for joining hands with Abdali; then conquering Delhi
and performing the obsequies, as it were of the vaunted imperial authority
of Abdali and releasing the Moghal Emperor from his captivity and
esablishing him on the throne of Delhi as the puppet in Maratha hands;
then again immediately invading Punjab, routing Abdali’s Afghan army of
ten thousand strong, which was kept there for the protection of Punjab at
Sirhind. Then Abdali’s son Taimurshah and his general Jahankhan were
reported to have fled from the Marathas without giving any battle, and fled
straight to Kabul leaving Lahore to the tender care of the Marathas, and the
armies of Raghunathrao were said to be mopping up Punjab clean of the
Afghan domination and driving the enemy far beyond Attock. Then came
the news of the triumphant entry of Raghunathrao into Lahore! With such
heartening news and reports pouring in daily of the Maratha victories and
the worsting of the enemies at their hands, the mighty heart of Maharashtra
was filled with justifiable pride. Raghunathrao had already earned for
himself a name fit to be ranked with the greatest in the world in his single
victorious campaign right from Poona straight to the Indus! The whole of
Maharashtra began to call him, willingly or unwillingly, but lovingly

enough Ragho-Bharari, in order to express its wonder and pride about this
unhampered and undeterred spring of his, about this eagle-flight of his,
towards the Himalayas! This informal title of the victorious general,
Raghunathrao, had become immortal!
Soon arrived the news of the Crowning Glory of the Marathas
1083. Raghunathrao, the commander-in-chief of the Maratha force, had
posted some of the Maratha Sardars to punish severely all the Muslim
Emirs, Umraos, gangsters and marauders, fakirs and parasites of every sort,
who were creating anarchical conditions in Punjab and especially towards
the Indus Valley, plundering the peaceful populace there, and establish the
Maratha hold in that territory firmly and to collect the revenue and the
‘chauth’ and ‘Sardeshmukhi’ taxes from the territory. Of those Sardars,
Tukoji Holkar, Sabaji Shinde, Gopalrao Barve with their soliders attacked
the fort of Attock, which was the pride of the Indus valley, and snatched it
away from the Muslim hands in the month of July, 1758. The Muslim green
flag was uprooted and in its place was hoisted in the tumultuous war cries
of ‘Har Har Mahadev!’ of the Marathas, the saffron coloured ‘Jaripatka’ of
Hindus—on the fort of Attock. The Marathas and so the Hindu-horses once
again drank the holy water of the Indus!
1084. On that glorious day, at last, was the ban (Atak—अटक) of a
thousand years enforced by the religious law of the Hindus themselves,
broken by the Hindu arms! Why, the Maratha warriors pursued the Muslims
even beyond Attock upto Kandahar!
1085. It is already explained in Paragraphs 522 to 535 how this town was
named ‘Attock’ and why.
1086. When the news arrived in Maharashtra of the conquest of Attock
and of the hoisting by the Marathas of the Hindu Jaripatka on that fort, the
universal joy felt there knew no bounds. The Marathas had taken revenge of
the wrong done to the Hindus over a thousand years by routing and driving
the Muslims right up to Kabul and Kandahar and wrenching the de facto
sovereignty of the whole of India from the Muslim hands.
And this itself is the fifth Glorious Epoch of Hindu Victories over the
Aggressors
1087. The page in the history of the Hindu Nation, which records this
unique event of the conquest of Attock and the final victory of the Hindu in
the epic millennial Hindu-Muslim war and the establishment of the de facto
sovereignty of the Hindus over the so-called Muslim empire, is really the

Golden Page in Hindu history and that day is truly the Red Letter Day in the
life of Hindu nation!
However
1088. Just as a man on his deathbed, too, breathes a little longer and
sometimes even makes a violent effort to rise in epileptic fits, but dies at
last; or just as the whole body of the enormously long snake, twenty feet or
more in length, gigantic in thickness vying with the broad trunks of the Vat
(Indian fig- Ficus Indica) tree, moving dangerously at large in the forests,
does not lie lifeless all at once in a moment, even if its head has been
smashed completely, but keeps on moving convulsively and even at times
seeks to leap ahead, yet ultimately, the dying body does die at last,
similarly, in spite of the fact that the Marathas had smashed the head of the
Muslim imperial power and left it gasping for its breath on the battlefields
of the Indus valley, the moribund Muslim power did continue to make
feverish efforts to rise again here and there for sometime more; that dying
body did in fact take a long leap like that of the Panipat, but ultimately, it
could not avert its fast approaching death.
1089. And in the end, throughout the whole of India began to flutter the
flag of independent Hindu power! Not alone from the Indus but right from
the bank of the Kabul river, spread throughout the whole of Punjab, up to
the frontiers of Jammu and Kashmir, was established the Hindu-Sikh
empire of Maharaja Ranjit Singh! Further on, from Delhi right up to
Rameshwaram in the rest of India, was established the paramountcy of the
Marathas, and to the north was the independent Hindu State of Nepal!!
Thus, everywhere in India began to rule once again the Hindu political
power: the Muslim power could not recover its fall!
1090. That is why it must be said that on the day on which the Marathas
uprooted and flung away the green flag of the Muslim political dominance
from the fort of Attock and hoisted in its place their own triumphant saffron
coloured Jaripatka, the Hindus gave a really mortal blow to the Muslim
power in India and caused its subsequent death!
1091. Even a historian like Sardesai, who was wont to make
understatements, wrote: ‘All Maharashtra felt electrified with the proud
performance of Raghunathrao and his bands having reached the extreme
frontier of India and bathed their horses in the Indus.’ (New History of
Maharashtra: Vol. II, page 401)

1092. As soon as the reports of the final victories of the Hindus over the
      Muslims in this millennial Hindu-Muslim war reached Maharashtra, the
      Charans, the Bhats, the Gondhalees, who were the chief exponents of the
      poignant national feelings of the people at large, began to surcharge the
      atmosphere of every village in Maharashtra with triumphant joy, by means
      of their heroic poems and ballads, imbued with the most warlike ‘spirit’.
      There was not to be found any self-respecting Maratha who was not
      enthralled and inspired to hear these deeds of his own army. Since it is only
      in the imaginative vein, that a true picture of the romantic mood of the
      Maharashtra of that day can be drawn. I have tried to express it in my poem
      ‘Gomantak’ through the mouth of Maharashtrabhat, a typical representative
      of the Bhats, Charans and Gondhalees! A few couplets from the same poem
      are translated into English from the original in Marathi and cited here for
      the perusal of the reader.
1093. A Panegyric
      By Maharashtrabhat
      Here, O Hindus, hear you all
      Comes the news of our victory in War,
      Wrongs of a thousand years aveng’d
      Down is the victor vanquish’d again’
      Celebrate the day with feastings and dancing
      Yours is the right by martyrdom seal’d
      But mind, th’task is not yet done!
      Only the ramparts so far’re won;
      The rock’s to be clim’d, the fort’s to be storm’d
      The wish’d for summit is safely to be made!
      Dawn’d today is the moment auspicious
      For Hindu-padshahi happy and glorious!
      Still the solemnities aren’t over
      Impending dangers overhead hover.
      Like Starters of Eras have we won this glory
      Like Starters of Eras must we hold it grimly
      Once again o’th banks of the Indus
      Proudly carrying the crest of gold
      Stands the horse of a Hindu warrior
      To quench his thirst of a thousand years!
      Come with the seas, ye, Gangamaiyya,

Waters pure of Caveri come;
Sindhu, Shatadru, Triveni, Jamuna
Goda, Krishna're welcome here!
Holy places'nd pilgrim-resorts
Spread o'ver India, come, you, all.
Haridwar, Kailas, Kashi'nd Puri
Dwarka'nd Mathura come in a hurry!
Hear, O, hear the tidings clear
Victory on th'field is pure, O, dear,
Wreck'd we our vengeance on the foe
Delay'd though 'twas for a thousand years,
And Look! The vaunting victor lies, how low!'
God has indulged Hindu warriors
With their cherished dream of life.
Proudly flutters on Attock today
Again the Hindu Jaripatka.
(Translated from the couplets numbered 1, 112, 116, 117, 118, 127, 128,
129, 130, 131 from the original poem)
❑

6TH GLORIOUS EPOCH
23.
The Sixth Glorious Epoch of Hindu
Victories over the Aggressors
India freed from the British Domination
1094. This Chapter on the Sixth Glorious Epoch of Hindu Victories Over
Aggressors is the last one.
1094A. The scope of this book has been defined in Paragraph 7 of the first
chapter of this book. That delimitation itself suggests that in this chapter on
the Sixth Glorious Epoch of Hindu victories, it is not at all necessary to give
a detailed account of how, while the British had firmly established their
mighty empire on the whole of India, the Hindu nation could make itself
independent and how it has taken a place of pride as an indigenous and
sovereign republic amongst the nations of the world. The only object of this
chapter is just to examine and assess only salient points in this exciting war
of liberation of the Hindu nation from the British, which have been
purposely overlooked by almost all the foreign as well as the independent
historians, notwithstanding the fact that they are highly important from the
point of view of Hindutwa.
1095. But that too, I have done for the most part in my other books, as far
as it was necessary to do so:
1096. (1) It is already mentioned at the end of the last chapter that the
Hindus had completely uprooted the foreign Muslim empire from India and
Hindu States had once again, been established everywhere and the Muslims
did not, in fact, wield any imperial authority over the land of Hindusthan.
But while the Hindu nation was thus inextricably involved in a gigantic
millennial war to root out the Muslim imperial power from India and while
all its energies and time were utilized in that direction, European nations
like the Portuguese, the French, the Dutch and especially, the English had
already commenced their efforts at establishing their rule over India secretly
or even openly. The Marathas, who had assumed the leadership of the
Hindu nation at that time, had simultaneously to face all these European
nations, just when they were carrying on a life and death struggle with the
Muslims! Although they had been mostly successful in the end in arresting

the progress of the Protuguese, the French, the Dutch, the English, however,
shrewdly availabled themselves of the opportunity, they got, when the
Marathas were engaged in the struggle with the Muslim powers, and
gradually but firmly established their foothold in Bengal trampling under
their feet the weaker Muslim Nawabs over there. Thereafter, they pushed on
their aggressive moves and established, though not dejure, yet, de facto
sovereignty over the territory right up to Delhi. Naturally they soon came to
grips with the Marathas, who had to lead the Hindu nation at that time. In
my book, Hindu Padpadshahi (originally written in English and now
translated in Marathi) I have sufficiently discussed, from the standpoint of
the Hindu nation, how and to what extent the Marathas worsted the English
during the First and the Second Anglo-Maratha Wars. The curious readers
should do well to read it.
1097. That discussion will make the following two broad points absolutely
clear. The first is that from the time the English stepped on the Indian soil,
the Muslims never fought with them for national political independence.
With the short exception of those with the Mysore State of Haidar and Tipu,
all the wars, that the English fought for the sovereignty over India had to be
necessarily fought with the Hindus alone. This clearly shows that the
Hindus had practically destroyed the political power of the Muslims and
had snatched the imperial authority. Another equally important point to be
remembered is that the English, too, had maintained the nominal dignity of
the puppet Moghal Emperor for fifty years after they had established their
de facto sovereign power over India in the very same manner as the
Marathas had, as a political expedient of the time, kept on recognizing the
same ‘king of shreds and patches’ as the ‘Emperor of India’.
1098. It again exposes the snobbery and ignorance of the Anglicized
people who ridicule the Marathas for this ‘political expedient’ of theirs, of a
nominal recognition of the Moghal Emperor. For the English, too, found the
same political expedient useful to them. These Anglicized people, however,
do not criticize the English for this same ‘weakness’ of theirs!
The Anglo-Sikh Wars
1099. No sooner did the English destroy the sovereign Maratha power
over India in A.D. 1818 and no sooner did they force the rest of the Maratha
states to accept their overlordship than they had to cross swords with
another newborn Hindu power. That Hindu power was the great kingdom of
Maharaja Ranjit Singh, which rose to prominence after 1818. It was after

the death of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, that the English took the field against
the combined Hindu might of the Sikhs, the Jats and the Dogras spread far
and wide from the river Kabul to the river Shatadru (Sutlej) and to the north
up to Kashmir and Ladakh. In the end, the English were successful and the
English sovereignty was established from Punjab to Kashmir round about
A.D. 1850.
My book on the History of Sikhs—the one that was Destroyed
1100. As I have surveyed the period of Indian History covered by the
Maratha Empire, in my English book Hindu Padpadshahi, smilarly I had
written a discourse on the period following the Maratha epoch in that book
of mine, the History of the Sikhs, written in Marathi. But while I was in the
thick of revolutionary political activities against the English in Paris, round
about 1909-10, the manuscript of my book, ‘The History of the Sikhs’ fell
into the hands of Government of India’s Secret Intelligence Department and
was destroyed before publication. However, in my books “Prushthabhumi”
and this one “Six Glorious Epochs of Hindu Victories Over Aggressors”, I
have discussed from the Hindu standpoint all the important events in the
Sikh history up to 1850—the time when the mighty kingdom of the Sikhs
was virtually destroyed! The curious reader should read it.
The Anglo-Nepalese War
1101. The third great power, with which the English had to fight for the
sovereignty of India, was the then mighty Hindu state of Nepal. Although
the English ultimately won that war, their success was not so great as to
destroy that Nepalese Hindu State completely. Barring the English
paramountcy as regards the external affairs, their internal independence was
unimpaired. Again, this existence of the Nepalese Hindu State was essential
for the continuance of the English sovereignty over India for a long time
afterwards. For, Nepal was a fertile field, which ceaselessly provided
staunch and brave Hindu Gurkha soldiers for the English army. This Hindu
Gurkha army proved itself quite capable of, not only in India, but also in
Europe, successfully facing the even numbered white army of either
European countries. Moreover, in the face of a plausible aggression from
the mighty Empire of Russia, which was not only capable but anxious to
invade the northern frontiers of the British Indian Empire, the English
wished that the warlike state of Nepal should serve as a buffer state in order
that such a Russian aggression might not come too unexpectedly.

1102. Only after defeating the Hindu power of the Marathas, the Sikhs and
      the Nepalese, could the English claim complete sovereignty over India.
1103. The scrambling little East India Company of overseas traders in
      England, which was established round about the rise of Shivaji Maharaj and
      which had begun its activities with two meagre factories at its disposal,
      went on enlarging the sphere of activities and thus acquired the sovereignty
      of the whole of India about 1850! Originally started by about a dozen
      Englishmen of pluck, the obscure trading company thus became, within a
      short period of two centuries or so, the mistress of a mighty empire! During
      the same period rose and fell many royal dynasties vying with one another
      for the sovereignty of India. Many sundry states were founded soon and
      found themselves engaged in internecine warfare and destroyed. But,
      ultimately, it was this East India Company that struggled and fought on and
      ultimately supplanted all those rival powers to become the sole mistress of
      India. How very insignificant a commercial body was this East India
      Company on the day on which it was started by a handful of shareholders!
      But all its yearly reports of its assets and liabilities, of its income and its
      expenditure, right from its first year of inception to the year of its
      dissolution, carrying forward its previous year's balance and new sources of
      income and new items of expenditure every year, till after a hundred and
      fifty or two hundred years it came to include towards its credit side the very
      empire of India, had all been very scrupulously and systematically
      preserved in its secretariat in London. And when in 1858, it was dissolved
      and the British Government itself took over the Empire of India in the name
      of Queen Victoria, it was most systematically and legally wound up like any
      commercial or professional concern paying every shareholder his dues as
      per its last balance-sheet of that year and after paying off all other
      liabilities!
1104. This continuous process of British administration, this neatness and
      precision in its work, its capacity to organize and govern, to run a vast and
      complicated administration, shine all the more gloriously when contrasted
      with the confused way of doing things, prevalent in our country at that time,
      our lack of order, political instability and our complete disregard for well
      organized work! Although it is unjustifiable to show the similarity and
      difference between the British nation and our own, as they at the time were,
      by such a solitary and comparatively insignificant instance as this, it may
      still serve as a pointer—and a very effective pointer at that—to show how

the once petty East India Company could become in the end, the
Honourable Company Sarkar Bahadur, which ran the imperial
administration of India.
1105. Although the total defeat of our Hindu nation at the hands of the
British had always been rankling in our hearts like a deep-rooted and
envenomed arrow, we had never repudiated it or glossed over it, not even
detracted from the victory of the British people over us by scolding and
railing at them under false pretexts. For, we had the courage and ability,
which had never died away to avenge that defeat of our Hindu nation. On
the contrary, we sincerely believed that in this bitter war between the Hindu
and the British nations, it was on the whole natural that the British, who
were at that time superior to us in the art of war and strength, should
succeed over us. We knew that the success or defeat on the battlefields
never obeyed the dictates of the code of justice or injustice.
1106. For this reason, as soon as the British imperial power was
established in India, the innermost heroic spirit in the country took up the
gauntlet to vanquish the British nation on the battlefield itself, by resorting
to some Nrusinhian act of aggressive heroism.
1107. After the British snatched away the imperial authority from its
hands, the defeated Hindu nation lay for some time dazed and pale-faced.
Even the volcano lies dead and cold for sometime after every eruption. But
unless that particular eruption is its last, the terribly explosive substances in
its womb smouldering inwardly become unbearably hot. Similarly, the
Hindu Nation was merely defeated by the British—it was not yet dead. As
such, in its mighty heart, there soon began to seethe and smoulder the
explosive elements of many valiant souls, in order to go full tilt once again
against the victorious English!
(OUTBURST)
The first Great Indian Bombardment Sgainst the British Regime
1108. Hardly a dacade elapsed after the British had conquered the last
Hindu State of Ranjit Singh in Punjab, when there was great outburst of
Hindu-Muslim joint effort to uproot the British imperial power from India.
And there flared up the first conflagration of the War of Independence
against the British in 1857!
1109. The one remarkable aspect of this revolutionary war was that the
Hindus and the Muslims had organized themselves into a joint national

front and waged a nationwide war against the British, forgetting their age-
long enmity of centuries together!
1110. But I have already written some time in 1908-1909, a detailed
history of this revolutionary war in my book of about five hundred pages
named, “Indian War of Independence of 1857”. In it, I have reviewed that
war from the standpoint of the Hindu nation. As such, it is not necessary to
repeat the same here again.
1111. During those two or three years of this war of Independence, the
English suffered such heavy losses that the English casualties far
outnumbered those suffered by them in all wars with the Marathas, the
Sikhs and the Nepalese taken together, for the sovereignty of India. The
brave revolutionists killed so many British warriors and white men! Let
alone the petty English captains, lieutenants, collectors, magistrates and
such like second-grade officers, but such eminent personalities like General
White, General Neill, Sir Henry Lawrence, General Outram, Commander-
in- Chief Anson and others too had to pay the penalty with their lives. The
revolutionaries dispatched most of them on the battlefield! The English too
killed nearly a hundred thousand fighters from amongst the revolutionaries,
as per the statement of Nanasahib Peshwa, the leader of that revolution!
1112. At the end of this revolutionary war, the British terminated “The
Honourable East India Company”, which was to the revolutionaries a
virtual British Government, and which they hated for the same reason. The
British thought that the abolition of The East India Company and its rule
would pacify the Indian revolutionaries inasmuch as their wishes had been
honoured in this respect! So the British Government proclaimed it with all
the fanfare and grandiose display that the administration of India had been
taken over from the East India Company and that the latter had been
dissolved and further, that the British Queen, Victoria, would, thereafter,
take for herself the title, The Empress of India, assuming full sovereign
power over the country. Thus, the clash of arms on the battlefield, by the
Indian revolutionists for about three years had put an end to the hated ‘East
India Company’.
1113. Over and above this, the British issued throughout India a
proclamation in the name of the new Empress of India, Victoria, the Queen
of England, in which, for the sake of the revolutionists and with a view to
pacifying them a bit, it was said that after the issue of that proclamation,
whoever of the ‘mutineers’ would stop fighting openly or covertly and

return to their homes never to harass the English people and would begin
living a peaceful life, would be shown, without exception, royal clemency,
irrespective of anything they might have done in respect of the ‘mutiny’.
1114. After the British had, thus, surrendered, though not explicitly yet
doubtless implicitly, to the revolutionists in repsect of the above-mentioned
two points, there was included in the said proclamation of the new Empress
of India, a further important promise that neither the British Government,
nor any local white-skinned officer, nor even any British missionary would
be suffered to interfere with the religion of their ‘natives’, that the Empress
of India wished to treat all her subjects, the Hindus, the Muslims, the
Christians and others, impartially and that she, as the Empress of India,
would protect every religion from the tryrannical persecution at the hands
of every other religion. This express promise was included in this famous
proclamation in order to eradicate one of the most potent causes of the
outbreak of the War of Independence, namely, the Indian apprehension that
the company’s government was out to destroy the native religions and to
convert all the Indians to Christianity with the use of force. And this was,
too, a tacit submission of the British to the revolutionists!
1115. Yet another important submission was implicitly made to the
revolutionists in this proclamation. It was the discontinuation of the
obnoxious practice of denying the Indian rulers the right of adoption and
liquidating and annexing their territories to the British possessions in India.
For, it was expressly promised in the said proclamation that the traditional
right of Indian rulers to adopt heirs to their estates would be honoured.
Their adopted heirs were promised the same political and administrative
rights as they enjoyed under the old tradition.
1115A. Thus, the British had tried by means of this Queen’s proclamation
to remove almost all the causes, which in their opinion, had led to the
horrible revolt of the Indian revolutionists. Nevertheless, the most important
promise—of course, in the British opinion—and the one that they thought
would give complete satisfaction to the Indian people—was that—
1116. All the Indian subjects of Queen Victoria would be treated as
respectfully as the British—and that they would be selected for appointment
to all the official posts in the British empire, irrespective of caste, creed or
religon!!
1116A. BUT THIS PROCLAMATION HAD NO EFFECT
WHATSOEVER UPON THE REVOLUTIONISTS!

1117. Why, a parallel proclamation was issued by the revolutionists as a
      pungent and trenchant rejoinder to the Queen’s proclamation! How
      appropritate and poignant it was, has already been clearly shown in my
      book, ‘The Indian War of Independence of 1857’. The very basic statement
      made in it was that the revolutionary war that had been fought so far was
      not fought because they wanted the rule of the British East India Company
      over India to be replaced by that of the imperial authority of the British
      Queen. They did not want any foreign power—and certainly not that of the
      British—to dominate over India! They wanted a completely indpendent
      self-rule! That is why, they said, they were fighting on the battlefields.
      Although the Queen’s proclamation was exhibited on every wall throughout
      India, thousands of revolutionists, including General Tatya Tope, Shreemant
      Nanasahib, Balasahib, ‘Jalka Rambhau’, Amar Singh, Ferozshah and other
      eminent leaders of the revolution kept on fighting for months together! Only
      after the heroic fall of almost all of them in the all-consuming flames of the
      revolution, fighting and fighting till the very last, could that sacrificial pit
      smoulder low and cool down subsequently!
      However!
1118. However, the last two or three promises given in the Queen’s
      proclamation did not fail to have the desired effect on the new generation of
      Indian people, which was later on educated in the English schools and
      colleges that were shortly opened thereafter and on that of the thousands of
      Indian officers and servants, which thrived on the Government salaries.
      Especially in Calcutta, Bombay, Madras and other cities, where the illusory
      British reforms had already spread their cobwebs much earlier than 1857,
      the then Indian leaders were so much elated by the promise in the Queen’s
      proclamation that the British Empress would allow her British as well as
      Indian subjects to enjoy all civic rights equally and without any invidious
      distinction, that they declared openly in the public meetings held to
      celebrate the total extinction of the ‘mutiny’, that now on, the British
      empire belonged as much to the British as to the Indian people! This
      proclamation of the Queen was just another peaceful device that the British
      had found out, as they had used the other one of ‘violent repression’ simply
      to put down the Indian revolutionaries. They had not the least intention to
      follow in future the political or administrative policy outlined in it. This, I
      have amply proved by quoting the words of the British statesmen
      themselves in my books written on later history. But the credulous and

converted minds of the above mentioned class of Indian people who were
educated in ‘English Schools’ and who were earnestly busy serving their
British masters, could never grasp this secret and crooked ruse of British
diplomacy. On the contrary, being deluded by the preposterous
proclamation of the Queen, who mad with victory, had the audacity to
ascend to the imperial throne of India, these simple gulls of Indian leaders
hastened to glorify that ‘proclamation’ as the Indian Magna Carta in press
and public meetings. How absurd and foolish it is to compare that original
“Magna Carta” in English history, with which the English people, after
fighting successfully with their King, had forced him to concede to them
their fundamental civic rights, with this deceitful and profane ‘proclamation
of the Queen’, which tightened the shackles of slavery on the Indian hands
and feet even more forcibly than before, only gilding them outwardly so as
to pass them on as ornaments.
1119. But in my Background to my ‘Autobiography’ I have already dealt,
at greater length, and from the point of view of the Indian people, with the
period of Indian history, after the temporary pacification of the War of
Liberation of 1857 was achieved and the foundation of the British
administration in India was firmly secured. Hence, it need not be repeated
here!
The Peculiar Character of the period the Political Movements of the
Loyalists
1120. The peculiarity of the period following the pacification of the
national rising of 1857—i.e., roughly speaking from 1860 to 1900—is that,
it is dominated by a nationwide movement under the leadership of those
who believed that India would once again see national prosperity and
development only by remaining in the British empire and she must achieve
it that way alone! Hence, this period can be generally called an age of the
loyalist politicians. However, even in this age of avowed loyal politicians,
the age-old tradition of heroism, which vehemently advocated armed revolt
to free the motherland from British domination, was not altogether extinct!
It did flare up secretly or even openly, in some daring risings! Even those
momentary explosions of that traditional heroism did not fail to convulse
the British administration in India and to excite and inspire the Indian
people at least for the time being. Only two illustrations of these armed
revolts would suffice. The Hindu rising under the leadership of Ramsingh
Kuka in Punjab during 1870-74 A.D. against the British and the Muslims

for politicial independence and for defending our religion, is the chief of
them. And the second, far more extensive and even more effective than the
first, was the one in Maharashtra under the leadership of Vasudev Balwant
Phadke. It was a violent armed revolt against the British for the complete
independence of India! These incidents, too, are reviewed in detail in the
Background to my ‘Autobiography’.
1121. Thereafter, dawned the age of Lokmanya Tilak, which was
synchronized by the lethal attacks of Chaphekar brothers on the English
officers and the feverish activity of secret revolutionary societies for liberty.
The Political Movements in India after 1900
1122. At the end of 1900 or thereabouts, terminated the era of loyalist
political movement and began the one of Lokmanya Tilak which might
fittingly be called—though not revolutionary—conducive to revolution. To
this very period were inextricably tied up in my very childhood, from the
time of the martyrs, Chaphekars’ sally at the British, my heartstrings and
later on my whole life was dedicated to that revolutionary activity. As such
my life-history itself became an expensive chapter in the war of liberation
against the English. Naturally, whatever might be said about these nation-
wide political activities during this period, from the point of view of
Hindutwa, has already appeared in the written part of my ‘Autobiography’
or will perhaps in the one, which might be written hereafter. As such, even
when I was in my teens to come in closer contacts with almost all the elder
reputed leaders of India in respect of this independence movement.
1123. When I had been to England in my very young days, I had come in
contact with the eldest of the Indian politicians of the time and the earliest
founder of the loyalist political front, namely Dadabhai Nawroji, in his
eighties. Why, there my revolutionary party had to cross swords with his
British-loyalist party in our tug-of-war for the leadership of Indian political
movement in England. Next to him, I had developed in England itself closer
relations with the respected staunch Bengali freedom fighters from amongst
those belonging to the generation following that of Dadabhai Nawroji, like
the late Shree Surendranath Bannerjee, Romeshchandra Datta and others.
With most of the younger leaders of the same period belonging to the
staunch nationalist party fighting vehemently against the loyalist front, I had
developed personal friendship and ideological kinship. With the active
political workers from Pandit Shyamji Krishan Verma, Lala Lajpat Rai,
Bipinchandra Pal, Right Honourable Gokhale and such other all-India

figures to hundreds of the leaders belonging to different provinces, I had
either developed friendly ties or had to fight political battles on many
occasions. Lokmanya Tilak, Shivrampant Paranjpe, Shreemant Dadarao
Khaparde, Dr. Moonje and the other Maharashtrian leaders of that line were
individually so closely acquainted with me that some of them and the
staunch nationalist leaders from other provinces, too, bestowed parental
affection on me. For example, while Bipin Chandra Pal was in England, I
was staying with him for sometime in company with his son, Niranjan Pal.
Bipin Babu himself had more than once cooked fish and flesh in the Bengali
style and had served them to me with great importunity and had added to
his moral credit the meritorious act of polluting a strictly vegetarian
Maharashtrian Brahmin like myself. With the future exponent of the ‘non-
violent truth-assertion’ (Satyagrah), ‘non-coperation movement’ who later
on came to be widely known as Mahatmaji—I happened to be closely
acquainted in a fiendly way when he had come to England, where he was
then known simply as Barrister Gandhi and thereafter throughout our lives,
we came together and many times in conflict—in the political arena in
India. And my relations with armed revolutionary party in India are too
well- known to be recounted here! The All-India leadership of the post-
Chaphekar revolutionary activities had by chance devolved on me at least in
the beginning—first in Maharashtra and thereafter in England. Need it be
told, that I had developed very close acquaintance with thousands of brave
martyrs and gallant fighters of that party? Shyamji Krishan Verma, Madame
Cama, Barrister Rana and many other elder and eminent personalities were
among those who were converted to our revolutionary views through my
propaganda and guidance. Thus, I had very close contacts and personal
friendship with various great personalities from all over India. To the
thousands of members of my revolutionary secret society, the Abhinav
Bharat Samastha, right from its original nucleus at Nasik and Bhagur to its
innumerable branches in many foreign countries, I had myself administered
the oath of all allegiance in person. The martyr Madanlal Dhingra, Lala
Hardayal, Bhai Parmanandji, Chattopadhyaya, Senapati Bapat, the great
historian, Dr. Jayaswal, Tirumalacharya, “Rishi” Aiyar—how many names
can one recount? Thereafter, when I was sent to the Andamans on
transportation for life, I had the company of Pulin Bihari Das, the Chief of
the Anushilan Samiti, Barindra Ghosh of Yugantar Samiti, Upendranath
Bannerjee, Ashutosh Lahiri, Hemchandra Das and other Bengali

revolutionary conspirators, as fellow-convicts. Nearly a hundred or more
Sikh and non-Sikh revolutionaries of the Gadar Party and other societies,
who were originally sentenced to death but whose sentence was later on
commuted to deportation, also came along with us, to the Andamans to
serve their terms and stayed there with us suffering unbearable innumerable
hardships and torture for years together for the sacred cause of the
liberation of our motherland. Subsequent to my release from the Andamans,
I again came into very intimate contact with the millions of the avowed
believers in Hindutwa in the great organizational movement for the
solidarity of the Hindus as a staunch opposition to the fanatic Muslim
activities, which was a natural concomitant to the armed revolutionary work
against the British. For want of space, it is impossible even to mention their
names! But a special request has to be made just here, lest the omission of
their names might be misunderstood to be due to their work being less
important in comparison to that of the others whose names are herein
mentioned.
1124. Ever since the sixteenth year of my life—the time when I began to
take part in politics—I have been personally and closely connected—at
times as a vehement adversary—with all the above-mentioned four phases
of Indian political life—the Loyalists, the non-violent but vehemently
nationalistic, the revolutionist and finally the Hinduistic—subsequent to the
defeat in the war of Indepenedence of 1857. As such, the compilation and
interpretation from the Hindu standpoint of the history of the period has
been fully done in my writings and speeches made on every occasion
during these fifty or sixty years. Now I don't think it necessary for me to
add even a single word to the published work of mine running to about
seven to eight thousand printed pages in the form of books or otherwise,
leaving aside hundreds of my speeches, interviews, articles and the written
work that is now lost beyond recovery and now at this age—the eightieth
year of my life—when I am confined to bed, I have not the physical
strength left in me to go on repeating it once again!
Conclusion
1125. During this ceaseless and relentless war with the British, which
India had carried on so consistently and so resolutely with violent and non-
violent means for more than a hundred years, from its first volcanic eruption
in 1857 to the year 1946, when the Second World War had come to an end
—in order that it might free itself from the tyrannical bonds of British

slavery, our Hindu nation ultimately got the golden opportunity of
achieving the greatest success as the war-drums began to thunder and rend
the European skies!!
1126. If we have received any real and effective help from any nation, it
was from Hitler, the dictator of Germany and General Tojo, the militant
leader of the Japanese! It is these countries, Germany and Japan, which
gave substantial help in up-to-date arms and ammunition for the army, navy
and air force to the revolutionary party from the very beginning, that is
from the violent agitation in Europe by the Abhinava Bharat Samstha to the
declaration of war against the British by Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose in
the Second World War. That is why an army of hardly forty to fifty
thousand strong, could rise in revolt against the British near Malaya and
Singapore and could march against India under Netaji Subhashbabu to free
it with the war-cry ‘Chalo Delhi’. At the same time, the British came to
know that in India too, the Indian army, navy and air force under the British
had hatched out a conspiracy to go in for a revolutionary war of
independence. Of the Indian citizens, millions were just waiting to raise a
standard of revolt against the British. Some had gone underground and
begun subversive activities, while others openly raided the British
armouries in surprise attack and sacked them thoroughly; others still, started
prototype governments and rooted out the British control over those
particular regions. Thus harassed on all sides and paralysed by incessant
fighting in the two world wars in Europe, the crippled and mutilated British
power lost its hold on India. The English people had lost the vigour and
strength needed to hold the empire in ice! At last, in 1947, the British
Viceroy began talks with the Indian leaders saying that they would
recognize Indian independence and leave it and go back.
1127. Of course, the British naturally recognized those political parties
alone as the leaders of India that were originally labouring under
misconceptions and delusion as regards their political theories, were
generally chicken-hearted and pro-British on the whole, frightened of the
Muslims and still very eager to have anyhow, by fair means or foul,
whatever little political power they could grab, and with them alone, they
carried out all their talks on the transfer of power! These parties, too, no
doubt, were patriotic in their actions; they, too, had laboured for the cause
of freedom constitutionally and non-violently.