भारतीय इतिहास के ६ स्वर्णिम पृष्ठ (वीर सावरकर - विदेशी आक्रान्ताओं पर विजय गाथा)
Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History by Veer Savarkar
स्वातंत्र्यवीर विनायक दामोदर सावरकर द्वारा
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.
- Only after defeating the Hindu power of the Marathas, the Sikhs and
the Nepalese, could the English claim complete sovereignty over India. - 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! - 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!
- 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! - 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.
- But the British had laid down one crafty and far more dangerous
condition. The British statesmen insisted that India be vivisected into two
because they wanted to reward those Muslims who had consistently and
treacherously helped the British throughout the Indian War of Liberation
ever since 1857, and who demanded a unified state of the Muslim-majority
provinces cut out from the rest of India, as a price for that help. The British
statesmen conceded to this anti-Hindu, highly perfidious and anti-national
demand of the Muslims with a still deeper and more sinister motive of
creating an everlasting enemy for the Hindu nation. - This insistence of the British was basically the Muslim demand for
a separate sovereign state over the Muslim-majority provinces, which had
been supported quite vehemently by all the Muslims in India. But all the
Hindus in India, strongly enough, did not oppose this Muslim demand for
a Pakistan so vehemently! With only one exception, all the political parties
in India were for granting the Muslims Pakistan, and ending the strife
forever. It meant that the whole of Punjab and Bengal should be ceded to
Pakistan. Over and above this, the Muslims demanded a corridor to connect
their two Muslim states of Punjab and Bengal, a strip of land right from the
Punjab to Bengal through the heart of North India!! - The only party which staunchly and consistently opposed these
Muslim demands throughout India was avowedly a pro-Hindu party! Under
the leadership of the Hindu Mahasabha, these Hindus started an all-India
agitation against the vivisection of India, and protested against it as bitterly
as possible. The anti-Hindu elements, the Muslims, the British Government,
all persecuted them, tortured them, locked them up in prisons, shed the
Hindu blood at various places, to crush this great agitational movement of
the Hindus. But throughout the whole of India, these avowed pro-Hindu
(Hindutwa-nishtas) faced boldly all the atrocities of the enemies, even when
they were in a minority. They even did not refrain from avenging the
spilling of Hindu blood by shedding the enemy blood and by beheading
those who proved treacherous to the Hindu cause! - Fortunately, this retaliation by the loyal Hindus, done at the risk of
their lives, did not prove quite futile. For, although the British Government
decided much against our wishes to partition India, they had to concede to
the least of our demands that instead of giving over the whole of Punjab and
Bengal to the Muslims, as per their demand only, the Muslim-majority part
of those provinces should be included in Pakistan while the rest of Punjab
and Bengal with Hindu majority should be joined to India as Eastern Punjab
and West Bengal. The demand of the loyal Hindus (Hindutwa-nishtas) ‘Let
us vivisect their proposed Pakistan before they vivisect our Hindusthan’,
thus proved successful. And as for the more dangerous Muslim demand for
a corridor—a passage through north India to join Punjab and Bengal—not a
word was ever spoken nor considered during these talks of the transfer of
power mainly because of the bitterest opposition of these ‘loyal’ Hindus!
1132. And when during the election for the central and provincial
legislatures of India, the majority of the Indian voters elected those very
candidates and parties who gave their consent to create Pakistan, they
proved themselves to be the greatest sinners, responsible for the horrible
national crime of eternally harming the undivided India!
1133. Again the ‘loyal Hindu’ knew in their heart of hearts that this
creation of Pakistan was the necessary consequence of the great sins of
cherishing perverted conception of virtues, of banning reconversion of the
polluted Hindus and many other such religious and social vices imbibed in
us from our old ancestors. These very anti-Hindu and anti-national practices
of the Hindu had already created big and small “Pakistans” in every city
and every village. It was inevitable that we had to suffer the horrible
consequences of these, our social sins and crimes. A detailed discussion on
this point is available in the foregoing pages (of Chapter 8, Paras 421 to
472.)
1134. While all these momentous movements were going on in India, the
British Cabinet itself, after taking into account the general trend, tabled a
bill in the British Parliament, named “Independence of India Act,” which
was unanimously passed. Accordingly on the 15th of August, 1947, the
British Governor-General in Delhi declared, at last, with the consent of the
elected representatives of India, that the British nation was on that day
liberating India from their imperial domination and making it politically
free, that of the Muslim majority districts of West Punjab and East Bengal
separate independent Muslim State, called Pakistan, would be created.
While the rest of India would be founded as an independent Indian State!
1135. Thus was India liberated from the domination of the British Empire
and this great Indian republic was established! The practical politicians
amongst the ‘loyal Hindus’ satisfied themselves, whatever was obtained
was not meagre! Though not the whole of Bharat, at least three-fourths of it
was liberated in an undivided state! Quite a great boon indeed! After about
a thousand years, a great new age of national importance has dawned in the
history of the Hindus. As such, the real strategy for the Hindus from the
point of view of their own benefit and the greater glory of Hindutwa is first
to make the newly won Bharat wholly their own. The fragments that were
left in the foreign hands could be attended to later on!
1136. Immediately, the British Union Jack which had been fluttering proudly
over the Red Fort in Delhi—over the heart of India as it were—for the last
hundred or a hundred and fifty years with overbearing imperial haughtiness,
was pulled down and in its place was hoisted amidst tumultuous applause and
the deafening cries of “Hail, Indian Independence, all Hail to thee!” the tri-
coloured flag of the independent, sovereign Government of India, with the
Sudarshan wheel imprinted on it!
1137. From the Western Seas came the British imperial power marching
on us with the supercilious vanity that with the sword alone, they would
conquer empires and with the sword alone, would they run them, and
straightway it climbed the Indian imperial throne of Delhi. But, at last, from
the very same throne of Delhi was it dragged down, its vaunting sword
being cut to pieces! To the shores of the very same Western Seas, it was
driven back and was ultimately submerged into the very same Western
Seas! The last defeated British soldier, we saw with our own eyes going
back to the same Western Seas with his head long down and back towards
us.
1138. Thus of all the foreign aggressions over India that took place during
the last two thousand years, the greatest and mightiest one—the sixth in
order—that of the British was in the end, utterly defeated by India and its
political domination crushed to pieces!
This victory over the English which deserves the Commemoration by a
Horse-Sacrifice is The Sixth of the Glorious Hindu Victories over foreign
aggressors!
❑
.
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!
We take up your cry, we revere your flag, we are determined to continue
that fiery mission of ‘away with the foreigner’, which you uttered, amidst
the prophetic thunderings of the Revolutionary war. Revolutionary, yes, it
was a Revolutionary war. For, the War of 1857 shall not cease till the
revolution arrives, striking slavery into dust, elevating liberty to the throne.
Whenever a people arises for its freedom, whenever that seed of liberty gets
germinated in the blood of its fathers, whenever that seed of liberty gets
germinated in the blood of its Martyrs, and whenever there remains at least
one true son to avenge that blood of his fathers, there never can be an end to
such a war as this. No, a revolutionary war knowns no truce, save liberty or
death. We, inspired by your memory, determine to continue the struggle you
began in 1857, we refuse to acknowledge the armistice as a truce; we look
upon the battles you fought as the battles of the first campaign—the defeat
of which cannot be the defeat of the War. What? Shall the world say that
India has accepted the defeat as the final one? That the blood of 1857 was
shed in vain? That the sons of India betray their fathers’ vows? No, by
Hindusthan, no! The historical continuity of the Indian nation is not cut off.
The war began on the 10th of May, 1857, is not over on the 10th of May,
1958, nor shall it ever cease till a 10th of May to come sees the destiny
accomplished, sees the beautiful India crowned, either with the lustre of
victory or with the halo of martyrdom.
But, O glorious Martyrs, in this pious struggle of your sons, help. O help
us by your inspiring presence! Torn in innumerable petty selves, we cannot
realise the grand unity of the Mother. Whisper, then, unto us by what magic
you caught the secret of Union. How the Feringhi rule was shattered to
pieces and the Swadeshi thrones were set up by the common consent of
Hindus and Mahomedans. How in the higher love of the mother, united the
difference of castes and creeds, how the venerated and venerable Bahadur
Shah prohibited the killing of cows throughout India, how Shreemant
Nanasahib after the first salute of the thundering cannon to the emperor of
Delhi, reserved for himself the second one! How you staggered the whole
world, by uniting under the banner of mother and forced your enemies to
say ‘Among the many lessons the Indian Mutiny conveys to the historian
and administrator, none is of greater importance than the warning that it is
possible to have a revolution in which Brahmins and Shudras, Mahomedans
and Hindus were united against us and that it is not safe to suppose that the
peace and stability of our dominion in any great measure depends on the
continent being inhabited by different races with different religious systems,
for they mutually understand each other and respect and take part in each
other’s modes and ways and doings. The mutiny reminds us that our
dominions rest on a thin crust ever likely to be rent by titanic fires of social
changes and revolutions. Whisper unto us the nobility of such an alliance of
religion and patriotism, the true religion whichever is on the side of
patriotism, the true patriotism which secures the freedom of religion.
And give us the marvellous energy, daring and secrecy with which you
organised the mighty volcano; show us the volcanic magma that underlie
the green thin crust on which the foe is to be kept lulled into a false
security; tell us how the chapati, that fiery Cross of India flew from village-
to-village and from valley-to-valley, setting the whole intellect of the nation
on fire by the very vagueness of its message and then let us hear the roaring
thunder with which the volcano at last burst forth with an all shattering
force, rushing, smashing, burning and consuming into one continuous fiery
flow of red-hot lava-flood! Within a month, regiment-after-regiment,
prince-after-prince, city-after-city, sepoys, police, zemindars, Pundits,
Moulvis, the multiple-headed Revolution sounded its tocsin and temples
and mosques resounded with the cry ‘Maro Feringhi Ko’! Away with the
foreigners! Meerut rose, Delhi rose, rose Benares, Agra, Patna, Lucknow,
Allahabad, Jadagalpoor, Jhansi, Banda, Indore—from Peshwar to Calcutta
and from the Narmada to the Himalayas, the volcano burst forth into a
sudden, simultaneous, and all consuming conflagration!!
And then, oh Martyrs, tell us the little as well as the great defects that you
found out in our people in that great experiment of yours. But above all,
point out that most ruinous, nay, the only material drawback in the body of
the nation, which rendered all your efforts futile—the mean selfish
blindness which refuses to see its way to join the nation’s cause. Say that
the only cause of the defeat of Hindusthan was Hindusthan herself, that
shaking away the slumber of centuries, the mother rose to hit the foe, but
while her right hand was striking the Feringhi dead, her left hand struck,
alas, not the enemy, but her own forehead! So she staggered and fell back
into the inevitable swoon of 50 years.
Fifty years are past, but, oh restless spirits of 1857, we promise you with
our hearts’ blood that your Diamond Jubilee shall not pass without seeing
your wishes fulfilled!! We have heard your voice and we gather courage
from it. With limited means you sustained a war, not against tyranny alone,