१८५७ का स्वातन्त्र्य समर (वीर विनायक दामोदर सावरकर - अंग्रेजों द्वारा छपने से पूर्व प्रतिबन्धित महाग्रन्थ)

SECRET ORGANISATION
India from the insufferable tyranny of the Kaffir Feringhis,
and that remedy is to wage a bloody war. This is a Jehâd
for Independence ! This is a religious war for justice !
Those who fall in such battles will be their country's
shahids. Opened wide are the doors of Heaven for the
shahids. But Hell is burning fierce to engulf those
wretches, those cowardly traitors, who turn away from
this national duty ! Countrymen, of these, which would
ye have ? Choose now, even now ! "
To link together the innumerable group of the various
provinces which were working separately, men were
employed to travel about secretly and letters were rarely
used. If letters were used at all, they were written in a
mysterious language, any mention of names being avoid-
ed. But when, after some time, the English persisted in
opening any and every letter that appeared suspicious to
them, the leaders, in order that their schemes should not
come out and not even a trace should be known to others,
began to carry on their correspondence in a kind of cipher ;
a sort of code was formed composed of dots and numbers,
and this was used by them on all occasions ! ¹⁶
While everywhere activity of this kind was going on,
the blunder as to the cartridges, born of the criminal desire
to spite the religious feelings of the Sepoys, was commit-
ted by the English. This filled the cup of their iniquity!
Every soldier vied with every other to fire the first shot,
at the proper time, in the war to be waged for the object
that was foremost in the minds of all their fellow-country-
men. We have already described how Nana and Ali
Nakkhi Khan had acquired perfect control over the Sepoys
of every regiment, and how thousands of Fakirs were sent
into the regiments to seduce the Sepoys to patriotism.
But after the mean and cunning trick was played by the
English in respect of the cartridges, every Sepoy began,
16. Inne’s Sepoy Revolt, p. 55.
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