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

THE ERUPTION
what the Swadeshi men did there, and how far the plots
of the English against them were successful. When the
Sikh Empire was broken, and the Punjab fell, finally, into
the hands of the English, Lord Dalhousie pursued an ad-
ministrative policy in that province which was calculated
to destroy the two virtues of love of freedom and martial
spirit among the Sikhs. When the administration of this
newly-acquired province came into the hands of the two
officers Sir Henry Lawrence and Sir John Lawrence, they
completely disarmed the people, enlisted most of the Sikh
Sepoys in the English army, brought the larger portion
of the European army in Northern India into the Punjab,
and directed everything in such a manner that the mass
of the people should attend only to agriculture as the
chief means of their subsistence and do nothing else.
When people become mere peasants, they lose their mar-
tial qualities ; they become hungry for “peace” and do
not easily give their consent to revolutionary projects
which might interfere with their agriculture. This deep
and profound statesmanship of the English proved success-
ful in the Punjab and, within ten years of the destruction
of the Sikh Empire in the Punjab, the majority of the
Sikhs began to take to the plough and left their swords
altogether, and those that still retained the sword put it
into the hands of the English in order to put down their
own countrymen ! In these circumstances, the chief
officer in the Punjab, Sir Jonn Lawrence, was sure that
there would be no trouble there. Like other English
officers he had no adequate idea about the impending
danger till the beginning of May, and he too had intended
to leave Lahore for summer and go to the cool air of the
Murree Hills. Just then, the news of Meerut and Delhi
electrified the Punjab. The clever Chief Commissioner
grasped the grave import of the news and stayed
where he was, in order to fight those who were preparing
to overthrow the English empire.
At this time, the greater part of the Punjab army
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