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

THE ERUPTION
fire, and the confused Indian regiments were peremptorily
ordered to give up their arms ! The thousand Sepoys,
indignant with rage but overawed by the strong force of
artillery, threw down their arms and, without a word,
walked away to their lines.
While this ceremony of disarming the soldiers, who,
by their valour, had saved the lives of Englishmen in
Afghanistan, was going on, a battalion of the English
force was sent to the fort of Lahore. This battalion, with
the help of the English artillery in the fort, disarmed the
Sepoys there and turned them out of the fort and occupi-
ed it. If there had been the slightest delay or slackness
in this manœuvre, within a fortnight, the whole of the
Punjab would have been burning with Revolution ; for,
the different regiments of Peshawar, Amritsar, Pilhur, and
Jullunder were anxiously waiting for the moment when
the Sepoys of Mian Mir would attack the Lahore fort.
When the news spread that the English had disarmed the
Mian Mir Sepoys and taken the Lahore fort, English
prestige gained a great deal of ground in the Panjab.⁵
But a position of even greater importance than the
Lahore fort was the Govindgurh of Amritsar. This latter,
being a holy place of Sikhs and there being a probability
of the Sikhs being aroused if anything happened there,
the Sepoys had their eye on it. The rumour arose that
the Sepoys, disarmed at Mian Mir, were going towards
Amritsar to take Govindgurh. The English perceived the
danger and requested the Jat and Sikh peasants to protect
Amritsar ! This request was acceded to by these loyal
traitors, and the fort of Amritsar, like that of Lahore, fell
into English hands. Before the 15th of May, the two
5. "Had the Punjab gone, we must have been ruined. Long
before reinforcements could have reached the upper provinces, the
bones of all Englishmen would have been bleaching in the sun.
England could never have recovered the calamity and retrieved her
power in the East."—Life of Lord Lawrence. Vol. II, page 335.
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