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

THE ERUPTION
extraordinary historical mystery is to be found in the fact
that the Revolution of 1857 came so soon after the loss
of their independence. Those brave, illustrious, spirited
followers of the Khalsa, who so hated Mahomedan slavery
that they fought continuously for one hundred years and
made the Punjab free, would certainly not have tolerated
the slavery under the English if they had realised the
nature of English rule. But before the ignorant Sepoys
realised the fact that English rule was nothing short
of slavery, before they had time enough to under-
stand it fully, the Revolution of 1857 broke out. The
English domination came into India at a time when a
revolution was taking place in Indian politics. Various
small groups of accumulated waters, divided for centuries,
were trying to break the dams that separated each from
the rest and unite into a vast river. The vast river is the
United Nationality of India. The great united and com-
pact nations of the world of to-day passed before their
unity, or even for the sake of their unity, through an
intermediate stage of disorganisation, internal strife, and
disorder. If we look at the strife in Italy, in Germany,
or even in England under the Romans and the Saxons
and the Normans, if we see the mortal enmity between
different races, provinces, and religions, and the inhuman
persecutions in the course of mutual vengeance, we shall
realise that the strife in India was a very small matter.
But who can deny that the above countries have now
united their several peoples into strong and powerful
nations to-day, because they had been melted in the fur-
nace of internal strife and the fire of foreign despotism ?
By a similar process of historical evolution, Bharata-
bhumi was in the course of creating a great nation out of
the heterogeneous elements that inhabited it. The steam-
roller of English slavery was strong enough to crush out
all the differences among the peoples of Northern India
and make them unite together to throw it off; but in the
Panjab, ten years were not enough to make them realise
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