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

THE STORY OF THIS HISTORY
the British detectives could get any inkling, the volume was
printed in Holland and the whole edition of the English trans-
lation was smuggled into France and kept secretly ready for
distribution.
In the meanwhile, before the book was sent to Holland for
getting it printed, the British and the Indian Governments got
so nervous, and dreaded so much the effects of Savarkar's
writings that they proscribed the book which they admitted
was not yet printed ! This was so high-handed a step on their
part that the English papers themselves resented this action of
proscribing a book before its publication—a case almost un-
precedented in a land which boasted of its Freedom of the
Press. Veer Savarkar also did not spare the Governments and
poured vials of ridicule on the proscribing order in a spirited
letter which he wrote to "The London Times." He challenged
in it, "It is admitted by the authorities that they were not sure
whether the manuscript had gone to print. If that is so, how
does the Government know that the book is going to be so
dangerously seditious as to get it proscribed before its publica-
tion, or even before it was printed? The Government either
possess a copy of the manuscript or do not. If they have a
copy, then why did they not prosecute me for sedition as that
would have been the only course legitimately left to them?
On the contrary, if they have no copy of the manuscript how
could they be so cocksure of the seditious nature of a book of
which they do not know anything beyond some vague, partial
and unauthenticated reports?" The "London Times"
not only published the letter, but added a note of its
own that the very fact that the Government should
have felt it necessary to have recourse to such presumably
high-handed and extraordinary executive steps proved that there
must be "Something very rotten in the State of Denmark."
After getting the English translation printed in Holland,
the revolutionists smuggled into India hundreds of its copies
by ingenious devices. Many of them were wrapped in
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