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

BENARES AND ALLAHABAD
This is a short account of the rising of the province of
Benares. Here the people never massacred Englishmen
as at Meerut or Delhi. In the whole province not a single
English woman was killed. Nay more, when national
anger in the heart was demanding " Revenge ! ", the peo-
ple cordially bid farewell to the English there, themselves
assisting sometimes to yoke the animals to their carriages.
Look on this picture and on that which will now follow !
We do not say that the English should have sympathised
with Benares in its attempts to attain Swaraj. But we do
maintain that the English could never be justified in the
atrocities that they committed in the Benares province,
so totally incommensurable with the provocation they
received either from the Sepoys or the people in that pro-
vince. The English have never spared to hurl the most
vile and lying abuses on the heads of the Revolutionaries,
and hence, on all Indians, for their " cruelties." Now,
when we shall have described below how a brave com-
mander of the " civilised " English army treated the peo-
ple in the Benares province, and when it is said that all
the facts that we shall give are from the accounts of the
English themselves, it will be snperfluous and unnecessary
to add anything to it. Let the imperial world judge
for itself.
After the Benares rising, General Neill organised detach-
ments of the English and Sikhs to keep ' order ' in the
neighbouring villages. These bands used to enter villages
occupied by defenceless peasants. Anybody whom they
met was either cut down or hanged. The supply of those
to be hanged was so great that one scaffold was soon found
to be insufficient, even though worked day and night ;
therefore, a long line of permanent scaffolds was erected.
Though, on this long range, people were half killed and
thrown away, still, there was a crowd of waiting candida-
tes ! The English officers gave up as hopeless the silly
idea of cutting down trees and erecting scaffolds ; so,
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