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

THE SUMMING UP
them savage, inhuman, cruel, and barbarous. Their own
countrymen are ashamed even to own them. Such is the
cry everywhere even today. And this incessant cry has
deafened the ears of the whole world so that they should
not any more listen to the voice of truth ! The Revolu-
tionaries are demons, goblins, murderers of women and
children, blood-thirsty vermin of hell, inhuman. Oh
World ! When will you forget this and understand
the truth ?
And why all this ? Why ? Because, the Revolutionaries
rose against the English, rose for their country and reli-
gion, and, with shouts of “ Revenge ! ”, massacred some
of them. Indiscriminate massacre is a heinous sin. When
Humanity will reach the goal of universal justice, of
ultimate beatitude, when the millennium preached by the
incarnations, by the Messiahs, and by religious preachers
will be an accomplished fact on earth, when the resignation
taught by Christ in the glorious words—“ Whosoever shall
smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other, also ”
will be impracticable, because, there will be no one to hit
on the right cheek, in such a divine age if anyone revolts,
if anyone sheds a drop of blood, if anyone even whispers
the word “ Revenge ! ”, then, at once, the sinner, by this
act, by his very utterance, would be eternally damned.
For, when Truth reigns in every heart, revolt must be a
heinous sin. When everyone abhors killing, to shed a
drop of blood must be a sin. In a time of such unchal-
lenged justice, to punish a man even for uttering a sinful
word would be altogether blameless.
But so long as that divine age has not arrived, so long as
the highly auspicious end remains only in the lines of
saintly poets and in the prophecies of the divinely inspired,
and so long as, even to make that state of universal justice
possible, the human mind has to be busy eradicating sinful
and aggressive tendencies, so long, rebellion, bloodshed,
and revenge cannot be purely sinful. As long as the word
18 273