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

THE SUMMING UP
Their thrones were broken, their crowns smashed, their
country taken away, their religions trodden under foot,
their lands confiscated, their properties robbed, and laws
despised ; they had been cheated with promises made only
to be broken ; insults and outrages had reached a climax.
Life itself had lost all its charms for them on account of
the dire dishonour in which they had sunk. Requests
were in vain ; so, also, were petitions, complaints, wailings,
and cries ; all in vain. Then the natural reaction began
and everywhere could be heard the whispers of "Revenge!"
India had been subjected to innumerable, cruel oppressions
each of which, individually, would have justified the
revenge. If there had been no revolution even after all
this, we would have had to say "India is dead!" That
revenge, therefore, was only the inevitable reaction against
the English injustice and oppression. And when once the
whole nation rose up in a rage, we should wonder not that
there were indiscriminate massacres in one or two places,
but that there were not such massacres in every
place! For, the excited logic of those who committed
the massacres naturally began to say, "Oppose illegal
force by righteous force!" Before the Sepoys who were
caught in the battle of the river Kali were mounted on
the scaffold, the English asked them why they had massa-
cred their women and children. They at once retorted,
"Sahib, does anyone kill a snake and let its offspring
alone?" The Sepoys at Cawnpore used to say : "To
extinguish the fire and leave the spark, to kill a snake and
preserve its young is not the wisdom of the wise."
"Sahib, does anyone kill a snake and leave its offspring
alive?" How are the Sahibs going to answer this blunt
question asked by the Sepoys at Kali-nadi? And this
blunt question has not been asked by the excited masses
of India alone, or the masses of Asia alone, as some
English writers have been charitable enough to suggest.
Wherever national wars are proclaimed, national wrongs
are avenged by national killing alone. When the Spani-
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