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

THE SUMMING UP
on the way shouted, "Feringhis, Feringhis, kill the
Feringhis!" Then, one family came forward and said
that they had just dined with Rajputs, and to kill them,
therefore,—heartless enemies though they were—was out
of the question.⁹ If the Hindusthanee who is by nature
kind and magnanimous, whose villages, up to this very
day, are full of humanity, respect, and regard for life—
human and animal, sanctioned and took part in the massa-
cres of 1857, then the cruelty of these massacres, instead
of reflecting discredit on the morals of the nation, proves
only the immense hideousness of the Alien oppression to
which it was now intended to put an end. The famous
truth enunciated by Macaulay is here well exemplified:
"The more violent the outrage, the more assured we feel
that a Revolution is necessary."
And who have the right of sitting in judgment on the peo-
ple of Hindusthan for the offences they are alleged to
have committed? The English? If there is anyone in
this wide world who have the least right to condemn the
conduct of the Revolutionaries, it is these English! Is it
England that is to declare to the world that Hindusthan
was guilty of one or two massacres?—the England which
produced Neill? Or the England which devastated by the
sword and destroyed by fire villages after villages with
the women and children in them? Or the England which
bound to the stakes and burnt, actually burnt, those brave
fellows with the spirit of Panday in them, fighting for
their country—deeming hanging not a sufficient punish-
ment? Or the England which seized the innocent Hindu
villagers, sentenced them to be hanged, and then pierced
them with bayonets, and then, Heavens! thrust beef dripp-
ing with blood—the blood of the cow—down their throats,
at the point of the bayonet—a desecration to which they
would have preferred being hanged and, even, being burnt
alive? Or the England which ordered, under the very
9. Charles Ball's Indian Mutiny, Vol. I.
279