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

THE CONFLAGRATION
dharma, it is these that were burning there. Not only
had the Sepoy risen to give his life's blood with almost
selfish eagerness to this sacred principle of Liberty.
but the whole civil population all over the country, from
villages as much as from towns, had also risen. Without
that, this strength, this resolution, this selfishness, this
grit would not have been displayed. For, Lord Canning
had now issued a proclamation that those who would join
the Revolution thereafter would see their lands and estates
confiscated, while those who surrendered at once would
be forgiven. Yet the Revolutionary would not lay down
his sword. Still Oudh persisted in her fight. Lucknow
had fallen. But, Sepoy and shopkeeper, Brahmin and
Moulvie, Rajas, Zemindars, and Talukdars, villagers and
agriculturists—all Oudh was still making a rush forward!
Dr. Duff writes about this terrible popular rising : "Why,
if it had been a merely military mutiny, in the midst of
an unsympathetic, unaiding population, a few decisive
victories, such as we have already had, might quash it or,
as the phrase goes, stamp it out. But so far from being
quashed or stamped out, it seems still as rampant and,
in some respects, more wide-spread and formidable than
ever. And, it is a fact that it is not a mere military revolt,
but a rebellion—a revolution, which alone can account
for the little progress hitherto made in extinguishing it and,
at the same time, precludes any reasonable hope of its
early suppression. That it is a rebellion, and a rebellion,
too, of no recent or mushroom growth, every fresh revela-
tion tends more and more to confirm. And a rebellion,
long and deliberately concocted, a rebellion which had
been able to carry the Hindu and Mahomedan in an
unnatural confederacy, a rebellion which is now manifestly
nurtured and sustained by the whole population of
Oudh and, directly or indirectly, sympathised with
and assisted by well-nigh half of the neighbouring
provinces—is not to be put down by a few vic-
tories over mutinous Sepoys, however decisive and
brilliant.
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