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

THE VOLCANO
flowers lend an additional glory to a scene naturally
beautiful ! ”
That no wise Englishman should hesitate to pull down
a Nabob who was guilty of such an enormity as
possessing such a beautiful tract of territory all for him-
self, Dalhousie realised but too well and so, in the year
1856, the fiat went forth that Oudh was to be annexed.
And what was the reason alleged ? Of course this, that
the Nabob was not reforming his administration.
But, England couldst thou justify thy rule over India
for a day, if thou acknowledgedst the plea of unrest
and maladministration as sufficient ? There is the vice
of opium-eating in China, absolute rule in Afghanisthan,
why, under thy very nose Russia has reached a climax of
lawlessness and tyranny ; yet couldst thou dare for that
reason to drag the Chinese Emperor and the Amir and
the Tsar from their thrones and annex their kingdoms ?
How couldst thou acquire the right of gagging the mouth
of your neighbour and binding his hands and feet and
taking possession of his house, because, forsooth, he kept
his things not quite in proper order ? Even the treaty of
1801 did not give the Company the right of annexing
Oudh, under any circumstances. And was not that very
absence of good administration, at which the Company
pretended so much indignation, a thing brought about by
their own agency ? Arnold, the biographer of Dalhousie
and the historian of his regime, asserts that the Nabob of
Oudh was guilty of many a crime besides that ! In the
first place, he used to give presents of shawls to his ser-
vants of either sex ; further that he had a fireworks display
on the 11th of May ; why, more—one morning he urged
Shah Begum and Taj Begum to a dinner ! What more
horrible crime could he commit ? All thanks to the Eng-
lish who bore patiently such gross acts on the part of the
Nabob as taking medicinal drugs in the mornings, and
desisted from dethroning him ! But the patience of the
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