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

AYODHYA
battle-fields of Ayodhya. Faithful villagers, attached to
their masters, used to visit these homeless Zemindars and
Talukdars, robbed and driven from door to door, and used
to pay them faithful homage in the profuse flow of sincere
tears. Thus, there was terrible suffering—right from the
Nabob of Oudh to the villagers ; not a place but witnessed
wholesale looting, even burning, misery, oppression, and
tyranny, and did not hurl terrible curses and vowed
vengeance ; not a homestead but looked desolate, terribly
desolate ! Such was the beneficent administration that
was substituted in Oudh for the misgovernment of
the Nabob !
The world-wide difference between Swarajya and foreign
rule was, thus, brought painfully to the notice of
all Oudh. All their previous history stood before them
vividly. They realised full well now that even death was
preferable to living in slavery. How long to look on, while
the Swadesh was reduced to dust and Swarajya was no
more ? They hated intensely these insults and this shame-
ful condition.
At this very time, the roller of the Inam Commission
was working in other provinces in order to destroy the
stamina of Zemindars and Vatandars in those provinces
and reduce them to the level of those classes in Oudh.
Those lands and those Jahgirs which had been won by
the Sanad of the Sword were being abolished wholesale,
because they could not show documentary evidence of
Sanads of paper. That the work of the Inam Commission
was terrible may, to some extent, be realised from this
single fact that nearly 35000 big Jahgirs and extensive
Inams were inquired into by the Inam Commission and
of these, within the space of ten years, three-fifths were
usurped ! By this means, all over India, property of every
kind was rendered insecure. Thrones of princes, Vatans
of Sardars, lands of Zemindars, Talukas of Talukdars,
houses of citizens, the lands dedicated to the temples, the
51