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

THE VOLCANO
becoming all-perfect. There must not be imperfection in
man if he is to be like the All-Perfect. But how can there
be anything but imperfection in a country where there is
slavery ? God is the essence of justice, and slavery is
absence of justice. God is the essence of freedom ; slavery
is absence of freedom. Hence, where there is God there
cannot be slavery, and where there is slavery there cannot
be God or Godliness. Where there is no place for God,
there can be no religion. In short, true religion cannot
exist where slavery, the nursery of injustice, is rampant.
Slavery is the straight road to Hell and true religion is a
means of attaining Heaven. To walk in the path leading
towards Heaven, the shackles of slavery must be broken.
This was the practical philosophy which Sri Samartha
Ramdas gave to Shivaji and Sri Pran Nath taught Chhat-
trasala, and this advice to win Swaraj for the sake of
religion, by fighting and dying for it, began to echo in the
hearts of the people trodden under slavery, in 1857, two
hundred years after it was originally given.
Those, who had thrust this slavery—unnatural, born
of injustice,—on Hindusthan, had already begun the des-
truction of religion not only in India but all over the world.
For, what religion is there which has not condemned
injustice ? But not satisfied with the tacit insult of the
religion of India, from the very day he set foot on the
Indian soil up to the terrible battles of 1857, the Feringhi
had been making steady and unceasing attempts to
trample the Hindu religion and the Moslem faith. The
head of the whole English nation was turned at the
immeasurable success which had attended the attempt to
Christianise (?) the indigenous ignorant races of Africa
and America, and they had strong hopes that in India too,
in a few days, the Cross would be everywhere triumphant.
That the English fully believed that Hindusthanis would
be ashamed of their religion when they saw the light of
western civilisation and give it up, that they would con-
sider the Bible more sacred than the Vedas and the Koran,
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