मेरा आजीवन कारावास / माझी जन्मठेप (स्वातंत्र्यवीर सावरकर - काले पानी का ऐतिहासिक संस्मरण)

The fact of Turkey entering the war on the side of Germany against England, fired the imagination of the Muslims; and man, woman and child began to dream of Muslim Raj in India. And when occasionally they came to hear that the Amir of Afghanisthan had made a common cause with the Germans and the Turks, their enthusiasm knew no bounds. The Pathans were so enraptured by the prospect that their tongues began to wag like the croaking of frogs in a pool of water before the advent of the monsoon. If one Pathan raised one rumour, another multiplied it tenfold, and so long as Enver Pasha was in the field, he was reported to have decimated thousands of British regiments or taken the city of Basra. About the Amir of Afghanisthan, the reports were still more extra- vagant. It was not enough for him to cross the Indus, but he must knock to-day at the door of Lahore, and march another day on Sirhind. The petty officers, moving in and out of prison, brought in fantastic news that produced a convulsion among the prisoners. One told us that the Amir had taken the city of Lahore. Another reported that Kaiser had seized London. And, when asked for confirmation, they both excused themselves by pointing to this Munshi or that who had given them the news, or by saying that they had read it in an Urdu newspaper. But behind the ridiculous behaviour of the Pathans there was one quality which I never failed to impress upon those who simply laughed at them. I always asked my Hindu brethren not to forget how enthused they were, to a man, over the prospect of Muslim Raj in India, or over the invasion of India by a Muslim power. This pride of race and religion was a virtue worthy of emulation-, and it was this pride that would instantly translate itself into action at the right moment and with the right opportunity. The Hindus lacked this pride, this fervour, this unity of action, and, therefore, they had suffered. This was a matter of compliment for the Pathans but was full of menace to the Hindus, and the Hindus must be ever vigilant about it. Eternal vigilance was the price of liberty. Also they had to bear it well in mind that the Mussulman imbibed this religious fervour and this spirit of Pan-Islamism with his mother's milk. In every Muslim household he was taught from his childhood to love his religion and to stand by the Muslim Raj. What had the Hindus to show in comparison with this fervour, with this ardent, burning passion? Not one in ten thousand Hindus knew or cared to know what was Hindusthan, what was Hindu power, Hindu Raj, or the meaning of the term Hindu. What then of a common bond of sympathy among them? The Pathans had, at the moment, only one place to call their own and that was Kabul. But they swear by it at all times, while they eat, drink and sleep. The Hindus have a place which is their own, but very few know of it, and know that the place goes by the name of Nepal. Crores of them cannot tell if the Nepalese is a Hindu or a Muslim. And the educated classes among them think and are found to declare that Nepal is no part of Hindusthan and that it was a different country altogether, more akin to China, Persia and Afghanisthan and as foreign as Servia. I have seen some of them holding an argument with me on the subject. Whenever in my talks with the prisoners in the Andamans, I maintained that Nepal, being a Hindu Kingdom, can be made a good nucleus of Hindu Sangathan, they