Oh Martyrs

The Battle of Freedom once begun and Handed down from sire to son Though often lost is ever won!! Today is the tenth of May! It was on this day that in the ever memorable year of 1857, the first campaign of the War of Independence was opened by you, Oh Martyrs, on the battlefield of India. The Motherland, awakened to the sense of her degrading slavery, unsheathed her sword, burst forth from the shackles and struck the first blow for her liberty and for her honour. It was on this day that the war-cry ‘Maro Feringhi Ko’ was raised by the throats of thousands. It was on this day that the sepoys of Meerut, having risen in a terrible uprising, marched down to Delhi, saw the waters of the Jumna, glittering in the sunshine, caught one of those historical moments which closed past epoch to introduce a new one, and ‘had found, in a moment, a leader, a flag and a cause, and converted the mutiny into a national and a religious war. All honour be to you, oh Martyrs. For it was for the preservation of the honour of the race that you performed the fiery ordeal of a revolution when the religions of the land were threatened with a forcible and sinister conversion, when the, hypocritc threw off his friendly garb and stood up into the naked heinousness of a perfidious foe breaking treaties, smashing crowns, forging chains and mocking all the while our merciful mother for the very honesty with which she believed the pretensions of the white liar, then you, oh Martyrs of 1857, awoke the mother, inspired the mother, and for the honour of the mother, rushed to the battlefield terrible and tremendous with the war-cry ‘Maro Feringhi Ko’ on your lips, and with the sacred mantra of God and Hindusthan on your banner! Well did you do in, rising. For otherwise, although your blood might have been spared, yet the stigma of servility would have been the deeper, one more link would have been added to the cursed chain of demoralising patience, and the world would have again contemptuously pointed to our nation saying, ‘She deserves slavery, she is happy in slavery.’ For even in 1857, she did not raise even a finger to protect her interest and her honour!’ This day, therefore, we dedicate, oh Martyrs, to your inspiring memory! It was on this day that you raised a new flag to be upheld, you uttered a mission to be fulfilled, you saw a vision to be realized, you proclaimed a nation to be born!