भारतीय इतिहास के ६ स्वर्णिम पृष्ठ (वीर सावरकर - विदेशी आक्रान्ताओं पर विजय गाथा)

continent being inhabited by different races with different religious systems, for they mutually understand each other and respect and take part in each other’s modes and ways and doings. The mutiny reminds us that our dominions rest on a thin crust ever likely to be rent by titanic fires of social changes and revolutions. Whisper unto us the nobility of such an alliance of religion and patriotism, the true religion whichever is on the side of patriotism, the true patriotism which secures the freedom of religion. And give us the marvellous energy, daring and secrecy with which you organised the mighty volcano; show us the volcanic magma that underlie the green thin crust on which the foe is to be kept lulled into a false security; tell us how the chapati, that fiery Cross of India flew from village- to-village and from valley-to-valley, setting the whole intellect of the nation on fire by the very vagueness of its message and then let us hear the roaring thunder with which the volcano at last burst forth with an all shattering force, rushing, smashing, burning and consuming into one continuous fiery flow of red-hot lava-flood! Within a month, regiment-after-regiment, prince-after-prince, city-after-city, sepoys, police, zemindars, Pundits, Moulvis, the multiple-headed Revolution sounded its tocsin and temples and mosques resounded with the cry ‘Maro Feringhi Ko’! Away with the foreigners! Meerut rose, Delhi rose, rose Benares, Agra, Patna, Lucknow, Allahabad, Jadagalpoor, Jhansi, Banda, Indore—from Peshwar to Calcutta and from the Narmada to the Himalayas, the volcano burst forth into a sudden, simultaneous, and all consuming conflagration!! And then, oh Martyrs, tell us the little as well as the great defects that you found out in our people in that great experiment of yours. But above all, point out that most ruinous, nay, the only material drawback in the body of the nation, which rendered all your efforts futile—the mean selfish blindness which refuses to see its way to join the nation’s cause. Say that the only cause of the defeat of Hindusthan was Hindusthan herself, that shaking away the slumber of centuries, the mother rose to hit the foe, but while her right hand was striking the Feringhi dead, her left hand struck, alas, not the enemy, but her own forehead! So she staggered and fell back into the inevitable swoon of 50 years. Fifty years are past, but, oh restless spirits of 1857, we promise you with our hearts’ blood that your Diamond Jubilee shall not pass without seeing your wishes fulfilled!! We have heard your voice and we gather courage from it. With limited means you sustained a war, not against tyranny alone,