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

that is the thing! They talk of the ‘interned’ only, because they know that it is safer to do so and they dare not talk of the rest because they might be losing their responsible positions in the eyes of their boss! Otherwise, when the different provincial conferences have so clearly and so often made it obvious that the majority of the provinces heartily wish to effect the release of the political prisoners, one fails to understand why the Congres should fail to do so. The business of the Congress is not to voice the sentiments of the few that dominate its proceedings but of the many, who give it its weight and support and in whose name ought to derive its right to be a ‘Congress’ at all. When so many provinical conferences have passed this resolution and so often, when the leading papers and magazines have incessantly pressed this point, when many of the leaders of the Congress itself, when it was their turn to be rotting behind the prison walls had expected and had thought they had a right to expect the sympathetic mention of them by the people for whom they fought, above all or rather least of all when the very Austrian people, not to mention the Irish, the Boers &c. had been bold and honest and grateful enough to agitate for the release of all their political prisoners and succeeded in getting it done, when all these things are known and admitted, then I think that the Congress could be and should be immediately forced to pass as bold and as comprehensive a resolution as that of the Andhra or Maharashtra Conferences this year. If some old hags tremble, let them absent themselves from the sittings that adopt this resolution. Why should you all share in this guilty silence because a handful of ‘Responsible’ are shaky about it? Secondly, one or two precautions should be taken in case of any such resolution or movements, if to be effective. Many papers write about ‘political prisoners’ but the language is so conveniently dubious that the Government and even the people are quite likely to fail to understand what is meant by that omnibus term, ‘political prisoners.’ Some times it means interned, at others the detenue, then deported or the state prisoners, but hardly it ever means those also who are convicted for offences of political nature. I pointed out to you last year that Mr. Bonarlaw himself made a distinction in Irish cases that the rebels were not guilty of ‘individual acts’! Now that gentleman knew well that suffragists were all ‘convicted’ for ‘individual acts’ including arson! Yet they were released as soon as the war broke out by the very Government Mr. Bonarlaw works in. Then I don’t see why the word ‘convicted’ should be a bogey to the Indian ‘Responsibles’