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

hopelessly in this suicidal blindness to our own interests and what is worse, is sticking it up as a feather into his cap. The Mohamedan will swagger to know about his Amir and Sultan but ask a Hindu if he had ever heard of an independent Hindu Kingdom that still flies its flag, unsullied and unbeaten, he will give you a blank look. Even when you mention Nepal, he will at the most, shrink his shoulders and crowl out: ‘Oh! the Gurkhas! what traitors they are!’ Against this criminal apathy that Hindus exhibited towards Nepal and as a reaction Nepal had been guilty of exhibiting towards the Hindus outside Nepal, it was the Maratha press that was first to raise a powerful and vigorous protest. It opened the eyes of the Hindu public to the far-reaching consequences that the general awakening amongst the Hindus of Nepal and outside was likely to have, if the forces of Hindudom as a whole were made to work towards a wide, definite and well-outlined common goal. Sindh and the Hindu press in Calcutta followed. The Arya Samaj papers soon caught the flame. The Hindu Mahasabha nearly offered its presidentship to the Maharajadhiraj of Nepal and although His majesty could not accept it for weighty reasons, and although the question was dropped before it was pressed to the last stage, the special session of the Mahasabha unanimously passed a resolution at Belgaum congratulating His Majesty on the recognition of the independence of the Hindu Kingdom by England and France as well and expressed in significant words the hopes and aspirations which the strength and the greatness of Nepal aroused in the hearts of Hindu patriots all over India. This general awakening of Hindu mind naturally called forth opposition. Attempts to misguide and divide by raising false issues in the name of solemn history and disinterested sophistry, which wanted to assure us that Nepal was not, had never been a part of India nor the people there had anything common with the Hindus outside Nepal, were not wanting. But such disingenuous attempts to alienate the Gurkhas away from their brother —Hindus in India—only intensified the interest of the general public on the question and the Nepal movement began to loom even larger and larger on the horizon of Hindu hope. Just then, the anniversaries of birth of the Majesty, the King of Nepal and Excellency, the Prime Minister of that kingdom furnished an occasion that proved the movement had entered on the third stage of its existence. For the interest that the Hindus had begun to take in the affairs of Nepal, has at last