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

Problems before Hindudom After Bloodless (!) Vivisection RETALIATION The vital interests of Hindudom demand that some maxims and arguments emphasized in chorus by the Congressite Ministers, leaders and the press should be promptly refuted. For example, Pandit Nehru has been reiterating, of late, that the right of retaliation or punishment belongs to the state alone and in no case, the people (meaning in this case Hindu-Sikhs) could be justified in exercising it on their own initiation and responsibility. In laying down this maxim, Panditji has happily refused to indulge in the mischievous mumbo-jumbo of Gandhistic morals. He stated clearly that he was not talking about the morals of this question but the practical aspects of it only. So far so good. But he conveniently forgot to touch the most crucial and practical aspect of the question—what were the people to do, when the state proved either so unwilling or so pusillanimous as to fail miserably even to defend its own people, not to speak of retaliating to avenge the wrongs perpetrated on their hearths and homes and honour? Even an individual has a legal right of self-protection and of retaliation in so far, at any rate, as it forms an inevitable weapon of self-defence against a violent aggressor, when the police is nowhere in evidence or is unable, or the worst of it all, is unwilling to face the aggressor for fear of displeasing him. Verily a people must have this fundamental right that every citizen possesses. What were the thousands of Hindu-Sikhs to do when faced by an imminent danger of being massacred in cold blood, looted, ‘burnt alive,’ forcibly converted, in short, of being exterminated as a racial and national being by the most barbarous attacks of an organised, dangerously armed and fanatically hostile foe, and especially when the state as such was nowhere in evidence so efficiently as to render any the least protection to them? While the state of Pakistan allowed firearms and explosive to be distributed to the Moslem population throughout Western Punjab, the League leaders were openly inciting their people that Pakistan was but a springboard to pounce upon Hindusthan and the Moslems in their thousands were parading in the streets, in towns and in cities, dangerously armed and raising terror-striking slogans ‘Haske liya Pakistan, marke lenge Hindusthan.’ While the Moslem state was planning in this wise definite