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

poetry, Raghunathrao, however, it is especially to be noted, put the whole thing in the report he sent of this campaign to Poona in the most direct matter-of-fact way, befitting his solider’s profession, without any long- winded digressions or self-adulation or exaggeration of any sort. Hence, we should like to cite his very words. 1073. Writes Raghunathrao in his despatch of the 4th May, 1758, to the Peshwa: “As regards the bandobasta of (resettling the affairs or re- establishing firm control over) the provinces, the Lahore, Multan, Kashmir and rest of the territory this side of Attock, I should like to say that a part of the work is done and rest of it I shall do very shortly. After hotly pursuing Sultan Taimur and Jahankhan, we have routed and plundered all their army. Fighting some skirmishes here and there and being beaten, they have fled to Peshawar beyond Attock. Abdali marched against Iran but the Persian emperor despoiled his whole army. Abdali then came (back) to Kandahar, followed by the Irani army in hot pursuit. Jabardestakhan and Mur-r- rubkhan, the Sardars and Landlords of this province, who had tendered their loyalties to Abdali because of the latter’s threatening might (or tyrannical treatment), have also now changed their side and are promising to serve faithfully and to chastise Abdali. Abdali himself has lost courage. In short, it does not seem that he can muster strong from that front. He has been, already, chastised by the Shah of Iran on the other side. It would be proper if you send reinforcements and establish His Majesty’s control beyond Attock. His nephew and heir to the throne, who had approached Your Excellency and whom Your Excellency had sent to us, will be given some territory this side of Attock to establish himself and then will be appointed to the Subha of Kabul, Peshawar beyond Attock. The chief of Abdali’s forces, Abdul Samadkhan, who was in Sirhind, is captive of our state. I shall send him and some Moghal and Irani forces from this province. They will manage the affairs there. By virtue of Your Excellency’s greatness and piety, they will bring pressure on Abdali and punishing him severely, they will establish our control beyond Attock. Renake Anaji and Rayaji Sakhadev have been posted in Lahore. Gopal Ganesh (Barve) also is quite at home in this region. He too will stay. The Emperor of Iran had sent the letters to me and to Malharrao (Holkar) calling us precipitately to Kandahar to destroy him (Abdali) and to fix up the frontier at Attock. But we, at least on our part should like to send Abdul Rahimankhan of Kabul, whom your Excellency had sent to us, and we shall help him with some armed forces

and other sinews of war. The provinces of Kabul and Kandahar, beyond Attock, have been a part of Hindusthan from (the times of) Akbar to (that of) Alamgir; why should we then give these away? For the present, we shall establish Irani control over the region and send a pleasant reply. Ambassadors from all the neighbouring powers like Jammu and Kashmir have come. We shall settle about the territory this side of Attock; further beyond, it is not yet possible (to do anything of the kind). Efforts (in that direction) will be made. For the present, I shall do whatever is most urgent. Whoever stronger person will lead the next expedition will effect a permanent settlement. The province has a revenue collection of about two to four crore (twenty to forty million of rupees). But the landlords and Jamindars are very powerful. We collect only a nominal revenue. It is difficult to realise even two hundred thousand rupees from a province with a yield of at least two and a half million. For the present, we are staging a comeback under Your Excellency’s orders. As such, we do whatever is possible; we do not stretch matters too far. For the time being, the governance of the territory has been entrusted to Adina Beg alone. To him we have given Lahore and Multan on lease. This year, the whole (of the revenue collection) will be consumed by the occupation army (garrison army); even fitting out such an occupation army will be difficult; things would be favourable after two or three years. With compliments to Your Excellency!!” 1074. THE ONLY DISGRACEFUL PART OF IT IS THAT WHILE RETURNING TO THE DECCAN, THE MARATHAS DID NOT TAKE REVENGE ON THE MUSLIMS FOR THEIR RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION! 1074A. In Chapter 8, on the ‘Perverted Conception of Virtues’, of the book, it has already been shown in greater detail how the Hindu society (of the time) was haunted by a false and perverted sense of virtues and as such how the Hindus did not even slightly avenge the unbearable and unlimited persecution and the diabolic atrocities perperated by the Muslims on the Hindu religion. Unlike Spain, Portugal, Bulgaria, Greece and other (European) nations which saved Christianity from extinction (from their lands) by ridding completely their homeland of Muslims, the Hindus did not extirpate the Muslims from India. They refrained from inflicting similar, not to speak of greater atrocities even on the enemy, like Muslims who considered religious persecution and diabolic and heinous atrocities

themsleves to be their religious duties! Every drop of blood in the Hindu veins and arteries was surcharged, as it were, with the false and suicidal and perverted conception of religious tolerance towards the aliens. The notion that whatever the nature of atrocities of the aliens on our religion, we should not, even for resisting them, retaliate against these very aggressive alien religionists, was the essence of their religious tolerance. And it was considered by the Hindu to be their religion! It is because of this suicidal notion of religious tolerance that Hindus, even when they had gained unparalleled victories over the Muslims on the battlefields and in the political arena, did not oppose them in the least on the religious front. Naturally, on this religious front, the Muslims in India were not extirpated, nor were they subdued. Root them out completely the Hindus never did, as they had done with the Greeks, the Sakas, the Huns and other ancient aggressors. 1074B. I should be failing in my duty if I were to proceed without referring to one more illustration of this incurable disease of the Hindu mind—of this perverted sense of virtues—which has proved highly injurious to the Hindu valour and Hindu political victory had reached its zenith in Punjab. 1075. Just at the time when Raghunathrao had started from Poona with his army and reached Indore round about 14th February, 1757, the malevolent Adbali had heaped untold humiliation and outrage on the Hindu religion and Hindu women. He had sent some of the cruellest of the commanders to Mathura, Vrindavan, Kurukshetra and other Hindu holy places, in order to avenge their rescue by the Marathas from the Emperor's clutches. Abdali had given these Muslim commanders strict order that— 1076. It was their religious duty as true Muslims that they should devastate every one of the so-called Hindu holy places like Mathura and massacre as many Hindus there, as was possible and to heap up the chopped-off heads together. Whoever from amongst them would chop off the heads of the Hindus as those of Kafirs, were to be rewarded by Abdali at the rate Rs. 5 per such Hindu head. 1077. How mercilessly those savage Muslims wolves, instigated by Abdali's order, attacked Mathura and other holy places of Hindus has been described in Paragraphs 1059 and 1060. Accordingly, the Muslims fell upon the Hindu religious centres at Mathura and slaughtered the innocent Hindus there. Gigantic Hindu temples were toppled down one after another. Streams

of blood of the Hindu men and women, children and old people, began to flow through every house and every street. Not a single young Hindu woman escaped kidnapping. Not a single cow was spared her life. The innocent blood of the cows, too, flowed like water. Those Muslim demons were neither satisfied with nor tired of this brutality. On the country, in order to adorn these devilish acts of theirs with their diabolic artistic sense, they travestied the ceremony of the Hindu Rangpanchami, which happened to be at that time. And how? Big cauldrons and vessels full of Hindu blood newly shed, were kept at different places at short intervals, and the Muslim solidiers with large syringes in hand went on drenching the Hindus in every street and every home in their own blood. The same was the miserable fate of the next town of Gokul, Vrindavan. But the moment he got the news that Rughunathrao had left Indore and proceeded with a large army to destroy him, that self-styled Shahenshah, Abdali, hurried for life to Delhi with all his army and thence to Lahore and onwards straight to Kabul! 1078. Although the very same Maratha force that had beaten back Abdali’s army straight beyond the (North West) frontier (of India) were now returning to the Deccan after glorious victories in Punjab and were visiting the same holy places of Mathura [wrongly spelt Mattra, CHI (1939) and by other writers] Gokul, Vrindavan, and while they were performing their religious rites and having ceremonial baths in the holy rivers, while again they were listening to the harrowing accounts of the Muslim atrocities on the Hindus and their religion, perpetrated only a year ago, while still the Hindu blood spilled profusely by the Muslims on the well-built banks (घाट ghats) of the Jamuna at Mathura had not yet completely dried away, while again the ditches filled with the beef of cows (slain by the Muslims) had been putrefying along the streets, the heads of this Mathura army were not excited with anger at these Muslim brutalities! Nobody of them was beside himself with shame and indignation! None of them was infuriated and none of them vowed revenge of this religious persecution! The victorious general of the Hindus, the brave Raghunathrao, did not issue any order to his army to the effect that they should retaliate with the same atrocities on the Muslims as were indulged in by the latter, that the Muslims as a whole were to be slaughtered, that just like (the ruined) heaps of the Hindu temples, the Muslim masjids should be pulled down without any exception, that the Muslim women should be put to the same indescribable humiliation and shame as the Hindu women folk were done by the Muslims, that it was their

duty to take such a revenge for the wrongs done to Hindu religion and Hindu society! Abdali had but done it!! 1079. We have explained the inestimable wrong done to the Hindu society by this suicidal disease of the perverted conception of virtues so fully in Chapter 8 of this book, that it is needless to repeat it here again. We hereby urge upon every reader to read the above-mentioned Chapter 8 over and again and very carefully. 1080. The most fortunate thing for the Hindus was only this, that the catastrophe, which threatened to extinguish very flame of life of the whole Hindu nation, as a consequence of the silly Hindu religious notions (as the ones described above), was averted by their retaliatory deed of valour and more especially by those of the Marathas on the political and military fronts. Although the Marathas are guilty of not taking revenge of the Muslim vandalism on Mathura-Vrindavan, while on their triumphal march from Punjab, the glorious victory that they won on the Muslims in Punjab in this continuous millennial Hindu-Muslim war and the terrible blow that they gave to the Muslim imperial power, establishing the independence of the Hindu nation and their own political hegemony in the north incapacitated the Muslims from completely destroying the Hindus in India, just as they had completely annihilated the other ancient nations in Asia. Babylon became Baghdad, but Mathura could not be transformed into another Mecca! Fighting incessantly and indefatigably for ten long centuries, Mathura still exists as a holy Hindu place. The traces of Muslim domination have been wiped out! From the millions of Hindu throats, the triumphant chants of the divine valour of Shree Krishna still resound the Ghats of Jamuna and the temples unmitigated!

Not Only Attock—Even Beyond It! 1081. सरदार पदरचे कसे कुणि सिंह जसे कुणि शार्दुल गेंडे। अरे ज्यानी अटकेंत पाव घटकेंत रोविले झेंडे॥ —प्रभाकर (Of what caliber were the Sardars under (him)? Some were veritable lions, others were tigers, whereas some others were rhinoceroses indeed! Why, within a quarter of a ‘Ghataka’ (a period of 24 minutes), they planted their flags in Attock!’ 1082. As has been told in the previous Chapter, while Raghunathrao was returning to the Deccan after his unprecedented triumph in Punjab, along with his numerous Sardars and warriors, the tidings of his victory had already been reaching Maharashtra from time to time. One day, all the Maratha forces gathered together at Indore, the next day they were collecting the Chauth and Sardeshmukhi taxes from all over Rajputana; later on, they were reported to be rushing into the Antarvedi, punishing the Rohillas and Pathans for joining hands with Abdali; then conquering Delhi and performing the obsequies, as it were of the vaunted imperial authority of Abdali and releasing the Moghal Emperor from his captivity and esablishing him on the throne of Delhi as the puppet in Maratha hands; then again immediately invading Punjab, routing Abdali’s Afghan army of ten thousand strong, which was kept there for the protection of Punjab at Sirhind. Then Abdali’s son Taimurshah and his general Jahankhan were reported to have fled from the Marathas without giving any battle, and fled straight to Kabul leaving Lahore to the tender care of the Marathas, and the armies of Raghunathrao were said to be mopping up Punjab clean of the Afghan domination and driving the enemy far beyond Attock. Then came the news of the triumphant entry of Raghunathrao into Lahore! With such heartening news and reports pouring in daily of the Maratha victories and the worsting of the enemies at their hands, the mighty heart of Maharashtra was filled with justifiable pride. Raghunathrao had already earned for himself a name fit to be ranked with the greatest in the world in his single victorious campaign right from Poona straight to the Indus! The whole of Maharashtra began to call him, willingly or unwillingly, but lovingly

enough Ragho-Bharari, in order to express its wonder and pride about this unhampered and undeterred spring of his, about this eagle-flight of his, towards the Himalayas! This informal title of the victorious general, Raghunathrao, had become immortal! Soon arrived the news of the Crowning Glory of the Marathas 1083. Raghunathrao, the commander-in-chief of the Maratha force, had posted some of the Maratha Sardars to punish severely all the Muslim Emirs, Umraos, gangsters and marauders, fakirs and parasites of every sort, who were creating anarchical conditions in Punjab and especially towards the Indus Valley, plundering the peaceful populace there, and establish the Maratha hold in that territory firmly and to collect the revenue and the ‘chauth’ and ‘Sardeshmukhi’ taxes from the territory. Of those Sardars, Tukoji Holkar, Sabaji Shinde, Gopalrao Barve with their soliders attacked the fort of Attock, which was the pride of the Indus valley, and snatched it away from the Muslim hands in the month of July, 1758. The Muslim green flag was uprooted and in its place was hoisted in the tumultuous war cries of ‘Har Har Mahadev!’ of the Marathas, the saffron coloured ‘Jaripatka’ of Hindus—on the fort of Attock. The Marathas and so the Hindu-horses once again drank the holy water of the Indus! 1084. On that glorious day, at last, was the ban (Atak—अटक) of a thousand years enforced by the religious law of the Hindus themselves, broken by the Hindu arms! Why, the Maratha warriors pursued the Muslims even beyond Attock upto Kandahar! 1085. It is already explained in Paragraphs 522 to 535 how this town was named ‘Attock’ and why. 1086. When the news arrived in Maharashtra of the conquest of Attock and of the hoisting by the Marathas of the Hindu Jaripatka on that fort, the universal joy felt there knew no bounds. The Marathas had taken revenge of the wrong done to the Hindus over a thousand years by routing and driving the Muslims right up to Kabul and Kandahar and wrenching the de facto sovereignty of the whole of India from the Muslim hands. And this itself is the fifth Glorious Epoch of Hindu Victories over the Aggressors 1087. The page in the history of the Hindu Nation, which records this unique event of the conquest of Attock and the final victory of the Hindu in the epic millennial Hindu-Muslim war and the establishment of the de facto sovereignty of the Hindus over the so-called Muslim empire, is really the

Golden Page in Hindu history and that day is truly the Red Letter Day in the life of Hindu nation! However 1088. Just as a man on his deathbed, too, breathes a little longer and sometimes even makes a violent effort to rise in epileptic fits, but dies at last; or just as the whole body of the enormously long snake, twenty feet or more in length, gigantic in thickness vying with the broad trunks of the Vat (Indian fig- Ficus Indica) tree, moving dangerously at large in the forests, does not lie lifeless all at once in a moment, even if its head has been smashed completely, but keeps on moving convulsively and even at times seeks to leap ahead, yet ultimately, the dying body does die at last, similarly, in spite of the fact that the Marathas had smashed the head of the Muslim imperial power and left it gasping for its breath on the battlefields of the Indus valley, the moribund Muslim power did continue to make feverish efforts to rise again here and there for sometime more; that dying body did in fact take a long leap like that of the Panipat, but ultimately, it could not avert its fast approaching death. 1089. And in the end, throughout the whole of India began to flutter the flag of independent Hindu power! Not alone from the Indus but right from the bank of the Kabul river, spread throughout the whole of Punjab, up to the frontiers of Jammu and Kashmir, was established the Hindu-Sikh empire of Maharaja Ranjit Singh! Further on, from Delhi right up to Rameshwaram in the rest of India, was established the paramountcy of the Marathas, and to the north was the independent Hindu State of Nepal!! Thus, everywhere in India began to rule once again the Hindu political power: the Muslim power could not recover its fall! 1090. That is why it must be said that on the day on which the Marathas uprooted and flung away the green flag of the Muslim political dominance from the fort of Attock and hoisted in its place their own triumphant saffron coloured Jaripatka, the Hindus gave a really mortal blow to the Muslim power in India and caused its subsequent death! 1091. Even a historian like Sardesai, who was wont to make understatements, wrote: ‘All Maharashtra felt electrified with the proud performance of Raghunathrao and his bands having reached the extreme frontier of India and bathed their horses in the Indus.’ (New History of Maharashtra: Vol. II, page 401)

1092. As soon as the reports of the final victories of the Hindus over the Muslims in this millennial Hindu-Muslim war reached Maharashtra, the Charans, the Bhats, the Gondhalees, who were the chief exponents of the poignant national feelings of the people at large, began to surcharge the atmosphere of every village in Maharashtra with triumphant joy, by means of their heroic poems and ballads, imbued with the most warlike ‘spirit’. There was not to be found any self-respecting Maratha who was not enthralled and inspired to hear these deeds of his own army. Since it is only in the imaginative vein, that a true picture of the romantic mood of the Maharashtra of that day can be drawn. I have tried to express it in my poem ‘Gomantak’ through the mouth of Maharashtrabhat, a typical representative of the Bhats, Charans and Gondhalees! A few couplets from the same poem are translated into English from the original in Marathi and cited here for the perusal of the reader.
1093. A Panegyric By Maharashtrabhat Here, O Hindus, hear you all Comes the news of our victory in War, Wrongs of a thousand years aveng’d Down is the victor vanquish’d again’ Celebrate the day with feastings and dancing Yours is the right by martyrdom seal’d But mind, th’task is not yet done! Only the ramparts so far’re won; The rock’s to be clim’d, the fort’s to be storm’d The wish’d for summit is safely to be made! Dawn’d today is the moment auspicious For Hindu-padshahi happy and glorious! Still the solemnities aren’t over Impending dangers overhead hover. Like Starters of Eras have we won this glory Like Starters of Eras must we hold it grimly Once again o’th banks of the Indus Proudly carrying the crest of gold Stands the horse of a Hindu warrior To quench his thirst of a thousand years! Come with the seas, ye, Gangamaiyya,

Waters pure of Caveri come; Sindhu, Shatadru, Triveni, Jamuna Goda, Krishna're welcome here! Holy places'nd pilgrim-resorts Spread o'ver India, come, you, all. Haridwar, Kailas, Kashi'nd Puri Dwarka'nd Mathura come in a hurry! Hear, O, hear the tidings clear Victory on th'field is pure, O, dear, Wreck'd we our vengeance on the foe Delay'd though 'twas for a thousand years, And Look! The vaunting victor lies, how low!' God has indulged Hindu warriors With their cherished dream of life. Proudly flutters on Attock today Again the Hindu Jaripatka. (Translated from the couplets numbered 1, 112, 116, 117, 118, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131 from the original poem) ❑

6TH GLORIOUS EPOCH 23. The Sixth Glorious Epoch of Hindu Victories over the Aggressors India freed from the British Domination 1094. This Chapter on the Sixth Glorious Epoch of Hindu Victories Over Aggressors is the last one. 1094A. The scope of this book has been defined in Paragraph 7 of the first chapter of this book. That delimitation itself suggests that in this chapter on the Sixth Glorious Epoch of Hindu victories, it is not at all necessary to give a detailed account of how, while the British had firmly established their mighty empire on the whole of India, the Hindu nation could make itself independent and how it has taken a place of pride as an indigenous and sovereign republic amongst the nations of the world. The only object of this chapter is just to examine and assess only salient points in this exciting war of liberation of the Hindu nation from the British, which have been purposely overlooked by almost all the foreign as well as the independent historians, notwithstanding the fact that they are highly important from the point of view of Hindutwa. 1095. But that too, I have done for the most part in my other books, as far as it was necessary to do so: 1096. (1) It is already mentioned at the end of the last chapter that the Hindus had completely uprooted the foreign Muslim empire from India and Hindu States had once again, been established everywhere and the Muslims did not, in fact, wield any imperial authority over the land of Hindusthan. But while the Hindu nation was thus inextricably involved in a gigantic millennial war to root out the Muslim imperial power from India and while all its energies and time were utilized in that direction, European nations like the Portuguese, the French, the Dutch and especially, the English had already commenced their efforts at establishing their rule over India secretly or even openly. The Marathas, who had assumed the leadership of the Hindu nation at that time, had simultaneously to face all these European nations, just when they were carrying on a life and death struggle with the Muslims! Although they had been mostly successful in the end in arresting

the progress of the Protuguese, the French, the Dutch, the English, however, shrewdly availabled themselves of the opportunity, they got, when the Marathas were engaged in the struggle with the Muslim powers, and gradually but firmly established their foothold in Bengal trampling under their feet the weaker Muslim Nawabs over there. Thereafter, they pushed on their aggressive moves and established, though not dejure, yet, de facto sovereignty over the territory right up to Delhi. Naturally they soon came to grips with the Marathas, who had to lead the Hindu nation at that time. In my book, Hindu Padpadshahi (originally written in English and now translated in Marathi) I have sufficiently discussed, from the standpoint of the Hindu nation, how and to what extent the Marathas worsted the English during the First and the Second Anglo-Maratha Wars. The curious readers should do well to read it. 1097. That discussion will make the following two broad points absolutely clear. The first is that from the time the English stepped on the Indian soil, the Muslims never fought with them for national political independence. With the short exception of those with the Mysore State of Haidar and Tipu, all the wars, that the English fought for the sovereignty over India had to be necessarily fought with the Hindus alone. This clearly shows that the Hindus had practically destroyed the political power of the Muslims and had snatched the imperial authority. Another equally important point to be remembered is that the English, too, had maintained the nominal dignity of the puppet Moghal Emperor for fifty years after they had established their de facto sovereign power over India in the very same manner as the Marathas had, as a political expedient of the time, kept on recognizing the same ‘king of shreds and patches’ as the ‘Emperor of India’. 1098. It again exposes the snobbery and ignorance of the Anglicized people who ridicule the Marathas for this ‘political expedient’ of theirs, of a nominal recognition of the Moghal Emperor. For the English, too, found the same political expedient useful to them. These Anglicized people, however, do not criticize the English for this same ‘weakness’ of theirs! The Anglo-Sikh Wars 1099. No sooner did the English destroy the sovereign Maratha power over India in A.D. 1818 and no sooner did they force the rest of the Maratha states to accept their overlordship than they had to cross swords with another newborn Hindu power. That Hindu power was the great kingdom of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, which rose to prominence after 1818. It was after

the death of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, that the English took the field against the combined Hindu might of the Sikhs, the Jats and the Dogras spread far and wide from the river Kabul to the river Shatadru (Sutlej) and to the north up to Kashmir and Ladakh. In the end, the English were successful and the English sovereignty was established from Punjab to Kashmir round about A.D. 1850. My book on the History of Sikhs—the one that was Destroyed 1100. As I have surveyed the period of Indian History covered by the Maratha Empire, in my English book Hindu Padpadshahi, smilarly I had written a discourse on the period following the Maratha epoch in that book of mine, the History of the Sikhs, written in Marathi. But while I was in the thick of revolutionary political activities against the English in Paris, round about 1909-10, the manuscript of my book, ‘The History of the Sikhs’ fell into the hands of Government of India’s Secret Intelligence Department and was destroyed before publication. However, in my books “Prushthabhumi” and this one “Six Glorious Epochs of Hindu Victories Over Aggressors”, I have discussed from the Hindu standpoint all the important events in the Sikh history up to 1850—the time when the mighty kingdom of the Sikhs was virtually destroyed! The curious reader should read it. The Anglo-Nepalese War 1101. The third great power, with which the English had to fight for the sovereignty of India, was the then mighty Hindu state of Nepal. Although the English ultimately won that war, their success was not so great as to destroy that Nepalese Hindu State completely. Barring the English paramountcy as regards the external affairs, their internal independence was unimpaired. Again, this existence of the Nepalese Hindu State was essential for the continuance of the English sovereignty over India for a long time afterwards. For, Nepal was a fertile field, which ceaselessly provided staunch and brave Hindu Gurkha soldiers for the English army. This Hindu Gurkha army proved itself quite capable of, not only in India, but also in Europe, successfully facing the even numbered white army of either European countries. Moreover, in the face of a plausible aggression from the mighty Empire of Russia, which was not only capable but anxious to invade the northern frontiers of the British Indian Empire, the English wished that the warlike state of Nepal should serve as a buffer state in order that such a Russian aggression might not come too unexpectedly.

1102. Only after defeating the Hindu power of the Marathas, the Sikhs and the Nepalese, could the English claim complete sovereignty over India.
1103. The scrambling little East India Company of overseas traders in England, which was established round about the rise of Shivaji Maharaj and which had begun its activities with two meagre factories at its disposal, went on enlarging the sphere of activities and thus acquired the sovereignty of the whole of India about 1850! Originally started by about a dozen Englishmen of pluck, the obscure trading company thus became, within a short period of two centuries or so, the mistress of a mighty empire! During the same period rose and fell many royal dynasties vying with one another for the sovereignty of India. Many sundry states were founded soon and found themselves engaged in internecine warfare and destroyed. But, ultimately, it was this East India Company that struggled and fought on and ultimately supplanted all those rival powers to become the sole mistress of India. How very insignificant a commercial body was this East India Company on the day on which it was started by a handful of shareholders! But all its yearly reports of its assets and liabilities, of its income and its expenditure, right from its first year of inception to the year of its dissolution, carrying forward its previous year's balance and new sources of income and new items of expenditure every year, till after a hundred and fifty or two hundred years it came to include towards its credit side the very empire of India, had all been very scrupulously and systematically preserved in its secretariat in London. And when in 1858, it was dissolved and the British Government itself took over the Empire of India in the name of Queen Victoria, it was most systematically and legally wound up like any commercial or professional concern paying every shareholder his dues as per its last balance-sheet of that year and after paying off all other liabilities!
1104. This continuous process of British administration, this neatness and precision in its work, its capacity to organize and govern, to run a vast and complicated administration, shine all the more gloriously when contrasted with the confused way of doing things, prevalent in our country at that time, our lack of order, political instability and our complete disregard for well organized work! Although it is unjustifiable to show the similarity and difference between the British nation and our own, as they at the time were, by such a solitary and comparatively insignificant instance as this, it may still serve as a pointer—and a very effective pointer at that—to show how

the once petty East India Company could become in the end, the Honourable Company Sarkar Bahadur, which ran the imperial administration of India. 1105. Although the total defeat of our Hindu nation at the hands of the British had always been rankling in our hearts like a deep-rooted and envenomed arrow, we had never repudiated it or glossed over it, not even detracted from the victory of the British people over us by scolding and railing at them under false pretexts. For, we had the courage and ability, which had never died away to avenge that defeat of our Hindu nation. On the contrary, we sincerely believed that in this bitter war between the Hindu and the British nations, it was on the whole natural that the British, who were at that time superior to us in the art of war and strength, should succeed over us. We knew that the success or defeat on the battlefields never obeyed the dictates of the code of justice or injustice. 1106. For this reason, as soon as the British imperial power was established in India, the innermost heroic spirit in the country took up the gauntlet to vanquish the British nation on the battlefield itself, by resorting to some Nrusinhian act of aggressive heroism. 1107. After the British snatched away the imperial authority from its hands, the defeated Hindu nation lay for some time dazed and pale-faced. Even the volcano lies dead and cold for sometime after every eruption. But unless that particular eruption is its last, the terribly explosive substances in its womb smouldering inwardly become unbearably hot. Similarly, the Hindu Nation was merely defeated by the British—it was not yet dead. As such, in its mighty heart, there soon began to seethe and smoulder the explosive elements of many valiant souls, in order to go full tilt once again against the victorious English! (OUTBURST) The first Great Indian Bombardment Sgainst the British Regime 1108. Hardly a dacade elapsed after the British had conquered the last Hindu State of Ranjit Singh in Punjab, when there was great outburst of Hindu-Muslim joint effort to uproot the British imperial power from India. And there flared up the first conflagration of the War of Independence against the British in 1857! 1109. The one remarkable aspect of this revolutionary war was that the Hindus and the Muslims had organized themselves into a joint national

front and waged a nationwide war against the British, forgetting their age- long enmity of centuries together! 1110. But I have already written some time in 1908-1909, a detailed history of this revolutionary war in my book of about five hundred pages named, “Indian War of Independence of 1857”. In it, I have reviewed that war from the standpoint of the Hindu nation. As such, it is not necessary to repeat the same here again. 1111. During those two or three years of this war of Independence, the English suffered such heavy losses that the English casualties far outnumbered those suffered by them in all wars with the Marathas, the Sikhs and the Nepalese taken together, for the sovereignty of India. The brave revolutionists killed so many British warriors and white men! Let alone the petty English captains, lieutenants, collectors, magistrates and such like second-grade officers, but such eminent personalities like General White, General Neill, Sir Henry Lawrence, General Outram, Commander- in- Chief Anson and others too had to pay the penalty with their lives. The revolutionaries dispatched most of them on the battlefield! The English too killed nearly a hundred thousand fighters from amongst the revolutionaries, as per the statement of Nanasahib Peshwa, the leader of that revolution! 1112. At the end of this revolutionary war, the British terminated “The Honourable East India Company”, which was to the revolutionaries a virtual British Government, and which they hated for the same reason. The British thought that the abolition of The East India Company and its rule would pacify the Indian revolutionaries inasmuch as their wishes had been honoured in this respect! So the British Government proclaimed it with all the fanfare and grandiose display that the administration of India had been taken over from the East India Company and that the latter had been dissolved and further, that the British Queen, Victoria, would, thereafter, take for herself the title, The Empress of India, assuming full sovereign power over the country. Thus, the clash of arms on the battlefield, by the Indian revolutionists for about three years had put an end to the hated ‘East India Company’. 1113. Over and above this, the British issued throughout India a proclamation in the name of the new Empress of India, Victoria, the Queen of England, in which, for the sake of the revolutionists and with a view to pacifying them a bit, it was said that after the issue of that proclamation, whoever of the ‘mutineers’ would stop fighting openly or covertly and

return to their homes never to harass the English people and would begin living a peaceful life, would be shown, without exception, royal clemency, irrespective of anything they might have done in respect of the ‘mutiny’. 1114. After the British had, thus, surrendered, though not explicitly yet doubtless implicitly, to the revolutionists in repsect of the above-mentioned two points, there was included in the said proclamation of the new Empress of India, a further important promise that neither the British Government, nor any local white-skinned officer, nor even any British missionary would be suffered to interfere with the religion of their ‘natives’, that the Empress of India wished to treat all her subjects, the Hindus, the Muslims, the Christians and others, impartially and that she, as the Empress of India, would protect every religion from the tryrannical persecution at the hands of every other religion. This express promise was included in this famous proclamation in order to eradicate one of the most potent causes of the outbreak of the War of Independence, namely, the Indian apprehension that the company’s government was out to destroy the native religions and to convert all the Indians to Christianity with the use of force. And this was, too, a tacit submission of the British to the revolutionists! 1115. Yet another important submission was implicitly made to the revolutionists in this proclamation. It was the discontinuation of the obnoxious practice of denying the Indian rulers the right of adoption and liquidating and annexing their territories to the British possessions in India. For, it was expressly promised in the said proclamation that the traditional right of Indian rulers to adopt heirs to their estates would be honoured. Their adopted heirs were promised the same political and administrative rights as they enjoyed under the old tradition. 1115A. Thus, the British had tried by means of this Queen’s proclamation to remove almost all the causes, which in their opinion, had led to the horrible revolt of the Indian revolutionists. Nevertheless, the most important promise—of course, in the British opinion—and the one that they thought would give complete satisfaction to the Indian people—was that— 1116. All the Indian subjects of Queen Victoria would be treated as respectfully as the British—and that they would be selected for appointment to all the official posts in the British empire, irrespective of caste, creed or religon!! 1116A. BUT THIS PROCLAMATION HAD NO EFFECT WHATSOEVER UPON THE REVOLUTIONISTS!

1117. Why, a parallel proclamation was issued by the revolutionists as a pungent and trenchant rejoinder to the Queen’s proclamation! How appropritate and poignant it was, has already been clearly shown in my book, ‘The Indian War of Independence of 1857’. The very basic statement made in it was that the revolutionary war that had been fought so far was not fought because they wanted the rule of the British East India Company over India to be replaced by that of the imperial authority of the British Queen. They did not want any foreign power—and certainly not that of the British—to dominate over India! They wanted a completely indpendent self-rule! That is why, they said, they were fighting on the battlefields. Although the Queen’s proclamation was exhibited on every wall throughout India, thousands of revolutionists, including General Tatya Tope, Shreemant Nanasahib, Balasahib, ‘Jalka Rambhau’, Amar Singh, Ferozshah and other eminent leaders of the revolution kept on fighting for months together! Only after the heroic fall of almost all of them in the all-consuming flames of the revolution, fighting and fighting till the very last, could that sacrificial pit smoulder low and cool down subsequently! However!
1118. However, the last two or three promises given in the Queen’s proclamation did not fail to have the desired effect on the new generation of Indian people, which was later on educated in the English schools and colleges that were shortly opened thereafter and on that of the thousands of Indian officers and servants, which thrived on the Government salaries. Especially in Calcutta, Bombay, Madras and other cities, where the illusory British reforms had already spread their cobwebs much earlier than 1857, the then Indian leaders were so much elated by the promise in the Queen’s proclamation that the British Empress would allow her British as well as Indian subjects to enjoy all civic rights equally and without any invidious distinction, that they declared openly in the public meetings held to celebrate the total extinction of the ‘mutiny’, that now on, the British empire belonged as much to the British as to the Indian people! This proclamation of the Queen was just another peaceful device that the British had found out, as they had used the other one of ‘violent repression’ simply to put down the Indian revolutionaries. They had not the least intention to follow in future the political or administrative policy outlined in it. This, I have amply proved by quoting the words of the British statesmen themselves in my books written on later history. But the credulous and

converted minds of the above mentioned class of Indian people who were educated in ‘English Schools’ and who were earnestly busy serving their British masters, could never grasp this secret and crooked ruse of British diplomacy. On the contrary, being deluded by the preposterous proclamation of the Queen, who mad with victory, had the audacity to ascend to the imperial throne of India, these simple gulls of Indian leaders hastened to glorify that ‘proclamation’ as the Indian Magna Carta in press and public meetings. How absurd and foolish it is to compare that original “Magna Carta” in English history, with which the English people, after fighting successfully with their King, had forced him to concede to them their fundamental civic rights, with this deceitful and profane ‘proclamation of the Queen’, which tightened the shackles of slavery on the Indian hands and feet even more forcibly than before, only gilding them outwardly so as to pass them on as ornaments. 1119. But in my Background to my ‘Autobiography’ I have already dealt, at greater length, and from the point of view of the Indian people, with the period of Indian history, after the temporary pacification of the War of Liberation of 1857 was achieved and the foundation of the British administration in India was firmly secured. Hence, it need not be repeated here! The Peculiar Character of the period the Political Movements of the Loyalists 1120. The peculiarity of the period following the pacification of the national rising of 1857—i.e., roughly speaking from 1860 to 1900—is that, it is dominated by a nationwide movement under the leadership of those who believed that India would once again see national prosperity and development only by remaining in the British empire and she must achieve it that way alone! Hence, this period can be generally called an age of the loyalist politicians. However, even in this age of avowed loyal politicians, the age-old tradition of heroism, which vehemently advocated armed revolt to free the motherland from British domination, was not altogether extinct! It did flare up secretly or even openly, in some daring risings! Even those momentary explosions of that traditional heroism did not fail to convulse the British administration in India and to excite and inspire the Indian people at least for the time being. Only two illustrations of these armed revolts would suffice. The Hindu rising under the leadership of Ramsingh Kuka in Punjab during 1870-74 A.D. against the British and the Muslims

for politicial independence and for defending our religion, is the chief of them. And the second, far more extensive and even more effective than the first, was the one in Maharashtra under the leadership of Vasudev Balwant Phadke. It was a violent armed revolt against the British for the complete independence of India! These incidents, too, are reviewed in detail in the Background to my ‘Autobiography’. 1121. Thereafter, dawned the age of Lokmanya Tilak, which was synchronized by the lethal attacks of Chaphekar brothers on the English officers and the feverish activity of secret revolutionary societies for liberty. The Political Movements in India after 1900 1122. At the end of 1900 or thereabouts, terminated the era of loyalist political movement and began the one of Lokmanya Tilak which might fittingly be called—though not revolutionary—conducive to revolution. To this very period were inextricably tied up in my very childhood, from the time of the martyrs, Chaphekars’ sally at the British, my heartstrings and later on my whole life was dedicated to that revolutionary activity. As such my life-history itself became an expensive chapter in the war of liberation against the English. Naturally, whatever might be said about these nation- wide political activities during this period, from the point of view of Hindutwa, has already appeared in the written part of my ‘Autobiography’ or will perhaps in the one, which might be written hereafter. As such, even when I was in my teens to come in closer contacts with almost all the elder reputed leaders of India in respect of this independence movement. 1123. When I had been to England in my very young days, I had come in contact with the eldest of the Indian politicians of the time and the earliest founder of the loyalist political front, namely Dadabhai Nawroji, in his eighties. Why, there my revolutionary party had to cross swords with his British-loyalist party in our tug-of-war for the leadership of Indian political movement in England. Next to him, I had developed in England itself closer relations with the respected staunch Bengali freedom fighters from amongst those belonging to the generation following that of Dadabhai Nawroji, like the late Shree Surendranath Bannerjee, Romeshchandra Datta and others. With most of the younger leaders of the same period belonging to the staunch nationalist party fighting vehemently against the loyalist front, I had developed personal friendship and ideological kinship. With the active political workers from Pandit Shyamji Krishan Verma, Lala Lajpat Rai, Bipinchandra Pal, Right Honourable Gokhale and such other all-India