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

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

figures to hundreds of the leaders belonging to different provinces, I had either developed friendly ties or had to fight political battles on many occasions. Lokmanya Tilak, Shivrampant Paranjpe, Shreemant Dadarao Khaparde, Dr. Moonje and the other Maharashtrian leaders of that line were individually so closely acquainted with me that some of them and the staunch nationalist leaders from other provinces, too, bestowed parental affection on me. For example, while Bipin Chandra Pal was in England, I was staying with him for sometime in company with his son, Niranjan Pal. Bipin Babu himself had more than once cooked fish and flesh in the Bengali style and had served them to me with great importunity and had added to his moral credit the meritorious act of polluting a strictly vegetarian Maharashtrian Brahmin like myself. With the future exponent of the ‘non- violent truth-assertion’ (Satyagrah), ‘non-coperation movement’ who later on came to be widely known as Mahatmaji—I happened to be closely acquainted in a fiendly way when he had come to England, where he was then known simply as Barrister Gandhi and thereafter throughout our lives, we came together and many times in conflict—in the political arena in India. And my relations with armed revolutionary party in India are too well- known to be recounted here! The All-India leadership of the post- Chaphekar revolutionary activities had by chance devolved on me at least in the beginning—first in Maharashtra and thereafter in England. Need it be told, that I had developed very close acquaintance with thousands of brave martyrs and gallant fighters of that party? Shyamji Krishan Verma, Madame Cama, Barrister Rana and many other elder and eminent personalities were among those who were converted to our revolutionary views through my propaganda and guidance. Thus, I had very close contacts and personal friendship with various great personalities from all over India. To the thousands of members of my revolutionary secret society, the Abhinav Bharat Samastha, right from its original nucleus at Nasik and Bhagur to its innumerable branches in many foreign countries, I had myself administered the oath of all allegiance in person. The martyr Madanlal Dhingra, Lala Hardayal, Bhai Parmanandji, Chattopadhyaya, Senapati Bapat, the great historian, Dr. Jayaswal, Tirumalacharya, “Rishi” Aiyar—how many names can one recount? Thereafter, when I was sent to the Andamans on transportation for life, I had the company of Pulin Bihari Das, the Chief of the Anushilan Samiti, Barindra Ghosh of Yugantar Samiti, Upendranath Bannerjee, Ashutosh Lahiri, Hemchandra Das and other Bengali

revolutionary conspirators, as fellow-convicts. Nearly a hundred or more Sikh and non-Sikh revolutionaries of the Gadar Party and other societies, who were originally sentenced to death but whose sentence was later on commuted to deportation, also came along with us, to the Andamans to serve their terms and stayed there with us suffering unbearable innumerable hardships and torture for years together for the sacred cause of the liberation of our motherland. Subsequent to my release from the Andamans, I again came into very intimate contact with the millions of the avowed believers in Hindutwa in the great organizational movement for the solidarity of the Hindus as a staunch opposition to the fanatic Muslim activities, which was a natural concomitant to the armed revolutionary work against the British. For want of space, it is impossible even to mention their names! But a special request has to be made just here, lest the omission of their names might be misunderstood to be due to their work being less important in comparison to that of the others whose names are herein mentioned. 1124. Ever since the sixteenth year of my life—the time when I began to take part in politics—I have been personally and closely connected—at times as a vehement adversary—with all the above-mentioned four phases of Indian political life—the Loyalists, the non-violent but vehemently nationalistic, the revolutionist and finally the Hinduistic—subsequent to the defeat in the war of Indepenedence of 1857. As such, the compilation and interpretation from the Hindu standpoint of the history of the period has been fully done in my writings and speeches made on every occasion during these fifty or sixty years. Now I don't think it necessary for me to add even a single word to the published work of mine running to about seven to eight thousand printed pages in the form of books or otherwise, leaving aside hundreds of my speeches, interviews, articles and the written work that is now lost beyond recovery and now at this age—the eightieth year of my life—when I am confined to bed, I have not the physical strength left in me to go on repeating it once again! Conclusion 1125. During this ceaseless and relentless war with the British, which India had carried on so consistently and so resolutely with violent and non- violent means for more than a hundred years, from its first volcanic eruption in 1857 to the year 1946, when the Second World War had come to an end —in order that it might free itself from the tyrannical bonds of British

slavery, our Hindu nation ultimately got the golden opportunity of achieving the greatest success as the war-drums began to thunder and rend the European skies!! 1126. If we have received any real and effective help from any nation, it was from Hitler, the dictator of Germany and General Tojo, the militant leader of the Japanese! It is these countries, Germany and Japan, which gave substantial help in up-to-date arms and ammunition for the army, navy and air force to the revolutionary party from the very beginning, that is from the violent agitation in Europe by the Abhinava Bharat Samstha to the declaration of war against the British by Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose in the Second World War. That is why an army of hardly forty to fifty thousand strong, could rise in revolt against the British near Malaya and Singapore and could march against India under Netaji Subhashbabu to free it with the war-cry ‘Chalo Delhi’. At the same time, the British came to know that in India too, the Indian army, navy and air force under the British had hatched out a conspiracy to go in for a revolutionary war of independence. Of the Indian citizens, millions were just waiting to raise a standard of revolt against the British. Some had gone underground and begun subversive activities, while others openly raided the British armouries in surprise attack and sacked them thoroughly; others still, started prototype governments and rooted out the British control over those particular regions. Thus harassed on all sides and paralysed by incessant fighting in the two world wars in Europe, the crippled and mutilated British power lost its hold on India. The English people had lost the vigour and strength needed to hold the empire in ice! At last, in 1947, the British Viceroy began talks with the Indian leaders saying that they would recognize Indian independence and leave it and go back. 1127. Of course, the British naturally recognized those political parties alone as the leaders of India that were originally labouring under misconceptions and delusion as regards their political theories, were generally chicken-hearted and pro-British on the whole, frightened of the Muslims and still very eager to have anyhow, by fair means or foul, whatever little political power they could grab, and with them alone, they carried out all their talks on the transfer of power! These parties, too, no doubt, were patriotic in their actions; they, too, had laboured for the cause of freedom constitutionally and non-violently.

1128. But the British had laid down one crafty and far more dangerous condition. The British statesmen insisted that India be vivisected into two because they wanted to reward those Muslims who had consistently and treacherously helped the British throughout the Indian War of Liberation ever since 1857, and who demanded a unified state of the Muslim-majority provinces cut out from the rest of India, as a price for that help. The British statesmen conceded to this anti-Hindu, highly perfidious and anti-national demand of the Muslims with a still deeper and more sinister motive of creating an everlasting enemy for the Hindu nation.
1129. This insistence of the British was basically the Muslim demand for a separate sovereign state over the Muslim-majority provinces, which had been supported quite vehemently by all the Muslims in India. But all the Hindus in India, strongly enough, did not oppose this Muslim demand for a Pakistan so vehemently! With only one exception, all the political parties in India were for granting the Muslims Pakistan, and ending the strife forever. It meant that the whole of Punjab and Bengal should be ceded to Pakistan. Over and above this, the Muslims demanded a corridor to connect their two Muslim states of Punjab and Bengal, a strip of land right from the Punjab to Bengal through the heart of North India!!
1130. The only party which staunchly and consistently opposed these Muslim demands throughout India was avowedly a pro-Hindu party! Under the leadership of the Hindu Mahasabha, these Hindus started an all-India agitation against the vivisection of India, and protested against it as bitterly as possible. The anti-Hindu elements, the Muslims, the British Government, all persecuted them, tortured them, locked them up in prisons, shed the Hindu blood at various places, to crush this great agitational movement of the Hindus. But throughout the whole of India, these avowed pro-Hindu (Hindutwa-nishtas) faced boldly all the atrocities of the enemies, even when they were in a minority. They even did not refrain from avenging the spilling of Hindu blood by shedding the enemy blood and by beheading those who proved treacherous to the Hindu cause!
1131. Fortunately, this retaliation by the loyal Hindus, done at the risk of their lives, did not prove quite futile. For, although the British Government decided much against our wishes to partition India, they had to concede to the least of our demands that instead of giving over the whole of Punjab and Bengal to the Muslims, as per their demand only, the Muslim-majority part of those provinces should be included in Pakistan while the rest of Punjab

and Bengal with Hindu majority should be joined to India as Eastern Punjab and West Bengal. The demand of the loyal Hindus (Hindutwa-nishtas) ‘Let us vivisect their proposed Pakistan before they vivisect our Hindusthan’, thus proved successful. And as for the more dangerous Muslim demand for a corridor—a passage through north India to join Punjab and Bengal—not a word was ever spoken nor considered during these talks of the transfer of power mainly because of the bitterest opposition of these ‘loyal’ Hindus! 1132. And when during the election for the central and provincial legislatures of India, the majority of the Indian voters elected those very candidates and parties who gave their consent to create Pakistan, they proved themselves to be the greatest sinners, responsible for the horrible national crime of eternally harming the undivided India! 1133. Again the ‘loyal Hindu’ knew in their heart of hearts that this creation of Pakistan was the necessary consequence of the great sins of cherishing perverted conception of virtues, of banning reconversion of the polluted Hindus and many other such religious and social vices imbibed in us from our old ancestors. These very anti-Hindu and anti-national practices of the Hindu had already created big and small “Pakistans” in every city and every village. It was inevitable that we had to suffer the horrible consequences of these, our social sins and crimes. A detailed discussion on this point is available in the foregoing pages (of Chapter 8, Paras 421 to 472.) 1134. While all these momentous movements were going on in India, the British Cabinet itself, after taking into account the general trend, tabled a bill in the British Parliament, named “Independence of India Act,” which was unanimously passed. Accordingly on the 15th of August, 1947, the British Governor-General in Delhi declared, at last, with the consent of the elected representatives of India, that the British nation was on that day liberating India from their imperial domination and making it politically free, that of the Muslim majority districts of West Punjab and East Bengal separate independent Muslim State, called Pakistan, would be created. While the rest of India would be founded as an independent Indian State! 1135. Thus was India liberated from the domination of the British Empire and this great Indian republic was established! The practical politicians amongst the ‘loyal Hindus’ satisfied themselves, whatever was obtained was not meagre! Though not the whole of Bharat, at least three-fourths of it was liberated in an undivided state! Quite a great boon indeed! After about