SCHEMING PLOTTING SONIA AND

 DANCING GANDHI CAPPED PUPPET

 ANNA HAZARE

By V.SUNDARAM I.A.S.

 

                                         ANNA HAZARE                   SONIA GANDHI

                                          Willing Puppet              Colonial Puppet Master

Anna Hazare had declared from the house top soon after his Sonia Congress sponsored and Sonia Gandhi guided sham shadow Fast-unto-Death against the Alpine Italian corruption of Firangi Memsahib Sonia Gandhi and her reprehensible UPA II Government in the first week of April 2011 that “State chief ministers must learn from the work done by the chief ministers of Gujarat and Bihar”. Now after a period of less than two months Anna Hazare has somersaulted and declared in Ahmedabad on May 26, 2011: “Liquor flows like water in Gujarat. Corruption is everywhere in Gujarat”. The shamelessly corrupt Firangi Memsahib Sonia Gandhi had the Italian brazenness to declare during the Gujarat Assembly Elections in November 2007: “Narendra Modi is a Merchant of Death (mauth ka soudagar)”. What Firangi Memsahib Sonia Gandhi stated in 2007 is being repeated in a slightly different language by walkie-talkie fraud Anna Hazare today. Now Anna Hazare’s true colours have been openly and publicly exposed for all to see. I have no doubt that Anna Hazare is a whole-time agent of Firangi Memsahib Sonia Gandhi and her wholly-owned private limited company called the Sonia Congress Party. Anna Hazare also takes his hourly instructions to come out with different inconsistent, incoherent and foolish statements from time to time from the Sonia Chosen Quislings in the National Advisory Council which is a bed chamber body created by Firangi Memsahib Sonia Gandhi to undermine the structure, letter and spirit of the Indian Constitution in order to bring about the complete and transcendental destruction of the Ship of the Indian State.

As a keen student of European History, I am aware of the fact as to how the Roman Catholic Church was built on the ruins of the Roman Empire which the early Christian priests had caused to be wrecked from within using Quislings placed in carefully chosen strategic places of power and influence in the Roman Empire. Firangi Memsahib Sonia Gandhi’s chosen Quislings consider it a matter of unsullied honour to be her chattels and scullery maids in the National Advisory Council to assist her in her chosen Evangelical mission of torpedoing the Ship of the Indian State into smithereens.

The so-called social activists, NGO Leaders and other paratroopers (each with a private agenda of his/her own) surrounding Anna Hazare --- Arvind Kejriwal,       Swami Agnivesh and Kiran Bedi --- are all politically paid Mansabdars of the Mughal Empress and defacto Prime Minister Firangi Memsahib Sonia Gandhi. All these worthies are being deployed and manipulated by Firangi Memsahib Sonia Gandhi to counter the growing popularity and influence of Baba Ramdev --- his Bharat Swabhiman Andolan in particular --- in all the villages and town of India.

                Arvind Kejriwal                   Swami Agnivesh                                 Kiran Bedi

We all sing and dance to Sonia Madam’s tunes with “Secular” gusto and enthusiasm,

For us the impersonating Gandhi cap of Anna Hazare is incidental,

The supreme political patronage of the Firangi Memsahib is fundamental,

Nay, our only lifeline!

Now to come to the questionable integrity of Anna Hazare, which has been praised to the skies by many of the so-called social activists in the NGO’s (Neo Gangster Organizations!) during the last two months. Moreover, our fully gagged and paid media --- more particularly electronic media like Times Now, NDTV, CNN-IBN, Headlines Today --- have been waxing eloquent on the Gandhian virtues of Anna Hazare, his humility, his innocence, his honesty, his patriotism, his frugal lifestyle, his ethical and moral virtues. All these channels have taken particular care to hide from public view the findings of the Justice Sawant Commission in Maharashtra in 2005 against the corrupt practices of Anna Hazare.

I had already said this in my article on my blog on 22-April, 2011:

“The Justice Sawant commission was set up by Government of Maharashtra in 2003 “to probe into the allegations of corrupt practices and maladministration into matters of allegations of corruption against several state ministers and social activist Anna Hazare” clearly indicted the Magsaysay Awardee ANNA HAZARE. The report submitted on February 23, 2005, concludes: “The expenditure of Rs 2.20 lacs from the funds of the Hind Swaraj Trust for the birthday celebrations of Shri Hazare was clearly illegal and amounted to a corrupt practice.” (p 365)”

This very Anna Hazare with dubious integrity (I am not confusing his petty thievery with the gargantuan corruption of Firangi Memsahib Sonia Gandhi!) is being paraded throughout the country by Firangi Memsahib and her Congress Party like a performing monkey, with social activists like Arvind Kejriwal, Swami Agnivesh and Kiran Bedi boisterously acting as his trumpeters and drummers!

After the Jan Lokpal Bill drama, Firangi Memsahib Sonia Gandhi and her Islamic political advisor and known agent of Dawood Ibrahim, one who was a bar tender to one of the most dangerous smugglers on the West Coast called Sukur Narayan Bakhia, have jointly decided to use the instrumentality of the National Advisory Council to pilot a Bill called Communal Violence Bill to arrest all the Hindu Swamijis of India without any prospect of their getting any bail for a life time. Firangi Memsahib Sonia Gandhi, her private terrorist political party (nay, wholly-owned private business) called Congress Party and the so-called Civil Society Members of the NAC are plotting to usurp the legislative functions of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha under the Indian Constitution.

My esteemed friend and distinguished scholar and journalist Shri Krishen Kak has given a graphic description of the ongoing, creeping and lurid legal Coup de etat launched by the Firangi Memsahib Sonia Gandhi and her Civil Society henchmen and women. These are the stirring and incandescent words of Shri Krishen Kak:

“You get into an argument on the road or with a bank clerk or at the railway station or in a hospital or with your child's teacher or with your college professor or......you get the idea?  Strong but parliamentary language is used.  You do not know the jati or dharma of the other person, nor is any reference made to it in the argument.  Turns out that the other person is, for example, a Muslim or a Christian (and you are a Hindu) and they decide to settle the argument in their own favour using that. 

Now read 

http://www.dailypioneer.com/341967/NAC’s-Bill-would-land-Dikshit-in-jail.html . 

Dikshit may eventually get away with it, having money and being an MP.  You have not too much of one and are not the other.”

“It's R.I.P. for you.”

 "No Government has acted so sternly against corruption like us", concluded with "Therefore, of one thing we can be QED-clear: WHATEVER ELSE THE REAL PLOT MAY BE OF THIS MACHIAVELLIAN DRAMA, IT IS CERTAINLY NOT ABOUT CORRUPTION."

- 

http://www.vigilonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1547&Itemid=1

“The Jan Lokpal Bill, the Communal Violence Bill, and many more such bills on the NAC anvil - what is going on?”

“Consider the following:”

“- the current Nehru-Gandhi government is widely perceived to be the most corrupt in independent India

- the Nehru-Gandhis are reliably accused of having amassed a (black money) fortune that is in figures that boggle the mind- Baba Ramdev is building up popular awareness about this and Dr Subramanian Swamy is taking Sonia Gandhi to court over this

- current electoral developments suggest the Nehru-Gandhis are seeing the writing on their political wall

- to retain their plunder, fleeing to Italy may save them but not their money

- to save their money, they need to retain political power 

- they are doing this through the co-option of "Civil Society" 

- the NAC has already taken over the "legislative" function of government, that, is drafting key legislation

- Nehru-Gandhi loyalists in the government are ensuring government focuses solely on its "executive" function, that is, executing through Parliament the legislation the NAC drafts

- already we see how the proposed Jan Lokpal Bill and the Communal Violence Bill transfer power from elected political representatives to selected "Civil Society" ones

- of course, there is, for the benefit of the gullible public, the show of a tussle between the two sides but, like the Hazare "fast-unto-death" carefully timed to start and end between two cricket broadcasts, it is just that, a show 

- note how it just so happens that these NAC bills also aim at targeting/fragmenting the majority community

- "divide and rule"

- the rulers will be the Nehru-Gandhis and "civil society activists" propping each other up”

“This is the real plot of this machiavellian drama.  And, to borrow Smt Radha Rajan's labelling, “idiot Hindus” refuse to see it!”

I would be failing in my public duty as a shamelessly open pro-Hindutva journalist if I do not offer my fervent salutations to Shri Krishen Kak, Smt Radha Rajan and Smt Sandhya Jain for having fully exposed the layer upon layer public fraud, dissimulation and deception of the Firangi Memsahib Sonia Gandhi, her specially picked Quislings in the National Advisory Council, Anna Hazare and the Civil Society Activists surrounding and using him.

All these three distinguished, fearless and totally selfless journalists seem to be giving us all --- particularly the Hindus of India --- this simple message: “One truth discovered, one pang of regret at not being able to express it, is better than all the contrived fluency and fraudulent flippancy in the world. The brilliant passes, like the dew at morn. Only the true endures, for ages yet unborn”.

Let the Arjunas of the world fight on, their actual numbers do not matter. The SARATHY will definitely guide them to a sure victory.

BRITISH COLONIAL PREJUDICED PRESS COVERAGE OF THE FIRST WAR OF INDIAN INDEPENDENCE OF 1857

V. SUNDARAM I.A.S

I have already written about the gripping drama relating to the episodes and events that led to the First War of Indian Independence in 1857.

 Indian Soldiers Being Executed by British Canons in 1858.

 The tragic aftermath of India’s First War of Independence, 1858

As I had mentioned, right from the beginning the British Government gave it the colonial name of ‘MUTINY’. When the ‘Indian Mutiny’ began at Meerut Cantonment on the 10th of May 1857, it was given very little attention in the ‘respectable’ press in England. It took nearly six weeks for the news to reach London. India was such a ‘non-topic’ and the ‘Mutiny’ such a ‘non-issue’ in the British press at that time that the Times’s initial reporting of the Mutiny was actually a response to a suggestion in the French press that India was revolting against British rule.

At first there was little coverage of the ‘Mutiny’ in the British press. In fact, Punch’s early reporting used the ‘Mutiny’ as a way of taking shots at national politics and politicians. A Punch cartoon of 15 August 1857 entitled ‘Execution of John Company: or the Blowing up (there ought to be) in Leadenhall Street’ was critical of the mismanagement of Indian affairs by the East India Company.

The PUNCH in the above historic Cartoon had referred to the grave ills that were affecting the East India Company in India at that time, in 1857 — avarice, nepotism, supineness and misgovernment. Does not the above cartoon exactly depict and describe the criminal atrocities of the alien dispensation of Firangi Memsahib Sonia Gandhi’s UPA II Government under the nominal supervision of her supine 24/7 slave, Dr Manmohan Singh. This dispensation too has to be blown into smithereens by the popular mandate in the next general elections.

Many of the early reports played up the racial superiority of the British race. For example the Saturday Review wrote about the ‘resolute vigour of the Anglo Saxon race’. Despite these general aberrations, the British Press remained fairly dispassionate until after the massacre at Cawnpore on 15 July 1857. By 22 August, Punch was running a full page cartoon, ‘The British Lion’s Vengeance on the Bengal Tiger’. This cartoon has been reproduced below.

THE BRITISH LION’S VENGEANCE ON THE BENGAL TIGER

Punch was known for its dispassionate cynicism. Even Punch lost its balance when in August 1857 it published the above cartoon depicting the British Lion attacking a Bengal Tiger that had attacked an English woman and child. This cartoon received considerable attention at that time, with the New York Times writing a piece about it in September 1857 ‘as emblematic of a near-universal British desire for revenge’. It was re-issued as a print, and made the career of John Tenniel who later became very famous as the illustrator of Alice in Wonderland.

The political tragedy of India today is that instead of the British lions killing the Bengal Tigers, a pack of Italian wolves operating from No: 10 Janpath in New Delhi are preying upon the Indian sheep!!

From October 1857 onwards, many full page cartoons in Punch focussed on Britain’s duties in India while some of the articles and poems sensationalized the events. The shocking descriptions of brutal murders in Cawnpore must have recalled in the British mind images of the Black Hole of Calcutta about a century before, and rekindled memories of earlier sepoy mutinies in India of 1764, 1806, 1824.

The whole of England was shocked by the barrage of press reports about atrocities carried out on Europeans and Christians by the Mutineers in India. Consequently, the scale and savagery of the inhuman punishments handed out by the British “Army of Retribution” in India were considered generally appropriate and justified by the public of England at that time. The September 1857 issue of Punch carried a print titled Justice by Sir John Tenniel. This print can be seen below.

Martin Tupper was a popular poet of the time who brought out the atrocities of the ‘Mutiny’ in a graphic manner through his fiery poems. A contemporary critic commented ‘More than anyone else, Martin Tupper succeeded in creating a ferment of indignation and thus played a major part in shaping the public’s response’. His poems, filled with clarion calls for the razing of Delhi and the erection of ‘groves of gibbets’ were telling: Here is a sample of his rousing and roaring British Imperial anti-Indian verse:

And England, now avenge their wrongs by vengeance deep and dire, 

Cut out their canker with the sword, and burn it out with fire,

Destroy those traitor regions, hang every pariah hound,

And hunt them down to death, in all hills and cities ‘round.’

Albumen silver print by Felice Beato, 1858. The hanging of two participants in the Indian Rebellion of 1857

The December 1857 issue of Charles Dickens’ Household Words contained an essay by Dickens on the Indian Mutiny in which he spoke like a savage colonial tyrant. Let us hear his imperious words: ‘I wish I were a Commander In Chief in India. The first thing I would do to strike that Oriental Race with amazement....should be to proclaim to them that my holding that appointment by the leave of God, to mean that I should do my utmost to exterminate the race upon whom the stain of the late cruelties rested; and that I was there for that purpose and no other, . . . now proceeding, with all convenient dispatch and merciful swiftness of execution, to blot it out of mankind and raze it off the face of the Earth.’

Do we have any Hindu leader to speak such stirring words from his heart against the Islamic terrorists sent from Pakistan today? Any Hindu leader who speaks forth will be entrapped in myriad human rights cases by the likes of Teesta ‘false witness’ Setalvad and such other fifth-column ‘activists’.

The distinguished Victorian scholar Peter Brantlinger has written that no event raised national hysteria in Britain to a higher pitch, and no event in the 19th century took a greater hold on the British imagination than the Indian Mutiny. To quote his exact words ‘Victorian writing about the Mutiny expresses in concentrated form the racist ideology that Edward Said calls Orientalism’.

Speaking in the House of Commons in July 1857, Benjamin Disraeli described the uprising of 1857 as a ‘national revolt’ while Lord Palmerston, the then Prime Minister, tried to down play the scope and the significance of the event as a ‘mere military mutiny’ . Reflecting this debate, the early historian of the rebellion, Charles Ball, though he sided with the name of ‘Mutiny’ in his title (using mutiny and sepoy insurrection), yet he labeled it a ‘struggle for liberty and independence as a people’ in the text of his book.

The 1857 rebellion saw the end of the British East India Company’s rule in India. In August 1858, by the Government of India Act 1858, the company was formally dissolved and its ruling powers over India were transferred to the British Crown. A new British Government Department, the India Office, was created to handle the governance of India, and its head, the Secretary of State for India, was entrusted with formulating Indian policy. The Governor-General of India gained a new title as Viceroy of India and he was entrusted with the responsibility for the implementation of the policies devised by the India Office in London.

Queen Victoria’s Proclamation in 1858 - Page 1

Queen Victoria’s Proclamation in 1858 - Page 2

Queen Victoria’s Proclamation in 1858 – Page 3

On November 1, 1858, Queen Victoria issued her famous proclamation and this proclamation was read out in public by duly designated authorities in all the district and taluk headquarters of British India on that day and later almost daily till the end of December 1858.

I AM GIVING BELOW THE MOST IMPORTANT EXCERPT FROM QUEEN VICTORIA’S PROCLAMATION OF 1ST NOVEMBER 1858:

‘We know, and respect, the feelings of attachment with which the natives of India regard the lands inherited by them from their ancestors, and we desire to protect them in all rights connected therewith, subject to the equitable demands of the State; and we will that generally, in framing and administering the law, due regard be paid to the ancient rights, usages, and customs of India.’

QUITE UNLIKE THE GREAT BRITISH QUEEN VICTORIA, THE MOST DESPICABLE, THE MOST CORRUPT ANTI-INDIAN AND ANTI-HINDU, RABIDLY PRO-CHRISTIAN AND POLITICALLY PRO-ISLAMIC FIRANGI MEMSAHIB SONIA GANDHI HAS NOTHING BUT RACIAL AND RELIGIOUS HATRED AND CONTEMPT FOR THE ANCIENT RIGHTS, USAGES AND CUSTOMS OF THE HINDU ‘NATIVES’ OF INDIA TODAY.

POST SCRIPT:

I am presenting below some pictures / illustrations / paintings relating to the First War of Indian Independence in 1857.

Early British atrocity. Blowing away rebellious sepoys after tying them to cannons (May 21, 1857). From Sir Colin Campbell, `Narrative of the Indian Revolt from its Outbreak to the Capture of Lucknow', London, 1858.

Depiction of `Native' barbarism against the colonialists. Images such as these - of British martyrdom at the hands of brutish `natives' who did not spare even women and children - deeply influenced public opinion in England.

Repulse of a sortie. By G.F. Atkinson. (Reproduction of water colour.)

Colonel Platt killed by mutineers at Mhow.

(Charles Ball, `History of Indian Mutiny', Vol. I.)

I am often enthralled by the MYSTERY OF TIME, by the mutability of all things, by the succession of the Endless Ages and Countless Generations. When I look back on the stirring times and hair rising episodes of the First War of Indian Independence, I cannot help quoting the immortal words of Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) in his classical work ‘French Revolution’:

“The Fireship is Old France, the old French Form of Life: her crew a generation of men. Wild are their cries and their ragings there, like spirits tormented in that flame. But on the whole are they not gone, Oh Reader! Their Fireship and they frightening the world, have sailed away; its flames and thunders quite away, into the Deep of Time. One thing therefore History will do: Pity them all: For it went hard with them all. We, I think can appreciate that figure, sailing away as we are on our own burning Fireship, into the Deep of Time … The Mysterious River of Existence rushes on; a new Billow thereof has arrived, and lashes wildly as ever round old embankments; but the former Billow with its loud, and eddyings, WHERE IS IT? WHERE?”

HAIL THE REVOLUTIONARIES OF 1857! INQUILAB ZINDABAD!!

V.SUNDARAM I.A.S.

Today (Tuesday the 10th of May 2011) our beloved Bharatvarsha from Himalayas to Kanyakumari, from Rann of Kutch to the Bay of Bengal, will be paying its homage to the freedom fighters, martyrs and revolutionaries who started the First War of Indian Independence at Meerut in the then United Provinces of Agra and Oudh on the 10th of May 1857. Many of them boldly came forward to lay down their lives in the sacred cause of India’s freedom and became immortal martyrs. The saga of their sacrifice, famed in song and legend, will continue to gleam and glow with deathless and resplendent glory for centuries to come.

Mangal Pandey

Symbolically at 6.57 p.m. tomorrow, all patriotic Indians should come forward to light a lamp or kuthuvillaku in their respective homes and observe a minute’s silence as a mark of respect and reverence to great freedom fighters like Mangal Pandey, Nana Saheb, Bahadur Shah, Tantia Tope, Rani of Jhansi and many others who heroically and cheerfully offered  their lives for the sacred cause of freedom of India from deathly colonial British yoke in 1857—58.

Most of the British historians like Charles Ball, G.W.Forrest, T.R.Holmes, M.Inns, J.W.Kaye, G.F.Macmunn, G.B.Malleson, C.T.Metcalfe, Earl Roberts and others have mischievously used the white man’s colonial term “MUTINY” to describe the FIRST WAR OF INDIAN INDEPENDENCE.  Sir John Lawrence was of the opinion that the Mutiny had its origin in the Army and its cause was the greased cartridges and nothing else.  Sir John Seeley said that “The Mutiny was a wholly unpatriotic and selfish ‘sepoy mutiny’ with no native leadership and no popular support.”

 Victor Hugo rightly said that revolution is the lava of civilization. Political convulsions, like geological upheavals, often usher in new epochs in the life of any nation. The War of 1857 was undoubtedly an epoch-making event in India’s struggle for freedom. For what the British sought to deride as a mere ‘Sepoy Mutiny’ was India’s First War of Independence in a very true sense, when people from all walks of life, irrespective of their caste, creed, religion and language, rose against the British rule.

VEER SAVARKAR (1883-1966), the incomparable patriot and a great son of Bharat Matha was the first historian who in his great work “War of Indian Independence” called the War of 1857 as the “THE FIRST WAR OF INDIAN INDEPENDENCE”.

The sequence of events leading to an open rebellion and revolt at Meerut on 10th of May, 1857, can be summarised as follows. Several months of increasing tension and inflammatory incidents preceded the actual rebellion. Fires, possibly the result of arson, broke out near Calcutta on 24 January 1857. ON FEBRUARY 26, 1857 THE 19TH BENGAL NATIVE INFANTRY (BNI) REGIMENT CAME TO KNOW ABOUT NEW CARTRIDGES WHICH ALLEGEDLY HAD A CASING MADE OF COW AND PIG FAT, WHICH HAD TO BE BITTEN OFF BY MOUTH. THE COW BEING SACRED TO HINDUS AND PIG HARAM TO MUSLIMS, BOTH HINDU AND MUSLIM SOLDIERS REFUSED TO USE THEM. THEIR ENGLISH COLONEL CONFRONTED THEM ANGRILY WITH ARTILLERY AND CAVALRY ON THE PARADE GROUND, BUT LATER ACCEPTED THEIR DEMAND TO WITHDRAW THE ARTILLERY, AND CANCEL THE NEXT MORNING’S PARADE.

The first hero and the first martyr of the War of Indian Independence in 1857 was MANGAL PANDEY. He was a Brahmin by birth, but he had the spirit of a true Kshatriya –-- the unquenchable spirit of an undaunted warrior.  He loved his RELIGION and his MOTHERLAND more than his Life.  For the sake of these sacred CAUSES, he was ever willing to sacrifice his life without any hesitation of any kind. On March 29, 1857 at the Barrackpore (now Barrackpur) parade ground, near Calcutta (now Kolkata), 29-year-old Mangal Pandey of the 34th BNI, angered by the recent actions by the British, declared that he would rebel against his Commanders. When his Adjutant Lt. Baugh came out to investigate the unrest, Mangal Pandey opened fire against him but hit his horse instead. Mangal Pandey called upon his colleagues in the Army to rise in revolt at once.  But his friends were not prepared to join him. Mangal Pandey impulsively jumped into the parade ground and told his fellow soldiers that they should rise up in revolt and drive away the treacherous English enemies out of our Holy Land.  One English Sergeant Major Hughson tried to arrest Mangal Pandey.  But before he could do so, Mangal Pandey’s bullet made him fall on the ground.  Soon Lieutenant Baugh came on the scene and Mangal Pandey, with his sword, killed him also.  Immediately thereafter, Colonel Wheeler arrived and ordered his soldiers to arrest Mangal Pandey.  But Indian soldiers refused to do so.  Colonel Wheeler was joined by Major General John B. Hearsey, Commanding Officer, Bengal Presidency Division. 

Thus Mangal Pandey was surrounded by English soldiers on all sides in unbeatable numbers.  Mangal Pandey vowed that he would rather die than fall into the hands of the enemy.  Therefore he shot himself before the English soldiers could come near him.  Unfortunately, he was only wounded and he fell on the ground. Mangal Pandey was arrested. The Britishers tortured Mangal Pandey in order to get exact information about the other revolutionaries who were behind him.  But Mangal Pandey was not prepared to reveal their names.  He decided that he would rather die than reveal their names and betray his Holy Motherland.  So Mangal Pandey was ordered to be hanged by Major General John B. Hearsey and his execution was carried out at Barrackpur on 8th of April 1857

Copy of the orders issued by Major General, John B. Hearsey on 18th of April 1857 confirming the execution by hanging of Mangal Pandey

WITHIN ONE MONTH OF THE EXECUTION OF MANGAL PANDEY AT BARRACKPUR IN BENGAL, THE NEWS ABOUT HIS EXECUTION SPREAD TO ALL PARTS OF INDIA.  Everywhere there was unrest among the soldiers. At Meerut there was a large military cantonment. 2,357 Indian sepoys. Besides, 2,038 British troops, armed with 12 British-manned guns were also stationed there. On April 24, 1857 the arrogant Commanding Officer of the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry at Meerut ordered 90 of his soldiers to parade and perform firing drills. All but five of the men on parade refused to accept their new greased cartridges. On May 9, 1857 the remaining non-co-operating 85 soldiers were court martialled. 74 of them were sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment with hard labour. 11 comparatively young soldiers were given five years’ imprisonment. The entire garrison was paraded and made to watch the condemned men who were stripped of their uniforms and placed in shackles. As they were being marched off to jail, the condemned soldiers raised slogans against their comrades for betraying them by failing to support them. 

THE VERY NEXT DAY, ON THE 10TH OF MAY 1857, AN OPEN REBELLION BROKE OUT AT MEERUT. THE REVOLTING MEERUT SOLDIERS REACHED DELHI NEXT MORNING.  THE LOCAL INFANTRY JOINED THEM, AND TOGETHER, THEY KILLED THEIR OWN EUROPEAN OFFICERS AND SEIZED THE CITY OF DELHI FROM THE BRITISH EAST INDIA COMPANY.  DELHI BECAME THE CENTRE OF THE REVOLT AND BAHADUR SHAH, THE MUGHAL EMPEROR, BECAME ITS NATURAL AND LEGITIMATE SYMBOL. 

Thus began the First War of Indian Independence on 10th of May, 1857.  We, as a nation, are paying our homage to the hereos and martyrs of this First War of Indian Independence today.

The rebellions sepoys all over the country turned towards Delhi and all the Indian Chiefs who took part in the revolt proclaimed their loyalty to the Mughal Emperor. THE MUGHAL EMPEROR BAHADUR SHAH also wrote letters to all the Indian Chiefs and Rulers of India, asking them to organize a confederacy of Indian States to fight and replace the British Regime.  He gave the clarion call for driving the British colonial and imperial rulers out of the soil of India on September 10 1857. I am presenting below a copy of the proclamation issued by Bakht Khan, the Commander-in-Chief of the Rebel Mughal  Army of Emperor Bahadur Shah on September 10th 1857.

Proclamation by Bakht Khan, the Commander-in-Chief of the rebel army in Delhi. He fears that the English may enter the town and exhorts Hindu and Muslim troops to fight the enemy with zeal. (National Archives of India, Collection No. 57, Serial No. 461, dated September 10, 1857.)

VEER SAVARKAR (1883-1966)

When we remember the revolutionaries and martyrs of 1857, we should not fail to recall the fact that it was VEER SAVARKAR (1883-1966) who immortalized the names of these great freedom fighters in his brilliant and pioneering book “WAR OF INDIAN INDEPENDENCE” published in the first decade of the 20th century. This book was proscribed by the British Government in India. I am presenting below the front page of this revolutionary book.

In Great Britain, from 1906 to 1908, Veer Savarkar organized all the Indian students to come forward to launch an armed struggle to throw the British out of India. Keeping this larger, noble goal in view, he founded the FREE INDIA SOCIETY, Veer Savarkar thus organised the Indian students studying in England at that time for starting a movement for achieving the goal of INDIAN INDEPENDENCE THROUGH ARMED REVOLUTION. Veer Savarkar gave this bracing and rousing message to his fallen countrymen then in the bonded labour of British Imperial yoke.

“WE MUST STOP COMPLAINING ABOUT THIS BRITISH OFFICER OR THAT OFFICER, THIS LAW OR THAT LAW. THERE WOULD BE NO END TO THAT. OUR MOVEMENT MUST NOT BE LIMITED TO BEING AGAINST ANY PARTICULAR LAW, BUT IT MUST BE FOR ACQUIRING THE AUTHORITY TO MAKE SUCH LAWS OURSELVES. IN OTHER WORDS, WE WANT ABSOLUTE INDEPENDENCE.”

I have already referred to the fact that Veer Savarkar wrote his historic book on the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny (so named by the Colonial British Rulers), which he called as India’s First War of Independence, a terminology the Indian Government accepted after our Independence on August 15th 1947. Veer Savarkar envisioned a type of guerrilla war for Indian independence in the first two decades of the 20^th century, along the lines of the famous armed Independence Movement of 1857. Thus Veer Savarkar became one of the first writers to describe the Revolt of 1857 as the “First War for Independence.” Karl Marx is also said to have referred to the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 as the India’s First War of Independence.

Banned from publication throughout the British Empire in 1908, VEER SAVARKAR managed to smuggle his work on the First War of Indian Independence to expatriate Indian revolutionary MADAME BHIKAJI CAMA (1861-1936), who obtained its successful publication in the Netherlands, France and Germany. The second edition was published by Indians in the US.

Later the great revolutionary martyr Bhagat Singh (1907-1931) printed the third edition of Veer Savarkar’s “Indian War of Independence (National Rising of 1857)”  Widely smuggled and circulated, Veer Savarkar’s book attained great popularity in all parts of the world.  This great work influenced rising young Indians and future revolutionaries, including Subhash Chandra Bose, Chandrashekar Azad, Rajguru and many others. Translations of Veer Savarkar’s book on the 1857 War into many Indian languages like Hindi, Bengali and Tamil were a big success. The Punjabi and Urdu translations of his book travelled far and wide while the Tamil translation  became mandatory reading for the Tamil soldiers (who were in majority) of Subhas Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army between 1943 to 1945. 

The War of 1857 was the first nationwide, organized and well-planned attempt to overthrow the British rule, launched by the people of India under the leadership of various kings, rulers and feudal lords from Kandahar to Kamakhya and Kashmir to Kanyakumari.

As R.C. Majumdar has rightly pointed out, the fire of revolution spread from Kolhapur in the South to Peshawar in the North, Gujarat in the West to Bihar in the East. And it was ‘continual upsurge of a popular character’.  Azimullah Khan, the right hand man of Nana Saheb Peshwa, and Rangoji Bapu, the emissary of Satara Kingdom met in London to chalk out a detailed plan. Rangoji travelled to Turkey, Russia, and Egypt to seek support for the revolution in India. Azimullah and Nanasaheb travelled throughout the country to contact various kings, chieftains and feudal lords for a nationwide uprising. He travelled to Varanasi, Prayag, Bateswar, Gaya, Puri, Panchavati, Rameswaram, Dwaraka, Nasik, Abu, Ujjain, Badri and Kamrup and visited army camps to inspire the soldiers.  Nana Saheb also wrote hundreds of letters to the kings and feudal lords regarding the preparations for the revolution. Nana had also raised a fund of five lakh pounds and deposited in British Banks for the purpose of revolution.  The circulation of ‘LOTUS’ among the self-respecting and patriotic soldiers in the army camps of the British rulers and ‘CHAPPATIS’ among rural people all over the country TO ALERT THEM FOR THE UPRISING WAS AN AMAZING FEAT.

The martyrdom and self-sacrifice of the great heroes and heroines of 1857 War of Independence has been written in golden letters in the annals of Indian history. Even today, the children in the remotest villages of northern India sing the glory of the heroes and martyrs in ballads and folk songs. Among them, the name of Jhansi Rani Lakshmibai has been immortalized by Subhadra Kumari Chauhan whose immortal song, “Khoob ladee mardaanee…Vah tho Jhansi wali Raanee thee” is on the lips of every Hindi speaking child of Bharat.

NATURE RENEWS HERSELF AND COVERS YESTERDAY’S BATTLEFIELD WITH GREEN GRASS AND FLOWERS AND THE BLOOD THAT IS SHED  FEEDS THE SOIL AND GIVES SUSTENANCE AND STIMULATION TO NEW LIFE.

Sadhu Rangarajan and R.Vivekanadan, in their great and inspiring book titled ‘SAGA OF PATRIOTISM, Revolutionaries in India’s Freedom Struggle’ have rightly said:  ‘Everyone sings the glory of Hinduism, the Vedas and Upanishads and the Puranas and Itihasas, but keep away when it is a question of fight to protect the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya or the Ram Setu in Rameswaram or for the rights of the Hindus in this Hindu Nation. When will Mother Bharat give birth to valiant sons and daughters and true sadhus and sants once again? When will Hindu society learn the lessons from past history and when will they proudly proclaim that this is their Eternal Motherland, the Hindu Nation, Bharatavarsha? Time alone could answer! Vande Mataram!’

Now it can be asked: Is it necessary at all to celebrate the Festival of Historic Personalities and Historical Events? I can answer this in the following words –----aglow with light and aflame with fire----of VEER SAVARKAR:

“Why, then, should the historical functions be celebrated? To pay national gratitude we owe to those heroic souls. They should be celebrated as a mark of reverence and remembrance of the immense good those benevolent men have done to the world, because they have sacred sanction of ancient traditions. They are the clouds which shower the nectar of instruction. They are the monuments of virtues. They are the chemicals that act as an incentive to human thoughts and feelings. They are the preceptors who impart virtuous instruction to the youths. They are the living history of the deeds of noble heroes. Functions in their honour should be celebrated because of this. There are so many advantages and definitely no disadvantages. Especially we, Hindus, should take to these functions for emerging out of the present degraded state which was the result of want of self-respect and dutifulness. For, that is the only easy and sure path to the prosperity of the nation."

THOMAS CARLYLE, IN HIS ‘HEROES AND HERO WORSHIP’ WROTE FOR ALL TIME WHEN HE DECLARED: “CONSIDER ALL THAT LIES IN THAT ONE WORD PAST! WHAT A PATHETIC, SACRED, IN EVERY SENSE POETIC, MEANING IS IMPLIED IN IT; A MEANING GROWING EVER THE CLEARER, THE FARTHER WE RECEDE IN TIME---THE MORE OF THAT SAME PAST WE HAVE TO LOOK THROUGH! HISTORY AFTER ALL IS TRUE POETRY. AND REALITY, IF RIGHTLY INTERPRETED IS GREATER THAN FICTION.”

It is the detailed study of history that makes us fully aware of the poetry and music of the history of the Past! If we study the past with enthusiasm, sympathy and understanding, then the Past comes back to us alive, with many past events taking form, colour, gesture, passion and thought. Here the words of G.M.Trevelyan come alive: “the appeal of history to us all is in the last analysis poetic. But the poetry of history does not consist of imagination roaming at large, but of imagination pursuing the fact and fastening upon it. That which compels the historian to scorn delights and live laborious days is the ardour of his own curiosity to know what really happened long ago in that land of Mystery which we call the Past. To peer into that magic mirror and see fresh figures there everyday is the burning desire that consumes and satisfies him all his life, that carries him each morning as a lover, to the library and the muniment-room. It haunts him like a passion of almost terrible potency, because it is poetic. The dead were and are not. Their place knows them no more and is ours today. Yet they were once as real as we, and we shall tomorrow be shadows like them……In the realm of history, the moment we have reason to think that we are being given fiction instead of fact, be the fiction ever so brilliant, our interest collapses like a pricked balloon. To hold our interest you must tell us something we believe to be true about the men who once walked the earth. It is the FACT about the PAST that is POETIC; just because it really happened it gathers round it all the inscrutable mystery of LIFE and DEATH and TIME. Let the science and research of the historian find the FACT and let his IMAGINATION and ART make clear its significance”.