Savarkar’s book is remarkable for its inspirational and analytical content. Tracing the historical and social causes that led to the uprising, he debunks all the self-serving theories of British historians, some of which, surprisingly, are still being recycled and republished. Saying that it was not some accidental or inchoate mutiny by disgruntled sepoys who were influenced by some wild rumours, he asks: “Could the vast tidal wave from Peshawar to Calcutta have risen in flood without a fixed intention of drowning something by means of its force?” He explores the reasons that “roused the spirit of the sepoy and the civilian, the king and pauper, Hindu and Mahommedan.” He encapsulates these in two words: Swadharma and Swaraj. “In what other history,” he observes, “is the principle of love of one’s religion and love of one’s country manifested more nobly than in ours?... Our idea of Swadharma is not contradictory to that of Swaraj. Swaraj without Swadharma is despicable and Swadharma without Swaraj is powerless.”

One of the proclamations issued by the leaders of the 1857 war said, “Hindus and Mahomedans of India! Arise! Brethren, arise! Of all the gifts of God, the most gracious is that of Swaraj. Will the oppressive demon who has robbed us of it by deceit be able to keep it away from us forever? Can such an act of God stand forever? No, no. The English have committed so many atrocities that the cup of their sins is already full. To add to it, they have got now the wicked desire to destroy our holy religion! Are you going to remain idle even now?”

... contd.