6_Glorious_Epochs_of_Indian_History

6TH GLORIOUS EPOCH 46&
then Indian leaders were so much elated by the promise in
the Queen's Proclamations 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 "I 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 the 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