Savarkar’s “O! Martyrs!” Pamphlet


The “O! Martyrs!” pamphlet was a powerful four-page leaflet written and distributed by Swatantrya Veer Savarkar in May 1908. It honored the heroes of the 1857 uprising and also called for a new revolutionary movement against British rule.

Savarkar wrote the pamphlet to mark the anniversary of the Meerut uprising on May 10, 1857. He argued that the event was not just a “mutiny,” as the British described it, but India’s “First War of Independence.”

The pamphlet was also a response to the British Golden Jubilee celebrations of 1857 held in 1907 and 1908. British newspapers had described the Indian rebels as criminals and murderers, but Savarkar praised them as martyrs who sacrificed themselves for their country, religion, and freedom.

A central idea of the text was that the fight for independence was still continuing. It famously stated: *“The war begun on the 10th of May 1857 is not over on the 10th of May 1908, nor can it ever cease till a 10th of May to come sees the destiny accomplished.”*

Thousands of copies of the pamphlet were circulated in both England and India. Indian students in London wore badges saying “Honours to the martyrs of 1857” along with the pamphlet’s message, which led to clashes with British authorities and professors.

The pamphlet also emphasized Hindu-Muslim unity during the 1857 revolt. Savarkar described the uprising as a movement in which both communities united under the idea of the Motherland.

Because the pamphlet used the memory of the 1857 revolt to encourage resistance against British rule, the British government considered it seditious. In 1910, it was later used as evidence against Savarkar in the case accusing him of conspiring to wage war against the British Crown.


Here is the full text of the pamphlet, made available thanks to historian Vikram Sampath, who shared it on page 514 of his book, Savarkar: Echoes from a Forgotten Past.

You can download the PDF of the book for free here:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Uuq65oIXW_AIqiX4S_Xs8lqL1c0cw9f-


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> The battle of freedom once begun
And handed down from sire to son
Though often lost, is ever won!!



Today is the 10th of May! It was on this day that, in the ever-memorable year of 1857, the first campaign of the War of Independence was opened by you, O Martyrs, on the battlefields of India. The Motherland, awakened to the sense of her degrading slavery, unsheathed her sword, burst forth the shackles, and struck the first blow for her liberty and for her honour.

It was on this day that the war cry Maro Firungee Ko was raised by the throats of thousands. It was on this day that the sepoys of Meerut, having risen in a terrible uprising, marched down to Delhi, saw the waters of the Jumna glittering in the sunshine, caught one of those historical moments which close a past epoch to introduce a new one, and found, in a moment, a leader, a flag, and a cause, and converted the mutiny into a national and a religious war.

All honour be to you, O Martyrs; for it was for the preservation of the honour of the race that you performed the fiery ordeal of a revolution, when the religions of the land were threatened with a forcible and sinister conversion; when the hypocrite threw off his friendly garb and stood up in the naked heinousness of a perfidious foe—breaking treaties, smashing crowns, forging chains, and mocking all the while our Merciful Mother for the very honesty with which she believed the pretensions of the white liar.

Then you, O Martyrs of 1857, awoke the Mother, inspired the Mother, and for the honour of the Mother rushed to the battlefield, terrible and tremendous, with the war cry Maro Firungee Ko on your lips, and with the sacred mantra “God and Hindustan” on your banner!

Well did you in rising! For otherwise, although your blood might have been spared, yet the stigma of servility would have been the deeper; one more link would have been added to the cursed chain of demoralizing patience, and the world would have again contemptuously pointed to our nation, saying: “She deserves slavery; she is happy in slavery! For even in 1857, she did not raise even a finger to protect her interests and her honour!”

This day, therefore, we dedicate, O Martyrs, to your inspiring memory!

It was on this day that you raised a new flag to be upheld; you uttered a mission to be fulfilled; you saw a vision to be realized; you proclaimed a nation to be born!

We take up your cry, we revere your flag, we are determined to continue that fiery mission of “Away with the foreigner!”, which you uttered amidst the prophetic thunderings of the Revolutionary War—revolutionary, yes, it was a revolutionary war. For the War of 1857 shall not cease till the revolution arrives, striking slavery into dust, elevating liberty to the throne.

Whenever a people rises for its freedom, whenever that seed of liberty gets germinated in the blood of its martyrs, and whenever there remains at least one true son to avenge that blood of his fathers, there never can be an end to such a war as this. No, a Revolutionary War knows no truce save liberty or death!

We, inspired by your memory, determine to continue the struggle you began in 1857. We refuse to acknowledge the armistice as a truce; we look upon the battles you fought as the battles of the first campaign—the defeat of which cannot be the defeat of the war.

What? Shall the world say that India has accepted the defeat as a final one? That the blood of 1857 was shed in vain? That the sons of Ind betray their fathers’ vows? No, by Hindustan, no!

The historical continuity of the Indian nation is not cut off. The war that began on the 10th of May of 1857 is not over on the 10th of May of 1908, nor shall it ever cease till a 10th of May to come sees the destiny accomplished, sees the beautiful Ind crowned either with the lustre of victory or with the halo of martyrdom.

But, O glorious Martyrs, in this pious struggle of your sons, help! O help us by your inspiring presence!

Torn in innumerable petty selves, we cannot realize the grand unity of the Mother. Whisper, then, unto us by what magic you caught the secret of Union. How the Firungee Rule was shattered to pieces and the Swadeshi thrones were set up by the common consent of Hindus and Mahomedans. How, in the higher love of the Mother, united the differences of castes and creeds; how the venerated and venerable Bahadur Shah prohibited the killing of cows throughout India; how Shrimant Nana Saheb, after the first salute of thundering cannon to the Emperor of Delhi, reserved for himself the second one!

How you staggered the whole world by uniting under the banner of the Mother and forced your enemies to say:

> “Among the many lessons the Indian Mutiny conveys to the historian and administrator, none is of greater importance than the warning that it is possible to have a revolution in which Brahmins and Shudras, Mahomedan and Hindu, were united against us, and that it is not safe to suppose that the peace and stability of our dominion in any great measure depends on the continent being inhabited by different races with different religious systems, for they mutually understand each other and respect and take a part in each other’s modes and ways and doings.”



Whisper unto us the nobility of such an alliance of Religion with Patriotism—the true religion which ever is on the side of patriotism, the true patriotism which secures the freedom of religion!

And give us the marvelous energy, daring, and secrecy with which you organized the mighty volcano; show us the volcanic magma that underlay the green thin crust on which the foe was to be kept lulled into a false security; tell us how the chapatti—that fiery cross of India—flew from village to village and from valley to valley, setting the whole intellect of the nation on fire by the very vagueness of its message; and then let us hear the roaring thunder with which the volcano at last burst forth with an all-shattering force, rushing, smashing, burning, and consuming into one continuous fiery flow of red-hot lava flood!

Within a month, regiment after regiment, prince after prince, city after city, sepoys, police, zemindars, pundits, moulvis—the multiple-headed Revolution sounded its tocsin, and temples and mosques resounded with the cry “Maro Firungee Ko!” Away with the foreigners!

Meerut rose, Delhi rose, rose Benares, Agra, Patna, Lucknow, Allahabad, Jadagerpoor, Jhansi, Banda, Indore—from Peshawar to Calcutta and from the Narbada to the Himalayas, the volcano burst forth into a sudden, simultaneous, and all-consuming conflagration!!

And then, O Martyrs, tell us the little as well as the great defects which you found out in our people in that great experiment of yours. But above all, point out that most ruinous—nay, the only material drawback in the body of the nation—which rendered all your efforts futile: the mean selfish blindness which refuses to see its way to join the Nation’s cause.

Say that the only cause of the defeat of Hindustan was Hindustan herself; that, shaking away the slumber of centuries, the Mother rose to hit the foe, but while her right hand was striking the Firungee dead, her left hand struck—alas!—not the enemy but her own forehead! So she staggered and fell back into an inevitable swoon of 50 years!

50 years are past, but O restless spirits of 1857, we promise you with our heart’s blood that your Diamond Jubilee shall not pass without seeing your wishes fulfilled!!

We have heard your voice and we gather courage from it. With limited means you sustained a war, not against tyranny alone but against tyranny and treachery together. The Duab and Ayodhya, making a united stand, staged a war not only against the whole of the British power but against the rest of India too; and yet you fought for three years, and yet you had well-nigh snatched away the crown of Hindustan and smashed the hollow existence of the alien rule.

What an encouragement this! What the Duab and Ayodhya could do in a month, the simultaneous, sudden, and determined rising of the whole of Hindustan can do in a day! This hope illumines our heart and assures us of success. And so we avow that your Diamond Jubilee, the year 1917, shall not pass without seeing the resurging Ind making a triumphant entry into the world!

For the bones of Bahadur Shah are crying vengeance from their grave! For the blood of dauntless Laxmi is boiling with indignation! For the shahid Peer Ali of Patna, when he was going to the gallows for having refused to divulge the secrets of the conspiracy, whispered defiance to the Firungee and said in prophetic words:

> “You may hang me today, you may hang such as me every day, but thousands will still rise in my place—your object will never be gained.”



Indians, these words must be fulfilled! Your blood, O Martyrs, shall be avenged!!!

Bande Mataram!


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