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

routes. Their multiple infantry, cavalry and artillery brigades were gaily fluttering their saffron-coloured banners and rending the skies with their war-cry ‘Har Har Mahadev!’ And in those very districts, towns and cities of Mysore, Karnataka and Maharashtra, through which these warriors paraded their victorious exultation, lay rotting and slaving in various Muslim houses, the thousands of abducted Hindu women, while men equally large in numbers, were leading a miserable life of shame and remorse for their forced conversion to Islam. The exultant war cries of ‘Har Har Mahadev’ of these Hindu warriors, following closely the glad news of victory and the downfall of the Muslim state of Mysore, must have informed them of the triumphal march of the Maratha conquering armies through their own towns, villages and cities. How eagerly these unfortunate Hindu converts— and especially the women—must have hastened to crowd the windows, doors, fissures and small openings of those Muslim prison-like houses and cottages, to have, at least, a fleeting glimpse of those martial processions! And how keenly must their sorely afflicted hearts have felt the happy yet acutely painful pangs of intense expectation of imminent deliverance from those satanic Muslim dungeons and confines! ‘At last—at long last—they have come! ’They might have said to themselves, “Our/my Hindu brothers have come trampling down the wicked hearts of the Muslim tyrants to deliver us from their abject servitude!’ On occasions, some of them might have very probably seen their own fathers or brothers or husbands or relatives or at least some neighbours proudly strutting through the streets in their triumphal marches! The lack of will 579. On such occasions, if only these proudly marching military detachments of Hindu warriors had simply willed it, they could have in no time set free those thousands of miserable Hindu men and women rotting in Muslim bondage. They could have simply gone on doing it just as they passed along the streets! So simple the whole thing really was. But...! 580. For, at that time, the Muslims, neither individually nor collectively, had any courage or strength left in them to oppose the triumphant Hindu army. At the approach of the Maratha soldiery, the Mullah-Maulvis and the rogues, knaves and brigands were at great pains to hide their faces into whichever nook or ditch they could find, in order to save their lives. 580A. If only one gay blast from the Maratha bugle had rung out and reverberated through every town and every village, assuring the people in