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

carried away young Hindu girls, locked them up in their own houses or conveyed them to the Muslim centres in masjids and mosques. The Muslim women all over India considered it their holy duty to do so. The Hindu Chivalry towards Enemy Women 449. The Muslim women never feared retribution or punishment at the hands of any Hindu for their heinous crime. They had a perverted idea of woman chivalry. If in a battle the Muslims won, they were rewarded for such crafty and deceitful conversions of Hindu women; lull even if the Hindus carried the field and a Hindu power was established in that particular place (and such incidents in those times were not very rare) the Muslim men alone, if at all, suffered the consequential indignities but the Muslim women—never! Only Muslim men, and not women, were taken prisoners. Muslim women were sure that even in the thick of battles, and in the confusion wrought just after then, neither the victor Hindu chiefs, nor any of their common soldiers, nor even any civilian would ever touch their hair. For, albeit enemies and atrocious, they were women! Hence, even when they were taken prisoner in battles, the Muslim women—royal ladies as also the commonest slaves—were invariably sent back safe and sound to their respective families! Such incidents were common enough in those times. And this act was glorified by the Hindus as their chivalry towards the enemy women and the generosity of their religion! For a sample, read the following incidents. 450. Even now we proudly refer to the noble acts of Chhatrapati Shivaji and Chimaji Appa, when they honourably sent back the daughter-in-law of the Muslim Governor of Kalyan and the wife of the Portuguese governor of Bassein respectively. But is it not strange that, when they did so, neither Shivaji Maharaj nor Chimaji Appa should ever remember, the atrocities and the rapes and the molestation, perpetrated by Mahmud of Ghazni, Muhammad Ghori, Alla-ud-din Khilji and others, on thousands of Hindu ladies and girls like the princesses of Dahir, Kamaldevi, the wife of Karnaraj of Karanwati and her extremely beautiful daughter, Devaldevi. Did not the plaintive screams and pitiful lamentations of the millions of molested Hindu women, which reverberated throughout the length and breadth of the country, reach the ears of Shivaji Maharaj and Chimaji Appa? 451. The souls of those millions of aggrieved women might have perhaps said, “Do not forget, O, your Majesty, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, and O!