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

But -! But if not the ban on re-purification, the suicidal Hindu creed of religious tolerance was certainly a major obstacle! From the very ancient times, the Hindus had been boasting of their high ideals of religious tolerance, of the equal status they conceded to all the religions of the world, of preaching the sameness of Ram and Rahim, of allowing every one to follow his own faith! This they considered to be the height of their religion! 467. Instead of massacring en masse the hundreds of thousands of Muslims, who from time to time fell in their hands completely vanquished and utterly helpless, in order to avenge the untold wrongs and humiliation heaped by them on the Hindus, the Hindus, in their turn, refrained themselves from doing the Muslims even the slightest harm, because they were in minority and belonged to another religion. On the contrary, the Muslims were allowed to enhance the glory and scope of their own religion without the least possible hindrance. Not only like the Hindu citizens, but even more leniently and with more facilities were the Muslims allowed, by Hindu states of those days, to enjoy the legal rights—a fact that is borne out by pages after pages of Indian history. 468. Is it necessary to add that these 'cow-faced' followers of Hinduism, proud of their utmost tolerance of other religions, were not (in the least) likely to hit back the tiger-faced Muslims on religious grounds? 469. Religious tolerance! A virtue! Yes. It can be a virtue only where the other religion is tolerant of our own! But to tolerate the Muslim religion, the followers of which right from the Sultans like Mahmud of Ghazni and Ghori and others to the various Shahs and Badshahs, thought it their religious obligation to massacre the kafir Hindus to celebrate their accession to the throne, and had been carrying on horrible religious persecution of the Hindus for nearly a thousand years, was tantamount to cut the throat of one's own religion! It was not tolerance towards other religions, it was tolerance of irreligion! It was not even tolerance, it was impotence! But this truth never dawned upon the Hindu society of those days even after the horrible experience of a thousand years or so. They, on their own part, went on tolerating even such a hideous religion as the Islam and considered it a glorious virtue of their own—a special ornament in the crown of the Hindu community! 470. O thou Hindu society! Of all the sins and weaknesses, which have brought about thy fall, the greatest and most potent are thy virtues themselves.