10.

Intermittent Hindu Retaliation Against

Muslim Religious Aggression

497. At the end of an earlier chapter, we had expressed our astonishment as to how the Hindu Society did not perish completely in spite of the various defects of class-differences, ban on reconversion misconceptions about virtues and the like, and how it escaped with the loss of only some millions of Hindus converted. For beyond the frontiers of India, wherever such Muslim religious aggression took place, the natives there were totally deprived of their religions. The northern coast of Africa up to Spain and the Asian lands up to the frontier India, were totally converted to Islam. But in India alone, then attempts were not completely successful. At the time of Muhammad Kasim’s invasion of Sindh in the 8th century and then from the 11th century, i.e. for nearly a thousand years, from the marauding expedition of Mahmud of Ghazni and of Ghori to the complete overthrow of the Moghul empire by the Peshwas in the 18th century, the Muslim invaders violently converted lakhs of Hindus and tried to multiply their numbers. The circumstances in this land—most adverse for the Hindus— also favoured them. Why then did the Muslims fail to destroy the Hindu Society completely?
498. The first reason that can explain this strange occurrence is the political defeat, which the Hindus inflicted on these Muslims. In the initial stages, Bhim and Rana Pratap and other Rajput princes and next, the Hindu kings of Vijayanagar had rendered the Muslim power out of gear and crippled it. Lastly, the Marathas dealt it deadly blows and fluttered their victorious banner under the leadership of the Peshwa right up to Attock. This political defeat of the Muslims at the hands of the Hindus, which is well known to all, made it impossible for the Muslims to bring all the Hindus under their green flag.
499. But the other potent reason for this strange phenomenon is that there arose from time to time, heroic men and women warriors, who staunchly opposed the armed religious aggression of the Muslims with counter aggression following the precepts of Maharshi Deval and Medhatithi. It is this counter-aggression on the religious front by the Hindus, that has really