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

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

Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History by Veer Savarkar

स्वातंत्र्यवीर विनायक दामोदर सावरकर द्वारा

DevanagariHindipublished494 पृष्ठ

पृष्ठ 195, कुल 494 में से

संदर्भ में पढ़ें
पृष्ठ 195
  1. But at this most crucial moment, the Maratha war cabinet was seized with such a paroxysm of their age-old incurable disease of the perverted sense of virtues, viz. misplaced generosity to withhold the strokes and allow time to even the inveterate fainting enemy to regain consciousness, that had it lasted a little longer, the scales of war would have turned against the Hindus themselves and the Muslims would never have failed to annihilate them completely. At a time when the Nizam himself, the chief enemy of the Marathas, was dying of thirst and when the Marathas luckily had the best opportunity of capturing him alive and of destroying his whole army, the Peshwa, Sawai Madhavrao, was inspired with the grand idea that the true greatness of a warrior was to show mercy to the downcast enemy. He, therefore, sent in consultation with his war-cabinet, a very valuable supply of water enough for the Nizam and his royal family from his own stock of drinking water, which was preserved with no less difficulty. And this was done in the thick of the fray—quite consistently with the maxim: क्षमा वीरस्य भूषणम (Forgiveness is the virtue of the brave). [Remember for a contrast ‘The Battle of Samugad or Shambhugad’ (1658 A.D,) and the siege of Agra by Aurangzeb—Shahjahan was brought to his knees by cutting off the water supply to the fort of Agra.] A fine illustration of self-contradiction!
  2. A common belief seems to prevail that the Hindus strictly banned any reconversion of Muslimized Hindus or any conversion of born Muslims, because they dreaded fresh outrages from the Muslims in India and perhaps new horrible invasions of foreign Muslims, resulting in untold monstrocities and consequent horrible retribution.
  3. It is purposely to show how erroneous, unrealistic and wholly improbable this belief is, that we have quoted the episode the Maratha war with Tipu, which provides ample historical evidence to support all the points we have made so far.
  4. Setting aside that episode of the war with Tipu for a while, it is enough to pose a question: If at all the Hindus were so terribly and incessantly obsessed with the dread of Muslim retaliation, they would have offered no resistance, however slight it might have been! They would never have counter-attacked the Muslims on the political and military fronts and won at great odds. For, it is only in those Hindu states, which the Muslims conquered, that such religious persecution of the Hindus was, or would