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

have been, possible for the Muslims. If at all the Hindus were to dread anything, they should have dreaded the Muslim armed political aggression first. But barring minor incidents and looking at this gigantic struggle in one broad sweep, the reader can clearly see that in order to protect their states and religion, the Hindus had fought grim and determined battles right from the times of Mahmud of Ghazni's and Ghori's demoniacal raids. They lost their states, they won their states! Defeat and victory, victory and defeat! The fortunes of the fields changed in quick succession! But for more than seven centuries, the Hindus kept on fighting the Muslims throughout the whole of India, fought every inch of it and finally brought the mighty Muslim enemy to his knees in abject surrender! To say that these Hindus would have ever cared a two-pence for the fiercer rage of the Muslim revenge, is in itself, a fine illustration of self-contradiction! 598. Of course, the Muslims had never to worry in the least about the security of their religious domination in India! The Hindus were firm as regards one thing: never to convert any Muslim, not to counterattack the sphere of the Muslim religious influence; nor again to harm them in any way in matters religious; for, all these actions were completely contrary to the Hindu religious faith! The Muslims had only one anxiety as to how to spread the Islamic faith incessantly throughout the length and breadth of India, even if the Hindus had reconquered political power! We have already discussed at different places in this book, the tremendous loss to the Hindu nation this Muslim religious aggression had caused. Only two major points need a brief resume here. Loss of thirty million Hindus 599. Even in those days, the Hindu society was quite aware of this numerical loss! But because of their morbid ban on reconversion, no effective remedy could be found against this drain of its lifeblood. Very like the invalid patient, meekly bearing the death-pangs of an incurable disease, the then Hindu world endured this blood-draining, deadly disease! Loss of Territory! 600. But graver still than this loss of numerical strength, was another: the permanent loss of the vast territory snatched away by the Muslim religious incursions, slowly, bit by bit, but steadily, without the knowledge of the Hindus! THE MUSLIMS THUS SEIZED FAR MORE HINDU LAND THROUGHOUT INDIA BY CONVERSION THAN THEY DID BY CONQUESTS!