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

Sahajdharis follow the path of Guru Nanak. They don’t allow the hair to grow uncut, nor are they particular about following the other ‘kakkas’. Thousands of such Hindu Sikhs fall under this Sahajdhari sect. But it must be remembered that it was Shree Govind Singh who, by giving them a martial garb, built the Sikhs into a virile sub-Hindu nation, which could ultimtely oust the Muslim rule from the Punjab at the point of the sword. 975. Shree Veer Banda Bairagi—The name, which can never be omitted from the list of the brave martyrs of Hindu history, is that of Veer Banda Bairagi, who for the first time avenged the wrongs done by the Muslims on the Hindus and even boldly attacked them. He was originally a Vaishnav saint known round about Nanded, where he happened to meet Guru Govind Singh, from whom he gradually learnt of the miserable plight of the Hindus in Punjab, of the harrowing calamities that befell Guru Govind Singh’s own family and of the relentless war he himself had carried out in spite of all odds. He was particularly much moved to hear the despairing complaint of the Guru that there was nobody left in Punjab to avenge the tragic deaths of his four sons. His blood began to boil and he once again took the bow and arrows of his former vocation in life. Guru Govind Singh wrote a note to all his former disciples to render Veer Banda every possible help. Taking that note and vowing terrible revenge upon the Muslims for the inhuman atrocities committed by them on the Hindus, this brave Hindu soul made his way to the Punjab. 976. But alas! want of space and my own old age makes it imperative that whatever is written so far should be somehow rounded up. Else I would certainly have described, if not in full, at least briefly the havoc Veer Baba Banda wrought amongst the Muslims of Punjab, their grand slaughter, the most appropriate retaliation of the molestation of the Hindu women, the capture of the same Sirhind, where Guru Govind Singh’s two sons were buried alive behind the brick-walls, and the eventual burning of the Muslim locality there, not to speak of the abject parade of Muslim men, women and children, barefooted. In the hot sun, the same atrocious tortures of the Muslims as were visited upon the Hindus for not renouncing Hinduism and finally the proclamation of a Hindu State in the whole of Punjab. We have already shown in the sixth chapter of this book, how the Muslim community was panic-stricken whenever the Hindus opened up religious aggression on the Muslims. Baba Banda also struck terror in the hearts of the Punjabi Muslims by his retaliatory aggression. At last, the Emperor of