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

The Peculiar Nature of the Muslim Atrocities [Sultans of Ghazni] 364. During the long period of nearly three hundred years, in which the Arab menace was being successfully hemmed in Sindh, and was finally overthrown by the Sumra Rajputs, different Muslim tribes were busy founding a strong Muslim power in Ghazni, further north of Gandhar. A Sultan of Ghazni, Sabakhtageen, was now preparing himself fully to attack his contemporary Brahmin king, Jaipal, whose forefathers had all along been ruling the whole of Punjab and Gandhar right up to the Hindukush, ever since the rout of the Huns. 365. Shrewdly anticipating the plan of Sabakhtageen to invade India, Jaipal himself attacked Ghazni, but unfortunately he was repelled, Encouraged by this success, Sabakhtageen boldly fell upon Jaipal, a few years afterwards, with a large army. In order to meet this fierce aggression more determinedly, King Jaipal formed a powerful alliance with the neighbouring Hindu princes, but he was again defeated and the whole region beyond the Indus river, including Gandhar, was lost to the Muslim invader. Soon afterwards, Sultan Sabakhtageen died and was succeeded by his son, Mohammed, a hundred times more fanatical and more crueller than his father, and an arch-enemy of the Hindus. This was the same Mahmud of Ghazni, who styled himself ‘Butshikan’, the Idol-breaker or ‘Iconoclast’. At his accession to the throne of Ghazni, he had vowed in the presence of the highest religious and temporal Muslim authority, the Grand Khalipha, that he would wipe out the Kafir Hindus from India and in order to keep his word, he soon began a series of expeditions beyond the Indus. 366. It is from now onwards—i.e. about A.D. 1000—that the really great wars between the Hindus and the Muslims were to be fought for centuries together. 367. If the Muslim soldiers had gained great confidence, having twice defeated the Hindu forces under Jaipal, King Jaipal and his soldiers, without being disheartened and downcast even after suffering two defeats, speeded up their preparation for a still more determined stand against the Muslims. But fortune once again frowned upon the Hindu King. And when, notwithstanding all his valour and all his efforts to save his religion and his

nation, he was again defeated in 1001 by Mahmud of Ghazni, Jaipal preferred entrusting the kingdom to his son, Anangpal, and burning himself to death in a great pyre, to a disgraceful life and a meek surrender to the enemy. 368. King Anangpal, too, carried on his father’s arduous task of staunchly opposing the Muslim aggression. In A.D. 1006, Mahmud demanded passage through Anangpal’s territory in order to invade Multan; but Anangpal refused to give any, whereupon the Muslim aggressor marched on Anangpal and defeated him. Anangpal had to retreat and when Mahmud went ahead to Multan, Anangpal again organized a united Hindu stand for protecting the Hindu religion. Once again, the Hindu-Muslim armies met in the vicinity of the Indus, in A.D. 1008, when the Hindus fought so furiously that in the afternoon, the Muslim formation was broken through and there was confusion in the Muslim ranks. Even Sultan Mahmud had prepared to leave the battlefield to make a retreat, when all of a sudden, Anangpal’s elephant, scared by the shower of burning arrows, turned round and started running amuck. This was the most unfortunate thing, which had very often brought about the Hindu collapse, but no sufficient precaution was ever taken to prevent it. A great havoc was wrought by this retreating elephant among the Hindu ranks. Mahmud was quick enough to seize the opportunity of this decisive turn of the battle and reorganizing the choicest of his scattered soldiers, he once again fell upon the bewildered Hindu army and in a deadly struggle defeated it. But the Muslim army was no less worsted; so instead of pursuing Anangpal, Mahmud satisfied himself with the success he got and returned to Ghazni. But as it became quite clear to him that unless and until Anangpal was humbled completely, no Muslim power could be established in Punjab, he assailed the latter for the third time. This time unfortunately, Anangpal had nobody to help him. Yet he went to war with the remnant of his loyal army and, as a brave King that he was, he died in the thick of the fray. 369. Thus, King Jaipal and his son Anangpal and thousands of their brave soldiers boldly faced, and fought against the early ferocious Muslim onslaughts in Punjab and laid down their lives for the protection of the Hindu state and the Hindu religion. They did their sacred duty of arresting the enemy thrust.

370. Soon after the death of Anangpal, Mahmud annexed Punjab to his kingdom of Ghazni, as he had formerly done with the north-west frontier province. Sultan Mahmud then marched on Thaneshwar and Mathura, the most renowned of the holy places of the Hindus; and after demolishing and burning as many of the Hindu temples, and killing as many of the Hindu male population as possible, and violating the chastity of hundreds of Hindu women and abducting them, Mahmud, like a ferocious wolf returned to his den, Ghazni. He also took with him immeasurable booty of gold and jewellery. In A.D. 1019, he pounced on the Pratihari capital of Kanouj and destroyed it in the same brutal fashion. The result was that the surrounding Hindu population took such a fearful fright for him, that when in A.D. 1023, he once again paid his sinister visit to Gwalior and Kalinjar, the princes there helplessly and meekly accepted his overlordship. His Dash on Somnath
371. Next, when in A.D. 1026, Sultan Mahmud assailed the famous temple of Somnath in Sourashtra, he did it with such a huge army and with such terrible vows and declarations that Raja Bheem of Sourashtra and Gujarat fled away, leaving the kingdom exposed to every sort of humiliation and destruction at the hands of this appalling enemy, tainting his own name of Bheem with everlasting shame. Naturally, the Hindus had no army left, sufficiently well-equipped and well-organized to face this formidable Muslim assault. Nevertheless, even at this critical time, the priests of the Temple of Somnath offered to shoulder the responsibility of protecting the sacred temple as best as they could. They called upon the surrounding Hindu population to run to their aid in the sacred cause of defending the temple and their religion, and thousands of Hindus from far-off regions also, answered their call and ran to the rescue of the Temple of Somnath. The battle was to be fought not for any ruler or king; no Hindu soldier was to profit by it individually. It was a crusade, pure and simple. Moreover, these thousands of Hindu soldiers were not a trained and well-formed army. It was a conglomeration of Hindu crusaders that was collected at the eleventh hour. Even then, they fought ferociously and desperately for the sacred cause without intermission or relaxation, by day and even by night, with the well-organized and stalwart Muslim soldiers! While the Muslim army climbed right upto the ramparts and barricades over the high walls of the temple, and even after it forced itself into the very temple, the toughest of Hindu resistance continued unmitigated. Muslim blood, too, was shed

profusely. Not before did Sultan Mahmud completely put down all resistance, could he ever force his way right into the innermost chamber of the temple and break the idol of Somnath with his own hands. In order to celebrate this fanatical act, he took for himself the title, ‘Butshikan’ — Iconoclast! Martyrdom of fifty thousand brave Hindu Soldiers 372. Even Muslim historians write that at least fifty thousand Hindus fell fighting in the defence of their temple. Had someone of these fifty thousand Hindus said, “I am willing to be a Muslim”, he would have been spared by the Muslims, because it was one of their tactics in the religious war. But scorning such a base and defiled life, the Hindu volunteer force courted martyrdom; not one, not even a thousand, but fifty thousand of them sacrificed their precious lives on the altar of this holy battle! 373. While eulogizing an ancient Roman hero, Horatius, who fought with the enemy on a similar occasion, an English poet writes: Thus outspake brave Horatius the Captain of the gate, “To every man upon this earth death cometh soon or late, And how can a man die better than by facing fearful odds For the ashes of his fathers and the temple of his Gods?” 374. Which Hindu will be reluctant to shed his grateful tears for these fifty thousand martyrs, who died defending their religion and temples with the same fervour as is expressed in this verse? 375. But the most disgusting fact is that while narrating this invasion of Mahmud on Somnath, not only the foreign historians but many Hindu historians, ungrateful as they too are, have mocked at the simple faith of the priesthood and other Hindu population of the place, and have not uttered a single word in praise of those Hindu warriors who made such a huge sacrifice, ‘facing fearful odds, for the temple of their Gods’! If the wiseacres are not wise enough to appraise the jewels properly, can it be said that the fault lies with those jewels? 376. Even if it be neccesary to condemn the blind faith of those Hindus, yet those who do so, should also remember that, albeit blind, the Hindu belief in the mysterious divine power of their Gods was not a diabolic, fanatic,

bloodthirsty religiosity like that of the Muslims, who attacked religious places of others with deadly weapons of war, slew the innocent men and women, young and old, forced them to embrace Islam at the point of the sword, and ran frantically, causing death and destruction everywhere. But such a statement born of boldness cannot be expected of these immature childish and cowardly writers! If the Muslim writers of ‘Tarikhs’ and the Mullah-Moulvis boast that the Hindu Gods were not the true Gods because they did not prevent the Muslim warlords from breaking idols and demolishing temples, and that theirs was the only true religion, they should be enlightened that the arch heretic Changizkhan and his deputies not only desecrated the very city of the Muslim-Khalipha, but ravaged it, killed the Khalipha, burned several masjids, turned others into stables for their horses, reduced the Bible to ashes and trampled the Koran under their horses’ hoofs! The Muslim Allah could not stop the ravaging hands of Changizkhan! Hundreds of such instances can be cited. Are the Muslims ready to grant, on this account, the imbecility and falsehood of their Allah? Even when Shivaji slew the ‘Butshikan’—idol-breaker—Afzalkhan, and offered his ‘goat like head with thirty-two teeth’, as a sacrificial offering to the Goddess Bhavani of Tulzapur, his hands were not staved off from doing so by the Muslim Allah! 377. After demolishing the temple of Somnath and loading the camels with the immense wealth, looted from it, when Mahmud set out for Ghazni, he learnt that instead of being cowed down into submission because of his wholesale destruction of the temple at Somnath, the Hindu population was even more enraged, and that the King of Malava with his large army was preparing to block his way back to Ghazni and had already entered the battlefield. As Mahmud was not prepared to risk this new battle, he took an unexpected and difficult route through the sandy deserts of Sindh, abandoning the usual way through Malava. While crossing the deserts of Sindh and Baluchistan, his army had to face many dangers and unspeakable misery. Hardly within three or four years of reaching Ghazni, he died in A.D. 1030. 378. This fanatic but brave Sultan of Ghazni undertook at least fifteen major expeditions to India. Hindus too fought furiously on the battlefield every time. But no Hindu king could defeat him. But these invasions of Mahmud and his political conquests did not so much harm the Hindus, as did the forcible conversion of millions of Hindus in North-West Frontier

Province and Punjab. That the Kingdoms, which were lost to the Muslims, were reconquered by the Hindus sooner or later, is plain history. But the Hindus could never bring back the millions of Hindus who were converted to Islam willy-nilly. We could free from the foreign yoke our geographical regions, but the enormous numerical loss of population could never be made up by the Hindu nation. Change of Religion means Change of Nationality 379. We are now going to discuss at some length some of the religious concepts of the Hindus of those times; of the course of conduct and practices that were considered decent and in conformity with the religious laws of the Hindus of those times, and those that were declared to be against them; and particularly those that deeply concerned the large-scale forcible defilement and conversion of the Hindus that took place during the Hindu-Muslim war. It can be very briefly said here that if the millions of forcibly converted Hindus have remained Muslims even to this day, it is because of the perverse religious concepts of the Hindus of those times, which ultimately proved highly detrimental to the best interests of the Hindu community, viz.—caste-system, the fantastic ideas of pollution, the extravagant ideas of religious tolerance and many other silly notions. Why, these Hindu converts went on increasing enormously generation-after- generation and, as the later generations were born and brought up under the Muslim influence, they began to be more-and-more fanatical—so bitterly fanatical that they formed an appreciable part of the armies of the Iranian, Turkish, Mongol and other foreign Muslim invaders and, with equal hatred and bitterness, they attacked the Hindu Kafirs with a view to destroying them completely or force them to change their own religion and embrace Islam. One out of hundreds of such facts can be cited here to bear out the above remarks. A Hindu tribe, named Ghuri which lived, during the period under discussion, beyond the Indus and which was forcibly made to change over to Islam under precisely the same perilous conditions, became later on, the bitterest enemy of the Hindus. The Hindu-hater, Sultan Mohammed Ghori, belonged to this very Ghuri tribe. In fact, the majority of the Muslim populations of Afghanisthan, Pathanisthan (Pakhtoonistan), Baluchistan were the converted descendants of the original Hindu natives of those places. But, later on, they did not even have the slightest idea that their ancestors were, once upon a time, Hindus. On the contrary, they were enraged at any mention of such descent of theirs and would say: “Bygones

are bygones; today we are born Muslims and are Muslim nationals. We recognize no other relation with the Hindus than the one of utmost hatred and animosity." Such thoughts had turned their heads completely. Theirs was not merely a change of religion, but it was the inevitable change of nationality which necessarily forced itself upon the later generations of such converts. During the five or six centuries of the initial Muslim invasions of India, right up to Rameshwar to which we are referring here, the change of religion today generally proved to be the change of nationality for the future! But what does Religion mean here? 380. But the terms 'religion' and 'religious conversion' in the above maxim, viz. the 'the change of the religion means the change of nationality', should first be defined clearly. They are not used here in the sense of comparative study of the various philosophical ideas and systems in different religions or the adoption of some of the agreeable ones in an individual capacity. The word 'religion' in the present context relates solely to the dogmatic and fanatical practices of those aggressive religious institutions, which insist that a particular book is apocalyptic, that whatever is told in its pages—and that alone and nothing else—is truly religious, that everything else is completely false and sinful. It then tries to enforce on people of other religions the strict observance, if not by advice and peaceful discourse and persuasion, even by skilful craftiness, cruelty and coercion, of not only the so-called philosophy in those religious books, but of the rules and regulations, of rites and rituals, of the language and social dealings prescribed by them. The religious conversion effected by such thoughtless and fanatical religious institutions is, in effect, the conversion of nationality. Retaliatory Weapon of Ostracism 381. The Hindus could find no retaliatory weapon for this religious aggression of the Muslims. The weapon of ostracism, which they used for retaliation, turned on themselves like a boomerang. 382. In order that the reader should have a clear idea of this weapon of social ostracism, so far as it concerns the Hindu-Muslim war and how it affected, not favourably, but adversely the defence of the Hindu religion and Hindu community, it is essential to give first of all an account of the caste-system as briefly as it is possible to do so. Since such an account is absolutely esential for an analysis of the Muslim pollution of the Hindus.

The caste-system based on birth and Parentage and the National Penalty of Ostracism 383. Much earlier than the Muslim invasions of India, i.e. just after the Hindus conquered the Huns completely, hundreds of Hindu leaders tried on all sides all over India to restore political, religious and social stability in the society and the nation. The Hindu leadership of the time naturally devolved on them rising warrior class of the Rajput royalty, who were staunch devotees of the Vedic Hindu religion. In this very attempt at reconstruction, the vast Hindu community was being moulded with meticulous care into the framework of the parentage-dominated caste system. Slowly but surely, this caste system became an inherent and essential feature of Hinduism. Not only in the four former classes (वर्ण), but in more or less four thousand castes, born out of those four classes and many other accidental sources, sanctioned by the religious law, was the whole Hindu community everlastingly and almost unanimously divided internally. In a sense, the social transition of the Hindu nation was occosioned by the historical neccesity of the time. 384. The main principle underlying this caste-system was this: Only he who was born in a particular caste, could remain in it. To have food or to drink even water with or from one of another caste was considered liable for penalty. Is it any wonder then that the inter-caste marriages of boys and girls were strictly prohibited? To these very religious practices of the time, we have ascribed, in our various articles on the caste-system, the names ‘Lotabandi (prohibition of drinking water), Rotibandi (prohibition of food), Betibandi (prevention of inter-caste marriages), Sparshbandi (untouchability) and the ones that we are going to discuss hereafter viz., Shuddhibandi (prevention of purification of religious converts), Sindhubandi (ban on sea voyage) etc. These seven ‘bandis’—or bans— which arrested not only the progress of the Hindus but also impaired their normal way of life were, in fact, seven fetters. These fetters were not forcibly fastened to the feet of the Hindu nation by any Muslim, Christian or other foreign power; they were so fastened by the Hindus themselves, in their extreme anxiety for the protection of their religion. That is why we have been calling them through spoken as well as written words not foreign shackles, but as ‘seven native fetters’. 385. It is not necessary here in this book to discuss fully the caste-system of the Hindus, nor is this the place for it. Those desirous of getting

themselves acquainted with our thoughts on this subject may profitably read the book, “Janmajat Jatyutchhedak Nibandha” (The Eradication of the Parentage-dominated Caste-system). Here, while describing the religious aggression of our foreign enemies, we shall discuss it only so far as it is absolutely necessary to do so. 386. First of all, it should not be forgotten that this caste-system must have facilitated the stupendous consolidation and remarkable stability of the Hindu Society under certain peculiar circumstances and in particular contexts. In evaluating it, it would be ungrateful only to point to the eventual harm that it has caused in its later stages. 387. It must also be admitted that the Hindus of those times created, or voluntarily allowed to be created, this caste-system with the sole object of protecting their racial seed and blood, preserving their caste-life and tradition, and keeping them absolutely pure from any contamination. 388. The structure of the caste-system was based on the principles of heredity, of the economy based on the division of labour, of social co- existence and of social ethics, so far as these principles were comprehended by the writers of different ‘Smritis’. Thousands of years have rolled by, the Hindu nation has faced innumerable calamities and catastrophes, yet the hold of the caste-system and the influence that it has wielded upon billions and billions of Hindus throughout these tens of centuries, could never have been possible, if the roots of this birth-dominated caste-system had not gone deeper into the very foundation of this colossal edifice of the Hindu society. The Hindu faith—that the religious duties prescribed for the particular castes and sub-castes like Pariyas, Bhangis, Kolis, Bhils were the pious ways of attaining their earthly welfare, and heavenly bliss and Godly grace for them—would never have otherwise remained so steadfast through all these perilous centuries, if the lifeblood, which ran through the veins of the Hindu Society, apparently most heterogenous and miserably disorganised, had not animated its diversified elements with some undying and unifying force with a certain conciousness of its true self. 388A. This powerful unifying national sentiment which so unmistakably held together these different and apparently autonomous elements of the Hindu society and fused them together was HINDUTWA! AND HINDU DHARMA. 389. What we should like to call today the seven native shackles, viz. Untouchability (स्पर्शबंदी) ban on dining together of the people belonging

to different castes (रोटीबंदी), ban on inter-caste marriages (बेटीबंदी), and so on), did never appear to be shackles or fetters to the Hindus of those times, when the Muslims had begun invading India. To them, they were but the charmed amulets or protecting bands! Every caste, whether of the Brahmins or of the sweepers, was immensely proud of its separate entity. 390. These various castes and sub-castes of the Hindus punished even the slightest violation of the caste-laws with social ostracism—even if such a violation of caste-law was voluntary or involuntary, knowingly or unknowingly! 391. Today, we are apt to take this social ostracism quite lightly, but at the time of Muslim aggressions and thereafter, the very mention of such social ostracism would have unfailingly shocked to death every Hindu—whether he was a prince or a pauper—to be cut off from one’s own caste, was to be cut off from the whole world and from life itself. So severe was this punishment of social boycott that the unfortunate person at once lost his parents and brothers, his kith and kin—the people of his own flesh and blood—and was thrown into abysmal gloom. It should be sufficient to say here briefly that this social ostracism was far more dreaded than any physical torture or a heavy fine involving any financial loss or even death. Consequently, the tendency to observe scrupulously, and in strict conformity with the prevalent social practices, the traditional caste-laws, sanctioned by the sacred religious books and the writers of the various Smritis, was ingrained into the very texture of the Hindu society for generations together. 392. Although we can gratefully cite many other things regarding the caste-system that brought about cohesiveness of the diversified Hindu society and had lasting effects on it, it would be equally ungrateful on our part if we desist from criticising with sufficient severity, the unlimited harm done by this caste-system and the irrational and obstinate pride that the Hindus took in it, when the Muslims began to knock at their doors. 393. As a means of beating down the religious aggression of the Muslims, this counter-stroke of the Hindu caste system proved to be most ineffectual and useless like a blunted sword. On the contrary, these very caste-laws and the strict adherence to them brought about a series of disasters on the Hindu religion and the Hindu nation, making the conversion of the millions of Hindus far too easier for the Muslims than can be imagined, while it cannot

be denied that they made the conversion of the Muslims to Hinduism, absolutely impossible. 394. Before they came to India, the Arabians and other Muslims forced the millions of Christian, Jewish and Persian populations of Iran, Turan, the kingdoms of the middle Asia and Africa, right from Egypt to Spain, to give up their own religious faiths and accept Islam at the point of the sword. But these various European and Afro-Asian people never for a moment thought themelves to be polluted, nor that their own original religion was lost to them, simply because they took food or drink with the Muslims. The Muslim rulers had to keep their swords constantly hanging over their heads to enforce their allegiance to Islam, and to ensure from them the strict observance of the Muslim religious rites and duties, for centuries together. If, by chance, the Muslim power at any place was uprooted and completely effaced, the forcibly converted Christians or Persians and others went over to their original religions en masse, throwing away to the winds the green Muslim shred of a flag and proudly fluttering their own in its stead. As such, it was very difficult for even the Muslim powers there to keep these unwilling converts tied to the Islamic faith, the Muslim armed soldiers had to keep a vigilant eye on these foreign converts and to see every time if their faith in Islam was shaken even a bit or whether they did not foment any agitation to go back to their own religion. 395-396. On the contrary, in Spain, Greece, Serbia and other countries, where the Muslims in their turn were forced to forsake Islam and court Christianity on pain of death, the Christian rulers there had to keep a similar strict watch on these Muslim converts. For the Muslims, too, never thought that they were anyway defiled because of any food they ate from the Christians or because they had marital or extramarital relations with them. These forcibly converted Muslims were on the alert, to see if the ruling power became weak at any place and immediately revolted, hoisting any green cloth that they could catch hold of as their flag and re-entered the Muslim fold. They would even compel, if possible, the Christians themselves to accept Islam, and thus avenge the wrong done to them. This experience elsewhere made the early Arabian and other Muslim invaders of India fear at least for a century or two, that they would be obliged to use military force alone to keep the newly converted Hindus tied down to the Islamic faith.

397-398. But when they invaded Sindh and forced conversion to the Islamic faith on the people there, these Muslim invaders came to realize soon enough that although the Hindus' pride for their religion and their loyalty to it was no less ardent than that of any other people, and that at times, it was far more fervent and irrepresible than that of all of them— why, for this very reason—it was very easy for the Muslims and others to enforce physical conversion on the Hindus, if, however, mental conversion was far too difficult. 399. This did not merely pertain to the time when the Muslims invaded India. Even before the rise of Islam, the Syrian Christians, who were very generously—in other words suicidally—given shelter by the Hindu kings in the Malabar, and who began to proselytize the Hindu community, also came to know very soon that it was quite possible to desecrate a whole village of caste Hindus by merely thrusting a morsel of grub into their mouths or by just throwing crumbs of half-eaten loaves of bread or biscuits or slices of beef or the meat of cows into wells and tanks, where people went to have drinking water; and that no one of them had any place in the Hindu community any longer. 400. Later on, when in the 15th and the 16th centuries, the European armies of the Portuguese and others rushed into India by the sea-routes, they, too, were pleased to find the above-mentioned superstitions of contamination and the absurd religiosity of the Hindus, and were fired with an evil ambition to proselytize the whole of India with no difficulty at all. Fetters for the Miserable Hindu Proselytes 401-402. The Hindu armoury has all along been full of invincible weapons to beat back the political aggressions of the foreigners, and they had successfully crushed down such attempts on various occasions. But it had, at least in those times, no weapon to fight back this religious aggression. So the Indians had to rely on this sole weapon of social boycott, while facing this uprecedented Muslim religious aggression of polluting and converting the Hindus. They went on relentlessly with their policy of completely ostracizing every proselyte Hindu, according to the custom of those days. The then Hindu Society had kept no way open to purify a convert by some form of atonement for the sin of contamination and conversion. Although, by the time of the Muslim advance up to Punjab, the number of Hindu converts to Islam had already mounted to hundreds of thousands and although many of them earnestly wished to come back to

Hinduism, this social ostracism of the converts was so very persistent with the ban on eating food from persons of another caste, the ban on inter-caste marital relations and the others, that it was at once accepted by the leaders of the Hindu Society without any thought about the consequences. Naturally, this ban on the repurification and adoption of the converts back to Hinduism, also automatically grew into a new fetter and instead of checking the foreign religious aggression, it hampered the progress of Hinduism itself. Ban of Ostracism and self-seeking Converts 403. Well, it would have been quite proper and necessary to ostracize those opportunists among the Hindus, who had taken to Islam for their selfish ends, for power, or for avenging their private grudge against their own fellow men; for they had willingly severed all connections with the Hindu people, and no good could be served by readmitting these sinful people into the Hindu Society. But what, if they should later on, sincerely repent for this sinful act of theirs! This irrevocable ban did immeasurable wrong to those unfortunate tens and hundreds of thousands who, fearing social boycott, would never have dreamt of going over to Islam but who were absolutely unable and helpless to face the atrocities of the Muslim onslaught. For these miserable and forlorn thousands and for their offsprings, at least, there should have been some hope of redemption! 404. Again, the self-seeking opportunists, who willingly went over to Islam were much too limited in number. Precisely for this very reason, it seems extremely tragic that this punitive measure of ostracism fell like a bolt from the blue on the helpless victims of the avalanche-like Muslim religious aggression, doing not the least harm to the real perpetrators of the crime. As it were, it was insult added to injury. They were already wriggling with excruciating agony at the loss of their religion and were even prepared to court death by way of atonement and yet, they were irretrievably condemned to permanent damnation, were never again to be received by their own parents, their husbands and sons and all their relatives, as their own. The very flesh of their flesh and the blood of their blood were now complete strangers to them, at least in this world! A Strange Justice 405. While thus mercilessly penalising these innocent victims, the Hindus could not only do no harm to the malevolent and atrocious Muslim invaders

with their counter-stroke of ostracism, but, on the contrary, helped them directly and enormously in their work of proselytization! 406-407. Unlike the armed vigilance that was necessary for hundreds of years to keep the converted Christians, Jews and other peoples of the west, tied down to the Muslim faith, the work of proselytization in India necessitated a day's labour for the Muslims. If once at the time of a battle, or an armed aggression on cities and villages, they took the trouble of defiling thousands of men and women either by food, drink or rape or mere association, the responsibility of keeping them in the Muslim fold for generations together was shouldered by the Hindus, as if it was a religious duty of their own! Thus worked the punitive measure of ostracism, serving the best interests of the enemy, whom it sought to counteract. 408. But the conversion of one Hindu to the Islamic faith meant the transformation of a man into a demon, the metamorphosis of a God into a Satan! This was the unpleasant reality of the cataclysmal Hindu-Muslim wars! How this demonization of the Hindus took place, is briefly shown in paragraphs 379 and 380. 409. Even then, the Hindu society turned a deaf ear and blind eye to this reality! To speak broadly, it can be safely said, that the Muslims had never to worry about the converts ever going back to their own religion, for they were convinced that the Hindus would never accept them! 410. The Hindus could never clearly distinguish the change of caste from the change of religion. 411. For instance, if a Vaishya had an illicit exchange of food or matrimonial relations with one of a lower Hindu caste, say a Shimpi (a tailor), a Bhandari (a brewer), or someone else, he was excommunicated from his caste. Similarly, if a Hindu had perforce to take food, or drink water with a sinful (in their opinion) non-Hindu or if he or his wife was defiled or raped, and so had to live with the Muslims, he was banished not only by his own caste but even by the lowliest caste of the Hindus. It means the casting out of a Hindu from one caste, for having the so-called illicit relations with another, was considered on a par with the casting out of another from the whole of the Hindu society for similar reason! The fundamental national difference between the two, which in the long run was to affect, adversely and horribly, the numerical superiority of the Hindus, altogether escaped their notice.

412. An exile from any one caste of the Hindus never lost his Hindu society nor his Hindu religion; he could merge in any one of the many other Hindu castes or could form a new caste of similar outcastes. But this new caste of such outcastes formed an integral part of the Hindu society. There was a change of caste but never a change of religion—nor even a change of society. Why then speak of a change of nationality? The above-mentioned Vaishya, for instance, lost his Vaishya caste, but his being a Hindu remained unimpaired. Naturally, this sort of banishment from one caste to the other in the Hindu society, never caused any numerical loss to it.
413. Only one extract from the many ‘Tavarikhs’ (histories) written by various Muslim writers should serve as a sample to show how miserable the Hindu converts were! 415-417. Of the hundreds of Hindus taken as slaves and sent to Persia, Turan (Turkey) and Arabia, at the time of the invasions of Mahmud Ghazni, some could give the slip, individually or in groups, and would run away to Punjab, which because of the staunch Hindu resistance, remained the extreme limit of Muslim domination for over a century or so after Mahmud Ghazni. Thereafter, these runaway Hindu converts would escape even from Punjab and enter the neighbouring Hindu states of Rajputana for shelter, and were glad at heart that they were at last free from the Muslim clutches and that they would live happily in Hindu families, in their own temples and in their own society!
414. But when, according to the same custom, a Hindu, banished because of some sort of (so-called) illicit contact with any Muslim, would cease to be a Hindu altogether, and as thousands of such Hindu men and women were, often enough being converted under coercion by the Muslim aggressors, and as they were all without any exception, thrown out of the Hindu society, it was the Hindu society that suffered huge numerical losses year after year!
415. But alas! they were grossly disappointed because of the ban on reconversion and rehabilitation of these caste-outs! These groups of runaway Hindu converts would come to these Hindu states only to find that not only their own, but no other Hindu state was prepared to accept them in their fold. If at all they wished to live in the Hindu states, these men and women of the runaway shelter-seeking groups had to live as Muslims alone! Later on, when after a century or so, the Muslim armies began to make successful expeditions upto Delhi and central India, they were very much

surprised to see these people still living in these Hindu states as Muslims. If any such group or community of the Hindus were found to be existing in the Muslim states, it could never have been allowed to live as a Hindu community any longer! For, by force or by craft, it would have been converted to Islam. This was the experience of the Muslims! This was the Muslim religion! 419. Here, however, in Hindu states, the Hindus who were converted much against their will and who were willing to come back to the Hindu society, and to live as none else but the Muslims, because of the ban on their re-orientation! This was the Hindu Religion! 420. What wonder then, if in an unequal war, the Muslims defiled with craft or coercion, millions of Hindus, and thus inflicted immeasurable numerical loss to the Hindu nation. The greatest wonder, however, is how this loss was limited to this much alone! ❑

Perverted Conception of Virtues 421-422. Besides the silly superstitions of the Hindus about the caste- system, the various bans on exchange of food and drink, redemption of the outcastes and others, of which we have already written fully, and which had done tremendously more harm than the two-pronged religio-political Muslim offensive had done, another suicidal morbidity had completely possessed the Hindu mind for a long time. This morbidity paralysed their own offensive and counter-offensive might. Far greater than the Muslims could ever attempt, were the defeats inflicted on themselves by these morbidly virtuous Hindus! If a comparatively mild term is to be used for this infatuation—this mental imbalance of the Hindus, which caused disastrous losses for themselves—we have to call it a perverted sense of Hindu virtues. 423. In fact, virtues or vices are only relative terms. No virtue can be unqualified and absolute under every circumstance or at every place. Be it said briefly, that in practice or in ethical code, a virtue should be called a virtue only to the extent it is useful to the best interests of human society. And the moment it begins to cause harm to mankind, it should be considered a vice and as such discarded forthwith. 424. Some qualities at least are divided into three parts: Satwik (mild, gentle), Rajas (passionate) and Tamas (irascible, irritable); and even these should be viewed with reference to the peculiar conditon of time, place and person. The Hindu civilization had the noblest ambition of raising Man to the status of God and as such, it went in for an all-out attempt to inculcate and cultivate with assiduous care, these gentle qualities in him. But this worldly existence is not woven with one thread alone; its texture shows at least three different threads: the gentle, the passionate and the irritable. It is precisely for this reason that if a man, whosoever he may be, wishes to live in this world, wants to win or at least does not intend to be vanquished by others, or does not want to see injustice triumph over him, he must have a three-edged weapon, which could successfully face these three-fold qualities. But at this time of the Hindu-Muslim war, the Hindu nation forgot even the Bhagwat Geeta, which preached the relative, and not absolute, values of these virtues. Why, they even twisted the message of the Bhagwad Geeta itself. The quintessence of the Bhagwat Geeta is the consideration of

the fine distinction between man and man—of which the Hindus of those times seem to be divinely oblivious. 425. Of course, it must be remembered that all this argument applies generally and collectively to the Hindu polity made up of hundreds of millions of people, but it must also be remembered that there were to come to life, from time-to-time, thousands of exceptional groups of men and brave societies of dauntless people, who opposed this perversely virtuous Hindu society in order to bring about a social revolution. They will be referred to at their proper places. 426-427. To let go the vanquished and abjectly surrendering enemy, is said to be a virtue in some religious books; so enemies like the ungrateful Mohammed Ghori and the Rohila Najibkhan were set free. And what did they do in return for this noble act of the Hindus? The first brutally murdered his former benefactor, Prithviraj Chauhan, while the second conspired against the very Marathas, who let him go alive and brought about their unprecedented destruction at Panipat. Having only learnt by rote the maxim, to give food to the hungry and water to the thirsty is a virtue, the Hindus went on giving milk to the vile poisonous cobras and vipers! Even while the Muslim demons were demolishing Hindu temples and breaking to pieces their holiest of idols like Somnath, they never wrecked their vengeance upon those wicked Muslims, even when they had golden opportunities to do so, nor did they ever take out a single brick from the walls of masjids, because their religious teachers and priests preached the virtue of not inflicting pain on the offender: ‘Never pay the tormentor in his own coin but bear the torments meekly and be patient that God will punish him.’ दिघलें दुःख पराने उसने फेडू नयेचि सोसावें। शिक्षा देव तयाला करील म्हणुनि उगेच बैसावें॥ 428. The vilest of vices recorded in the catalogues of the religious texts could never have been more detrimental to the welfare of mankind, more harmful to the national interests and so, more detestable than such virtues as give rise to horrible atrocities and the greatest of sins. Naturally, whoever cultivates and lives upto such virtues thoughtlessly and foolishly and with slavish adherence to the religious texts, and also with fanatic obstinacy, is bound to perish individually and bring about disaster of the nation he lives. These qualities are not virtues; they are virtues distorted in the extreme.

Whichever virtue is adopted thoughtlessly and without regard to the time, place and person is corrupted and rotten, and, like putrefied food, becomes poisonous. 429-430. Every Hindu seems to have been made to suck, along with his mother’s milk, this nectar-like advice that religious tolerance is a virtue. But nobody never explains to him the essence of that precept. If that alien religion is also tolerant of our own religion, our tolerance towards it can be a virtue. But the Muslim and the Christian religions, which boldly proclaim it to be their religious duty to destroy most cruelly the Hindu religion and to eradicate from the face of this earth the kafirs and the heathens, can never be described as tolerant of other religions. In respect of these intolerant foreign religions, the very extremely enraged intolerance, which seeks to retaliate their atrocities with super-atrocious reprisals, itself becomes a virtue! 431. Even if we were to restrict our discussion to the period under discussion, it will be seen that every Muslim aggressor went on demolishing Hindu temples at Mathura and Kashi (Benares). The most sacred idols in the various magnificent shrines from all over India right upto Rameshwaram were not only purposely taken to the Muslim capitals like Delhi and plastered into the portal steps of their royal palaces, but, for the sole purpose of hurting the feelings of the Hindus and insulting them, they were also used as the slabs and tiles for lavatories, water-closets, and urinals. To be tolerant towards those Muslims who called these and many other atrocities their religious duty, is the very negation of virtue, its sacrilegious perversion! Nay, for the Hindus to show such tolerance was the greatest sin to be punished in Hell! But the Hindus committed this very sin under the name of virtue! Even after overthrowing the various Muslim powers, i.e. even when the Hindus had acquired political ascendancy, they did not destroy the various masjids at Kashi (Benares), Mathura or Rameshwaram, nor did they use their ruins as tiles for the various building constructions along roads. At the most, the Hindus reconstructed and renovated their old temples which were raised to the ground by the Muslims. They did nothing more! On the contrary, there are astonishing instances of grant of new lands for their maintenance and assurance of protection of the masjids, which had been built by the Muslim aggressors, by the Hindu powers. In this connection, one stray instance can be cited to show the confusion of the then Hindu thought. It affords a shameless

exhibition of the perverted virtue of the Hindus, which makes any further discussion in this regard absolutely unnecessary! 432-433. After Mahmud of Ghazni demolished the temple of Somnath for the first time, it was rebuilt several times by the Hindus and destroyed by the Muslim conquerors as many times! Once, when a powerful Hindu king established his power in that region, he rebuilt it with all pomp and ceremony, and under his able guidance, the land also prospered. This Hindu ruler should have, in fact, debarred from entering into the Indian waters any Arab traders, who used the Indian ports in this region of Sindh as watering and fuelling stations on their way to the distant eastern and southern parts of India. For, the Hindus often had the bitter experience of the Arab armies and navies following these traders by sea. But in order to exhibit his religious tolerance and generosity, this Hindu ruler not only did not stop these Arabian traders from visiting the Indian coast, but treated them with such great deal of hospitality that they might feel quite at home there. Naturally, these Arabic traders, actuated whether by political trickery or by religious pride, thought of building by way of a challenge, as it were, a masjid just in front of the Somnath Temple, rebuilt by the Hindu kafirs. But under the circumstances, then prevalent there, they could not do so by force or bravado. Hence, with their usual craft, they applied in the most courteous and humble words to the King for permission to build the masjid. And O what wonder! That gullible Hindu King consented to it most willingly, and up rose the new masjid challenging the Somnath Temple. As a matter of fact, considering the highly miserable state to which the Temple of Somnath was reduced by Mahmud of Ghazni and others, that Hindu King should have wiped out of existence all the masjids, without exception, as soon as he conquered the land and then and then alone, could he have restored the Somnath Temple to its original glory. But instead of destroying the existing masjids he permitted a new one to be built up and bestowed an annuity on it for its maintenance. For this suicidal-religious tolerance (perversion of a virtue again!), he had very soon to pay dearly; because when after some time, the brutal forces of Alla-ud-Din and other Muslim aggressors attacked Gujrat and killed thousands of Hindu men and raped as many Hindu women, and pulled down hundreds of Hindu temples and marched straight towards Somnath, how did these Arabs and their descendants repay the religious tolerance of the Hindu King, who allowed the Arabian traders to build the said masjid? Did they allow the restored Somnath Temple to