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

1049. Abdali had been secretly given reports of this forthcoming imperial treaty with the Marathas six months or more before the actual event. That is why in 1749, he invaded India for the second time simply to oppose the Marathas. So the imperial governor of Punjab, Mir Mannu, himself ceded helplesssly Thattha, Sindh (Multan), Punjab and other adjoining territories to Abdali and accepted the overlordship of the latter over that region. Satisfied with the thought that the Maratha authority over that region, relegated to them by the imperial treaty, was wiped out by the abject surrender of Mir Mannu, the imperial officer-in-charge of that part, and that the time for further advance was not yet, Abdali once again went back to Kabul.
1050. But the Marathas were highly infuriated at this duplicity of the imperial officers and the reported mute consent of the Emperor himself to the treacherous act. The Marathas vowed to avenge Abdali's usurpation of the regions between Sindh, Thattha and Punjab, in defiance of the Moghal- Maratha treaty just as furiously as would a cobra, whose tail has been trodden down wilfully. But they were at this time preoccupied with the South-Indian Muslims, the westerners like the Portuguese and also with the domestic political troubles at Satara. As such, Nanasahib Peshwa ordered Malharrao Holkar and Jayajirao Shinde, and the two Maratha leaders crossed the Jamuna and fell upon the fifty-to sixty-thousand-strong army of the Rohillas encamped at Kadargunj on the 20th March, 1751. The Pathans fought tenaciously, but in the end, the Marathas completely routed and destroyed the joint army of the ‘original and legitimate’ Pathans and Rohillas. Quickly following this signal success, the Marathas fought the Pathan, Ahmadkhan Bangash, who had come on a hot scent to Farukhabad with his army. Ahmadkhan took shelter in Farukhabad and was timely joined by the second mighty army of the Rohillas. But again, the Marathas besieged the conjoint army of these ‘true born’ Rohilla-Pathans in the month of April, 1751, and fetching them in open field, inflicted a crushing defeat on that huge army on the 28ᵗʰ of April, 1751. About twenty to twenty-five thousand Pathans and Rohillas were cut off in the battle. Everything belonging to them including their camp was plundered. Thousands of horses, elephants, camels and the battery of guns were all captured. Jayappa Shinde writes in his letter, “The devotees of Hari appropriated that booty to themselves.”

1051. When the Peshwa received the news of these battles, Shreemant Nanasahib himself felt elated at the exceptional valour of the Marathas. In his congratulatory reply to the Sardars and soldiers, he himself wrote:
1052. शाबास तुमच्या हिमतीची नि दिलेरी रुस्तुमीची दक्षिणच्या फौजांनीं गंगा यमुना पार होऊना पठाणांशीं युद्ध करून फते पावावें ठे कर्म लहान सहान नव्हे तुन्ही कनिष्ट कृत कर्में दौलतीचे स्तंभ आहात इराण तुराण पावे तो लौकिक झाला वझीर पळाला असता फिरोन फतेच्या मसनदीवर बसविला (Bravo, well done! All praise to your intrepidity and valour! That the Southern armies should cross the Ganges and Jamuna and win a glorious victory over the Pathans in the open battlefield, is neither a small nor a commonplace thing! You are single- minded loyal men of action, the pillars of the (Maratha) Empire! Your fame has spread far beyond Iran and Turan. While the Queen (on the chessboard) had run astray, (you) have installed her at the vantage position once again! The Marathas humbled time and again the Hauteur and pride of the true-born and the greatest Muslims too!
1053. A common misleading statement is very often to be seen in the histories written not only by the Muslim, the English, the Portuguese and such other writers who are naturally inimical (hostile) towards the Marathas, and have always tried to disparage them and to detract from their glorious deeds, but also by some of the Hindu writers who evince a slavish mentality and only 'look' and 'write' (without using any independent judgment of their own) — a statement that purports to say: 'One important cause why later on the Muslims were often defeated in India and why the Maratha could set in the process of disintegration of the Muslim empire under their crushing blows, was that the Muslims of the latter days had lost much of the 'original' and 'real' blood and spirit of the early Arab, Mongol, Turkish, Irani, Durani, Afghan, Moghal invaders. Because of the racy climate beyond the Himalayas, big, rushing rivers, hilly and snowy territory and their hardy and robust constitution, which was the result of their spending whole lives in constant warfare, and such other reasons, the comparatively more civilized and 'hence' milder and 'feebler'

Hindus could not withstand their earlier invasions. But as those wild and valorous Muslims from beyond the Himalayas began to settle down here for centuries together, generation-after-generation, and as many of their dynasties ruled here, they, too, were victims of laziness, mildness, and proclivity towards luxurious living. They could not retain their former sturdiness, endurance and savage strength, which could stand them in good stead on the battlefield. The ‘unhealthy’ climate of India did not fail to tell upon their originally strong wild bodies! On the whole, the descendants of those very Muslims came to be weaker and ‘not true to their mettle’. That is why the Hindu, especially the Marathas could vanquish only those Muslims! 1054. How very imperfect and unrealistic is this statement! Only one instance of the Maratha offensive against the Rohillas and the Pathans in the Doab and the fact that the Marathas killed as many as twenty thousand of the enemy in the action is quite sufficient to prove the falsity and platitude of the above estimate of the Muslim failure! The Pathan-Rohillas ruling from the Doab to Rohilkhand at that time considered themselves to be ‘high-born’ Afghans of the finest mettle. Even the Moghal imperial power and the Turkish Nawabs and chieftains dreaded them most. These Afghans had even at that time close and uninterrupted blood relation and family ties with the ‘original’ stalk of the Afghans beyond the Himalayas. Every year, hundreds of those ‘true-bred’ and ‘real’ Afghans came to reside in this Pathanistan in the Doab, while the Afghans here went over to their original homes. It clearly means, therefore, that the thousands of the Pathan-Rohillas in the long tract between the Doab and the Rohilkhand were till that time, at least, ‘real’ and ‘original’, ‘true-born’ and ‘thorough-bred’ Pathans and Afghans! And the Marathas? They belonged, after all originally and traditionally, to that country—India—which her enemies called sterile-born and brought up there for generations together! Even then, did they not often prove these so-called ‘true-born’ and ‘thorough-bred’ Pathans and Afghans to be of baser mettle in the final test on the field of battle? Even when Nadirshah fell upon Delhi with an army of the thousands of his ‘true-born’ and ‘thorough-bred’ Pathans, crowned himself ‘Emperor of Delhi’ and threatend to march to the South like Mahmud of Ghazni, is it not because he realized in his heart of hearts that the times had then changed—that it was not the India of Ghazni’s times—

that now it was the Marathas, whom he had to face, that he retreated so hastily and went clean out of India! Simply because of the dread of the Marathas? In his wake, followed Abdali invading India thrice or four times, every time with an army of not less than fifty thousand strong, made up of the pick of Turkish, Iranian, Durani, Pathan soldiery. But how every time he had to go back crestfallen, because of the armed counter-offensive of the Marathas, how even in the turning of the scale of fortune and even after the terrible losses for the Marathas at Panipat, he had to sign a treaty that the direction of the Moghal imperial affairs at Delhi be left into the hands of the Marathas, how he agreed not to interfere with it, in the least, and how, relinquishing his high ambition to be the absolute and unlimited Emperor of Delhi, he had to submit to the Marathas and go back, never to return, can best be read by every Hindu from our book, Hindu Padpadshahi. It is going to be referred to again in the following pages. 1055. Physical build, height and breadth and weight do count as important and decisive factors in matters of personal combats. Even then, it cannot be made a rule without exception! The grave of the monstrous Afzalkhan at the foot of Pratapgad is evidence enough! But in the struggles of nations, the chances of success or failure can never be assesed on the strength of physical build, enduring capacity and the stubborness of constitution. Didn’t the dwarfish Japanese lay the gigantic Russians low on the battlefield in the first Russo-Japanese war—the towering and sturdy Russians in comparison with whom the ‘true-born’ and ‘thorough-bred’ Pathans seem absolute midgets? Our Hindu Gorkhas are veritable Marathas in respect of stature. But haven’t these very Gorkhas vanquished the Italian, the Austrian and the colossal Hitlerian German armies on various occasions and on various battlefields in the last World War? The whole world still resounds with the fame of the Gorkhas—‘A Hindu Gorkha means a gallant fighter’ is a common place adage nowadays who once ruled as the invincible Emperor of all the European nations like Germany, Russia and others, renowned for their tall and sturdy soldiers, if not the ‘short’ Napoleon and his small French army? Abdali’s third invasion of India 1056. The Moghal Emperor had made Gazi-ud-din his chief minister (Vizier), who went all the way along to Sarhind in Punjab in February, 1756, to appoint Adina Beg as the chief imperial officer there. Gazi-ud-din acted in this case depending solely on the Maratha support, and this act of

his clearly meant that the whole of the province of Punjab, which was reduced by Abdali, was once agian seized by the Moghal Emperor. Even in Delhi, the Afghan influence was ineffectual and Gazi-ud-din, strongly supported by the Marathas, spoke for the Moghal Emperor. Under these circumstances, Malika Zamani, the old and crafty chief stewardess in the Moghal imperial household, who was frightened out of her wits (at this all- enveloping Maratha hold on the Moghal Empire) and Nizibkhan Rohilla, who was then a prominent leader of all the Rohillas and Pathans in India and who was the bitterest enemy of the Marathas, secretly wrote letters to Ahmadshah Abdali to the effect that if at all Muslim power in India was to be saved, it was Abdali alone who could save it, and that, as such he should forthwith march on India with a well-equipped army. They had also mentioned the fact that the Maratha armies were occupied in the south and that Delhi was practically defenceless. But the Moghal Emperor, they wrote, had already sent word to the Marathas to come to Delhi in all haste. So, if Abdali was late, they argued, the Marathas were very likely to establish their authority right up to Punjab, Thattha and Multan (Sindh) as per their treaty with the Moghal Emperor and that they were to march with mighty armies on Delhi and Punjab. 1057. At this news, Abdali was enraged beyond measure. It was to nullify the imperial charter (Sanad) which entrusted the government of Punjab and the neighbouring region to the Marathas, that he had recently invaded India and annexed that region to his kingdom. He, therefore, took it highly amiss that Gazi-ud-din should reincorporate that part into the Moghal empire, without any sort of appeal or reference made to him. Naturally, once again, he came to Peshawar in November, 1756, with a view to invading India sending his son, Taimurshah and his General Jahankhan to take Lahore. The Moghal general Adinabeg fought with Taimurshah, but was defeated, and there was nobody to beat down the orgy of sword and fire which the Afghan force indulged in, while they rushed headlong from Lahore to Sutlej. Emboldened by this Moghal infirmity, Shah Abdali advanced straight to Delhi without stopping anywhere for rest, with an army of eighty thousand strong in January 1757 A.D. Delhi fell into his hands practically without any resistance. Immediately, he took over the imperial authority and began to run the government in his own name. 1058. And he precipitately performed what the Pathans and the Muslims of the time thought to be their first and foremost duty, according to the

religious code of every Muslim Emperor. In order to make it suit his dignity, he even fumed and fretted at the slightest pretext and ordered a horrible general massacre of the citizens of Delhi, so that they might submit meekly to his rule over Delhi. Within a few hours, ‘true and high-born’ and ‘thorough-bred’ Afghans beyond the Himalayas slaughtered more than eighteen thousand people, and according to the second universally acknowledged notion of the time, regarding the regal function in accordance with the Muslim religious code, he proclaimed forthwith that as an humble and royal adherent of Islam, he would completely destroy all the Kafirs and their temples and all religious institutions throughout India! 1059. Without any loss of time, he brought his horrible announcement into action. Under his orders, the Hindu temples, shrines, idols and their houses began to be pulled down and set ablaze. Emperor Abdali was particularly infuriated against the several Hindu holy places like Mathura and Prayag, which the Marathas had rescued from the Muslim hands. So he began to defile them all, one after another. On such occasions, Mathura, which is very close to Delhi, was the first to fall a prey after Delhi, to all sorts of vandalism of the monstrous aggressors and stoically enough, did that holy city offer itself, time and again, as sacrificial oblation, as any brave lady in the famous immolation (Johar) of Chitod or the very city of Chitod itself. But this time, it did not merely submit itself to the Muslim religious persecution, without fighting, as it had been doing till this time. Although detailed description is not possible here for want of space, it must be told here that nearly five thousand Hindu Jat citizens fought to the last drop of blood left in them that innumerable and well-organized Muslim army. Every brave Hindu, who died, did so only after killing as many of his Muslim foes as was possible for him to kill. After bathing Mathura in blood and burying it under heaps of the rubble of its demolished temples and shrines and idols, Abdali attacked another neighbouring holy place of the Hindus, Gokul Vrindavan. This also had been the object of Abdali’s fury for the simple reason that the Marathas had recently snatched it away from the Muslims. In order to halt this monstrous attack, more than two thousand valiant ‘Gosavees’ (Monks), from the famous gymnasium of ‘Nanga Gosavee’, suddenly fell upon the Muslim army with a grim determination to fight unto death. This assault of the Gosavees was so sudden, so well organized and so ferocious that Abdali’s forces reeled back all of a sudden at the first knock. Thousands of Muslim soliders were killed outright, and

the brave gosavees, too! After the fierce fighting that continued throughout the day, the Muslims left the town and retreated while the wounded and bleeding city resounded joyously and thankfully with praises for those Nanga Bairagees (naked ascetics), who had defended its Gokulnath. If at all, one wishes to be a naked ascetic (Nanga Bairagee), he should be one such! 1060. Abdali then marched against Agra and invested that strong fort. In this very fort was fighting the direst enemy of the Pathan party in imperial court, and one who sincerely tried to save the Moghal imperial power, namely Gazi-ud-din, and he was every moment expecting reinforcement from his protectors, the Marathas! 1061. But what were the Hindu kings and princes of Jaipur, Jodhpur and Udaypur and other neighbouring states, the sardars and noblemen of courts and the million of their warriors and subjects doing at this critical time for the Hindu religion? While Abdali was indulging in reckless and ruthless bloodshed of thousands of Hindu warriors, who sacrificed their lives in the defence of their religion, and while all the Hindu places of pilgrimage were being turned red with the blood of these innumerable Hindu martyrs, it was the common people in north India, and not their rulers, who anxiously waited every moment for the arrival of the Marathas and the relief at their hands from all these atrocities! But the rest of Hindu kings and princes and landlords (jagirdars), who had in their pay large fighting forces, wasted their time cherishing malice towards the Marathas. All the Rajput princes were secretly longing for the destruction of the Marathas at Abdalis’s hands. Many of the Hindu rulers there—significant as well as insignificant—had been carrying on secret negotiations with Abdali’s. But what, if Abdali had wiped out the Maratha influence from Sindh-Multan to the end of Rohilkhand and Nepal in the north, according to the wishes of the Hindu and Muslim rulers in the north! The appalling answer to this question doesn’t seem to have disturbed them a bit. Except for the Marathas, who else were there of these Hindu princes and kings, who could have proved to be the destroyer and conqueror of the Muslim domination? None at all! What, then, could these incompetent Hindu Rajputs and others have gained, if the Marathas had been destroyed by Abdali and the latter had once more established Muslim imperial power throughout the North of India? All that would have happened was perhaps that, a new wave of bloodshed of

millions of Hindus and atrocities at the orders of another imperial power of a new Allauddin or a new Aurangzeb would have swept the Hindu world. 1062. But perhaps it was because of the earnest desire and heartfelt longing of the above-mentioned millions of the Hindu commonality, who themselves being disorganized, were utterly powerless to do anything in the matter, except secretly wishing for the speedy arrival of the Marathas, who, in their opinion, were the only ones to smash the Muslim power completely or perhaps because of the original sustaining power of the Hindu nation in general, that nothing of the kind happened. 1063. For, on receiving letters from the Maratha Sardars and Gazi-ud-din and others, Peshwa Nanasahib immediately sent Malharrao Holkar under the chief command of Raghunathrau Dada, with a large army. Urgent letters were also sent to the Maratha Sardars such as Govindpant Bundeley, Barve and others, who were already in the North to render every sort of assistance to Raghunathrao. Before Raghunathrao left Indore and marched ahead, news arrived that hearing the reports of the Maratha advance, Abdali had left Mathura, Vrindaban and other Hindu places of worship and pilgrimage, and gone to Delhi and thence to Kabul, taking away all the booty he had acquired. But he had vested, before his departure to Kabul, the supreme command of that region in the hands of his son, Taimurshah, stationing ten thousand soldiers under him at Sirhind and installing his officers at various important places in Punjab. 1064. While on this side, the Maratha forces under different military leaders in the North, which had gathered together under the one command of Raghunathrao, began to punish severely all those who had begun anti- Maratha activities, relying on Abdali for support. Sakharam Bhagwant, Gangadhar Yeshwant and other Maratha Sardars entered the Doab and once again beat down the Pathan-Rohilla malfactors, released and brought into their fold Vazir Gazi-ud-din, who had been made a captive by the Abdali party. Vithal Shivadev himself marched on Delhi, and after about a fortnight's fierce fighting, entered the city triumphantly, crushing down the Abdali faction completely. The greatest of the triumphs was that the direst enemy of the Maratha and Abdali's right-hand man, Najibkhan Rohilla, was caught alive. Eventually, Abdali's settlement of the region under his suzerainty was toppled down completely. The Pathan army of ten thousand strong, which Abdali had stationed at Sirhind under the command of Abdul Samad in order to maintain his hold on the region, itself lost courage.

Consequently, when the Marathas themselves advanced menacingly towards Sirhind, there was a great commotion caused in the Muslim ranks even before a regular battle was joined, and they were completely routed in the initial skirmishes and their commander was caught alive. This news made Taimurshah, the son of Abdali and his governor of Punjab, and his commander-in-chief, Jahankhan, leave off their original plan of defending Lahore and in the face of this forceful and precipitate Maratha counter- offensive, both of them struck an honourable retreat to Kabul along with all their army, hardly daring to face the Marathas on the battlefield. Abdali had strictly urged upon them that they were under no circumstances to let the vast treasures of millions (crores) of rupees, which was still in their possession, to fall in the enemy hands. As such, they tried utmost to carry it safely, retreating in as orderly a manner as was possible. But the Marathas not only pursued them even beyond Lahore but they played such a havoc in the Muslim ranks that Traimurshab crossed Attock and fled to his own province, leaving behind at various places all his elephants, horses, camels, and all the treasure in cash and jewellery, gold and silver. He had nothing to carry home of the vast plunder from India, except his own life! Whatever else belonged to him, was either sacked or destroyed by the Marathas. Whatever little of his Afghan army escaped only with their lives to Kabul like their governor, were the only ones that remained alive! All of the veteran Pathan army of fifteen to twenty thousand strong, which was kept behind in Delhi and Punjab by Abdali to annihilate the Hindus and the Hindu religion throughout India, was attacked group by group and massacred by the Marathas in the battles and skirmishes fought with them. 1065. Thus, by inflicting crushing and humiliating defeats on Emperor Ahmadshah Abdali and by reconquering from the Afghan empire the whole vast region from Sindh to Multan and Multan to Sirhind, the Marathas once again gained the de facto control over the governance and administration of this extensive province which they had earlier gained by a paper treaty with the Moghal emperor! But the then Moghal emperor and his Vazir, Gazi-ud-din, themselves knew very well that in their own interest, too, it was essential that the Marathas should do this. Hence, the Emperor himself gave order that Raghunathrao’s formal triumphant entry into Lahore for the settlement of the affairs there, was to be celebrated publicly with all pomp and festivities. All the Hindu chieftains of Kashmir, Dogra nobles, Missals of the Sikhs and the so-called Muslim Empire,

Umraos, ‘Nizams and Nawabs’, who had been so far engaged in riotous actions and ravaging the country to their own sweet will, were so much overawed and struck dumb by this extraordinary heroism of the Marathas in recapturing the whole of Punjab and the adjoining territories, that they began to join the Maratha General Raghunathrao as subordinate allies. The Sikhs had been recently gaining control over things in Punjab and they were infuriated by Abdali’s wanton act of demolishing their at Amritsar and filling up their holy lake round it with filth, mud, stones and bricks during his retreat to Kabul for fear of the Marathas. They had, therefore, become inveterate enemies of Abdali, and mighty leader of one of their powerful ‘Missals’, namely Alasingh Jat (whom the Maratha correspondence of the times referes to as ‘Ala Jat’) had joined the Marathas openly in the battle of Sirhind. Hence, as almost all these leaders and parties who had been then active in the political movements in Punjab were favourable to such a grand ovation to be given to Raghunathrao, it was agreed on all hands that the imperial ceremony felicitating the triumphal entry into Lahore of Raghunathrao at the head of his army should be celebrated after the Maratha general’s successful campaign towards Sindh. The Triumphant March of Raghunathrao Peshwa in Punjab 1066. Taimurshah, who fled beyond the frontier, tried to carry with him the immense treasure the Muslims had plundered in India, and it was to seize that treasure that Raghunathrao entered Punjab in hot pursuit of the Pathan army, which ran helter-skelter. Conquering more than half of Punjab of Abdali, Raghunathrao drove them off to the frontier. Leaving the rest of the work of regaining the frontier to the other Maratha companies and brigades, he returned to Lahore, the Capital of Punjab, in order to consolidate the Maratha gains and settle the affairs there and lay a firm foundation of the Maratha power in the newly accquired territory. On the 11th of April, 1758, he made his triumphant entry into Lahore with all the regalia and his victorious army. 1067. A magnificent ovation was given to him in order to glorify this victorious entry of his, attended with feasting and dancing. Raghunathrao sojourned in no less a place than the imperial palace itself. The other prominent Maratha warlords had also put up in big palaces in Lahore or the camps in the vicinity of the city. Everywhere, hundreds of well-adorned elephants, horses, camels and fatted bulls paraded through the streets. Various big Hindu-Muslim from different places, Emirs, Umraos, the so-

called Nawabs, Nizams, Raos, Kings and courtiers presented themselves in the magnificent Darbar in the afternoon. Everyone of them, the political as well as the civil administrators, nay, even the imperial army in Punjab, vowed allegiance to the Peshwa at Poona and Raghunathrao was honoured as the representative of that Peshwa. Every one of them tendered his homage in the form of rich gifts to Raghunathrao. At night, the whole city was gloriously illumined. Dazzling fireworks were displayed everywhere. Even the neighbouring cities round about Lahore celebrated that feast of light and fireworks display. 1068. What was the setting or the location of this triumphant assembly— this feast of light? It was no other than the recreation grounds of the greatest of the Moghal Emperors, like Akbar, Jahangir, Shahjahan and others—the extensive courtyard of the most famous Shalimar gardens of Lahore!! The Marathas had thus reduced the Muslim imperial power to serfdom! 1069. At the news of this glorious Maratha victory, there was literally a shower on Raghunathrao of the congratulatory letters written not only by the numerous Kings and courtiers, Sardars of various ranks and the learned Shastri-pandits, who were openly or secretly endeavouring beyond all measure in the cause of Hindu-Padpadshahi throughout the length and breadth of India, but by the self-less ascetics, also. As has been said in Paragraph 991, the various writers of these multifarious congratulatory letters were so much overcome by a sense of pride and jubilation over this unconceivable Maratha victory, that they could not convey their feeling in simple prose. These could only be conveyed through some mythological imagery, a sample of which can be had in this one sent to Raghunathrao on the 5th of May, 1758, by a Maratha General in Delhi, Antaji Mankeshwar, who was in the habit of writing nothing but simple political reports and yet who was one of the higher officers in the Maratha army. 1070. “Received your Excellency’s favour (of 13th April). How can I express adequately the excessive joy I felt at the news in your Excellency’s letter about the victory at Lahore, the destruction of the enemy and the acquistion of the terrirories there? (Your Excellency’s) fame has spread far and wide in Hindusthan (North India). The high-born Emirs and Umraos and Governors, all are overawed! It is your Excellency alone who avenged the wrong of the whole of Hindusthan (North India)! As such, your Excellency’s success vies with the mountains! Your Excellency is (destined to be) successful. How can this poor servant of

your Excellency have the ability to dilate upon this topic? The Vazir was extremely pleased to hear these tidings (and said) “His Excellency is truly an incarnation of God. How can a human being praise Him sufficiently’? Your humble servant (i.e. I) has no other safe shelter anywhere except at your feet. If your Honour is likely to encamp at Lahore, I will come there with the Emperor and his Vazir. The Vazir and all others, great and small, fear that in case your Excellency were not to encamp, the Pathans are likely to return to Lahore in the rainy season. I have just set down here what the people say. Your Honour’s is the right to decide upon the course of action to be followed. May your Excellency be kind enough to let this humble servant know whether the proposal of bringing the Vazir and the Emperor there is fair or otherwise, and your Excellency’s orders in this respect are awaited. Vithal Shivdev would escort them there if Your Honour so pleases. Krishnarao (Kale), too, might come, and put before Your Honour everything.”—5.5.1758. The report on the conquest of Punjab sent by Raghunathrao Peshwa Himself 1071. Now letters-after-letters followed in quick succession from Shreemant Nanasahib at Poona asking Raghunathrao to return along with his army to the South before the monsoons set in. But as Punjab had been very recently conquered, it was absolutely essential that proper system had to be urgently laid down for the governance and administration of the vast territory. As such, it was desirable that Raghunathrao should entrench himself there with all his army for another four months. All the ablest Maratha leaders and army commanders thought and urged that Raghunathrao had better not to go to the Daccan along with Malharrao Holkar. But Raghunathrao Dada and Malharrao Holkar, too, were in their heart of hearts inclined to go to the South. Now that Nanasahib had ‘called’ him back, Raghunathrao himself sent an authentic report, penned by himself, to Shreemant Nanasahib about the unprecedented success in Punjab, and began his return march towards Poona. Many other Maratha Sardars, including the one of the status of Malharrao Holkar, returned to the Deccan along with Raghunathrao. Of course, in order to maintain the Maratha rule unhampered in Punjab the requisite Maratha forces were stationed at different places by Raghunathrao under some Sardars. 1072. Although it was quite possible to describe the valour of the Marathas in this campaign in Punjab in the grand style of an epic or heroic

poetry, Raghunathrao, however, it is especially to be noted, put the whole thing in the report he sent of this campaign to Poona in the most direct matter-of-fact way, befitting his solider’s profession, without any long- winded digressions or self-adulation or exaggeration of any sort. Hence, we should like to cite his very words. 1073. Writes Raghunathrao in his despatch of the 4th May, 1758, to the Peshwa: “As regards the bandobasta of (resettling the affairs or re- establishing firm control over) the provinces, the Lahore, Multan, Kashmir and rest of the territory this side of Attock, I should like to say that a part of the work is done and rest of it I shall do very shortly. After hotly pursuing Sultan Taimur and Jahankhan, we have routed and plundered all their army. Fighting some skirmishes here and there and being beaten, they have fled to Peshawar beyond Attock. Abdali marched against Iran but the Persian emperor despoiled his whole army. Abdali then came (back) to Kandahar, followed by the Irani army in hot pursuit. Jabardestakhan and Mur-r- rubkhan, the Sardars and Landlords of this province, who had tendered their loyalties to Abdali because of the latter’s threatening might (or tyrannical treatment), have also now changed their side and are promising to serve faithfully and to chastise Abdali. Abdali himself has lost courage. In short, it does not seem that he can muster strong from that front. He has been, already, chastised by the Shah of Iran on the other side. It would be proper if you send reinforcements and establish His Majesty’s control beyond Attock. His nephew and heir to the throne, who had approached Your Excellency and whom Your Excellency had sent to us, will be given some territory this side of Attock to establish himself and then will be appointed to the Subha of Kabul, Peshawar beyond Attock. The chief of Abdali’s forces, Abdul Samadkhan, who was in Sirhind, is captive of our state. I shall send him and some Moghal and Irani forces from this province. They will manage the affairs there. By virtue of Your Excellency’s greatness and piety, they will bring pressure on Abdali and punishing him severely, they will establish our control beyond Attock. Renake Anaji and Rayaji Sakhadev have been posted in Lahore. Gopal Ganesh (Barve) also is quite at home in this region. He too will stay. The Emperor of Iran had sent the letters to me and to Malharrao (Holkar) calling us precipitately to Kandahar to destroy him (Abdali) and to fix up the frontier at Attock. But we, at least on our part should like to send Abdul Rahimankhan of Kabul, whom your Excellency had sent to us, and we shall help him with some armed forces

and other sinews of war. The provinces of Kabul and Kandahar, beyond Attock, have been a part of Hindusthan from (the times of) Akbar to (that of) Alamgir; why should we then give these away? For the present, we shall establish Irani control over the region and send a pleasant reply. Ambassadors from all the neighbouring powers like Jammu and Kashmir have come. We shall settle about the territory this side of Attock; further beyond, it is not yet possible (to do anything of the kind). Efforts (in that direction) will be made. For the present, I shall do whatever is most urgent. Whoever stronger person will lead the next expedition will effect a permanent settlement. The province has a revenue collection of about two to four crore (twenty to forty million of rupees). But the landlords and Jamindars are very powerful. We collect only a nominal revenue. It is difficult to realise even two hundred thousand rupees from a province with a yield of at least two and a half million. For the present, we are staging a comeback under Your Excellency’s orders. As such, we do whatever is possible; we do not stretch matters too far. For the time being, the governance of the territory has been entrusted to Adina Beg alone. To him we have given Lahore and Multan on lease. This year, the whole (of the revenue collection) will be consumed by the occupation army (garrison army); even fitting out such an occupation army will be difficult; things would be favourable after two or three years. With compliments to Your Excellency!!” 1074. THE ONLY DISGRACEFUL PART OF IT IS THAT WHILE RETURNING TO THE DECCAN, THE MARATHAS DID NOT TAKE REVENGE ON THE MUSLIMS FOR THEIR RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION! 1074A. In Chapter 8, on the ‘Perverted Conception of Virtues’, of the book, it has already been shown in greater detail how the Hindu society (of the time) was haunted by a false and perverted sense of virtues and as such how the Hindus did not even slightly avenge the unbearable and unlimited persecution and the diabolic atrocities perperated by the Muslims on the Hindu religion. Unlike Spain, Portugal, Bulgaria, Greece and other (European) nations which saved Christianity from extinction (from their lands) by ridding completely their homeland of Muslims, the Hindus did not extirpate the Muslims from India. They refrained from inflicting similar, not to speak of greater atrocities even on the enemy, like Muslims who considered religious persecution and diabolic and heinous atrocities

themsleves to be their religious duties! Every drop of blood in the Hindu veins and arteries was surcharged, as it were, with the false and suicidal and perverted conception of religious tolerance towards the aliens. The notion that whatever the nature of atrocities of the aliens on our religion, we should not, even for resisting them, retaliate against these very aggressive alien religionists, was the essence of their religious tolerance. And it was considered by the Hindu to be their religion! It is because of this suicidal notion of religious tolerance that Hindus, even when they had gained unparalleled victories over the Muslims on the battlefields and in the political arena, did not oppose them in the least on the religious front. Naturally, on this religious front, the Muslims in India were not extirpated, nor were they subdued. Root them out completely the Hindus never did, as they had done with the Greeks, the Sakas, the Huns and other ancient aggressors. 1074B. I should be failing in my duty if I were to proceed without referring to one more illustration of this incurable disease of the Hindu mind—of this perverted sense of virtues—which has proved highly injurious to the Hindu valour and Hindu political victory had reached its zenith in Punjab. 1075. Just at the time when Raghunathrao had started from Poona with his army and reached Indore round about 14th February, 1757, the malevolent Adbali had heaped untold humiliation and outrage on the Hindu religion and Hindu women. He had sent some of the cruellest of the commanders to Mathura, Vrindavan, Kurukshetra and other Hindu holy places, in order to avenge their rescue by the Marathas from the Emperor's clutches. Abdali had given these Muslim commanders strict order that— 1076. It was their religious duty as true Muslims that they should devastate every one of the so-called Hindu holy places like Mathura and massacre as many Hindus there, as was possible and to heap up the chopped-off heads together. Whoever from amongst them would chop off the heads of the Hindus as those of Kafirs, were to be rewarded by Abdali at the rate Rs. 5 per such Hindu head. 1077. How mercilessly those savage Muslims wolves, instigated by Abdali's order, attacked Mathura and other holy places of Hindus has been described in Paragraphs 1059 and 1060. Accordingly, the Muslims fell upon the Hindu religious centres at Mathura and slaughtered the innocent Hindus there. Gigantic Hindu temples were toppled down one after another. Streams

of blood of the Hindu men and women, children and old people, began to flow through every house and every street. Not a single young Hindu woman escaped kidnapping. Not a single cow was spared her life. The innocent blood of the cows, too, flowed like water. Those Muslim demons were neither satisfied with nor tired of this brutality. On the country, in order to adorn these devilish acts of theirs with their diabolic artistic sense, they travestied the ceremony of the Hindu Rangpanchami, which happened to be at that time. And how? Big cauldrons and vessels full of Hindu blood newly shed, were kept at different places at short intervals, and the Muslim solidiers with large syringes in hand went on drenching the Hindus in every street and every home in their own blood. The same was the miserable fate of the next town of Gokul, Vrindavan. But the moment he got the news that Rughunathrao had left Indore and proceeded with a large army to destroy him, that self-styled Shahenshah, Abdali, hurried for life to Delhi with all his army and thence to Lahore and onwards straight to Kabul! 1078. Although the very same Maratha force that had beaten back Abdali’s army straight beyond the (North West) frontier (of India) were now returning to the Deccan after glorious victories in Punjab and were visiting the same holy places of Mathura [wrongly spelt Mattra, CHI (1939) and by other writers] Gokul, Vrindavan, and while they were performing their religious rites and having ceremonial baths in the holy rivers, while again they were listening to the harrowing accounts of the Muslim atrocities on the Hindus and their religion, perpetrated only a year ago, while still the Hindu blood spilled profusely by the Muslims on the well-built banks (घाट ghats) of the Jamuna at Mathura had not yet completely dried away, while again the ditches filled with the beef of cows (slain by the Muslims) had been putrefying along the streets, the heads of this Mathura army were not excited with anger at these Muslim brutalities! Nobody of them was beside himself with shame and indignation! None of them was infuriated and none of them vowed revenge of this religious persecution! The victorious general of the Hindus, the brave Raghunathrao, did not issue any order to his army to the effect that they should retaliate with the same atrocities on the Muslims as were indulged in by the latter, that the Muslims as a whole were to be slaughtered, that just like (the ruined) heaps of the Hindu temples, the Muslim masjids should be pulled down without any exception, that the Muslim women should be put to the same indescribable humiliation and shame as the Hindu women folk were done by the Muslims, that it was their

duty to take such a revenge for the wrongs done to Hindu religion and Hindu society! Abdali had but done it!! 1079. We have explained the inestimable wrong done to the Hindu society by this suicidal disease of the perverted conception of virtues so fully in Chapter 8 of this book, that it is needless to repeat it here again. We hereby urge upon every reader to read the above-mentioned Chapter 8 over and again and very carefully. 1080. The most fortunate thing for the Hindus was only this, that the catastrophe, which threatened to extinguish very flame of life of the whole Hindu nation, as a consequence of the silly Hindu religious notions (as the ones described above), was averted by their retaliatory deed of valour and more especially by those of the Marathas on the political and military fronts. Although the Marathas are guilty of not taking revenge of the Muslim vandalism on Mathura-Vrindavan, while on their triumphal march from Punjab, the glorious victory that they won on the Muslims in Punjab in this continuous millennial Hindu-Muslim war and the terrible blow that they gave to the Muslim imperial power, establishing the independence of the Hindu nation and their own political hegemony in the north incapacitated the Muslims from completely destroying the Hindus in India, just as they had completely annihilated the other ancient nations in Asia. Babylon became Baghdad, but Mathura could not be transformed into another Mecca! Fighting incessantly and indefatigably for ten long centuries, Mathura still exists as a holy Hindu place. The traces of Muslim domination have been wiped out! From the millions of Hindu throats, the triumphant chants of the divine valour of Shree Krishna still resound the Ghats of Jamuna and the temples unmitigated!

Not Only Attock—Even Beyond It! 1081. सरदार पदरचे कसे कुणि सिंह जसे कुणि शार्दुल गेंडे। अरे ज्यानी अटकेंत पाव घटकेंत रोविले झेंडे॥ —प्रभाकर (Of what caliber were the Sardars under (him)? Some were veritable lions, others were tigers, whereas some others were rhinoceroses indeed! Why, within a quarter of a ‘Ghataka’ (a period of 24 minutes), they planted their flags in Attock!’ 1082. As has been told in the previous Chapter, while Raghunathrao was returning to the Deccan after his unprecedented triumph in Punjab, along with his numerous Sardars and warriors, the tidings of his victory had already been reaching Maharashtra from time to time. One day, all the Maratha forces gathered together at Indore, the next day they were collecting the Chauth and Sardeshmukhi taxes from all over Rajputana; later on, they were reported to be rushing into the Antarvedi, punishing the Rohillas and Pathans for joining hands with Abdali; then conquering Delhi and performing the obsequies, as it were of the vaunted imperial authority of Abdali and releasing the Moghal Emperor from his captivity and esablishing him on the throne of Delhi as the puppet in Maratha hands; then again immediately invading Punjab, routing Abdali’s Afghan army of ten thousand strong, which was kept there for the protection of Punjab at Sirhind. Then Abdali’s son Taimurshah and his general Jahankhan were reported to have fled from the Marathas without giving any battle, and fled straight to Kabul leaving Lahore to the tender care of the Marathas, and the armies of Raghunathrao were said to be mopping up Punjab clean of the Afghan domination and driving the enemy far beyond Attock. Then came the news of the triumphant entry of Raghunathrao into Lahore! With such heartening news and reports pouring in daily of the Maratha victories and the worsting of the enemies at their hands, the mighty heart of Maharashtra was filled with justifiable pride. Raghunathrao had already earned for himself a name fit to be ranked with the greatest in the world in his single victorious campaign right from Poona straight to the Indus! The whole of Maharashtra began to call him, willingly or unwillingly, but lovingly

enough Ragho-Bharari, in order to express its wonder and pride about this unhampered and undeterred spring of his, about this eagle-flight of his, towards the Himalayas! This informal title of the victorious general, Raghunathrao, had become immortal! Soon arrived the news of the Crowning Glory of the Marathas 1083. Raghunathrao, the commander-in-chief of the Maratha force, had posted some of the Maratha Sardars to punish severely all the Muslim Emirs, Umraos, gangsters and marauders, fakirs and parasites of every sort, who were creating anarchical conditions in Punjab and especially towards the Indus Valley, plundering the peaceful populace there, and establish the Maratha hold in that territory firmly and to collect the revenue and the ‘chauth’ and ‘Sardeshmukhi’ taxes from the territory. Of those Sardars, Tukoji Holkar, Sabaji Shinde, Gopalrao Barve with their soliders attacked the fort of Attock, which was the pride of the Indus valley, and snatched it away from the Muslim hands in the month of July, 1758. The Muslim green flag was uprooted and in its place was hoisted in the tumultuous war cries of ‘Har Har Mahadev!’ of the Marathas, the saffron coloured ‘Jaripatka’ of Hindus—on the fort of Attock. The Marathas and so the Hindu-horses once again drank the holy water of the Indus! 1084. On that glorious day, at last, was the ban (Atak—अटक) of a thousand years enforced by the religious law of the Hindus themselves, broken by the Hindu arms! Why, the Maratha warriors pursued the Muslims even beyond Attock upto Kandahar! 1085. It is already explained in Paragraphs 522 to 535 how this town was named ‘Attock’ and why. 1086. When the news arrived in Maharashtra of the conquest of Attock and of the hoisting by the Marathas of the Hindu Jaripatka on that fort, the universal joy felt there knew no bounds. The Marathas had taken revenge of the wrong done to the Hindus over a thousand years by routing and driving the Muslims right up to Kabul and Kandahar and wrenching the de facto sovereignty of the whole of India from the Muslim hands. And this itself is the fifth Glorious Epoch of Hindu Victories over the Aggressors 1087. The page in the history of the Hindu Nation, which records this unique event of the conquest of Attock and the final victory of the Hindu in the epic millennial Hindu-Muslim war and the establishment of the de facto sovereignty of the Hindus over the so-called Muslim empire, is really the

Golden Page in Hindu history and that day is truly the Red Letter Day in the life of Hindu nation! However 1088. Just as a man on his deathbed, too, breathes a little longer and sometimes even makes a violent effort to rise in epileptic fits, but dies at last; or just as the whole body of the enormously long snake, twenty feet or more in length, gigantic in thickness vying with the broad trunks of the Vat (Indian fig- Ficus Indica) tree, moving dangerously at large in the forests, does not lie lifeless all at once in a moment, even if its head has been smashed completely, but keeps on moving convulsively and even at times seeks to leap ahead, yet ultimately, the dying body does die at last, similarly, in spite of the fact that the Marathas had smashed the head of the Muslim imperial power and left it gasping for its breath on the battlefields of the Indus valley, the moribund Muslim power did continue to make feverish efforts to rise again here and there for sometime more; that dying body did in fact take a long leap like that of the Panipat, but ultimately, it could not avert its fast approaching death. 1089. And in the end, throughout the whole of India began to flutter the flag of independent Hindu power! Not alone from the Indus but right from the bank of the Kabul river, spread throughout the whole of Punjab, up to the frontiers of Jammu and Kashmir, was established the Hindu-Sikh empire of Maharaja Ranjit Singh! Further on, from Delhi right up to Rameshwaram in the rest of India, was established the paramountcy of the Marathas, and to the north was the independent Hindu State of Nepal!! Thus, everywhere in India began to rule once again the Hindu political power: the Muslim power could not recover its fall! 1090. That is why it must be said that on the day on which the Marathas uprooted and flung away the green flag of the Muslim political dominance from the fort of Attock and hoisted in its place their own triumphant saffron coloured Jaripatka, the Hindus gave a really mortal blow to the Muslim power in India and caused its subsequent death! 1091. Even a historian like Sardesai, who was wont to make understatements, wrote: ‘All Maharashtra felt electrified with the proud performance of Raghunathrao and his bands having reached the extreme frontier of India and bathed their horses in the Indus.’ (New History of Maharashtra: Vol. II, page 401)