How did India survive Islamic Onslaught?

[jay74]

I have always wondered how did India pretty much survive close to 1000 years of Islamic rule still be close to 84% Hindu/Sikh.

 

Even Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh which became Islamic where actually Buddhist majority and not Hindu.

 

Many societies which had been conquered have all been converted. Only India with the exception of Spain which was actually reconverted have survived.

 

People inspite of heavy odds where able to stick to thier roots.

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

<< Even Pakistan, Aghanistan and Bangladesh which became Islamic where actually Buddhist majority and not Hindu. >>

 

Per what authorative source you learned this?

 

Hinduism survived because:

 

- it is universal in nature

- hindus fought, fleed, paid tax for being hindu

- mountains and rivers of the country

- saints and sadhus,aacharyas, sampradayas

- gira, mahabharat, ramayan, etc.

- vastness of the counry

- adherance to traditions

- brahmanas, even many not perfect.

- temples, places of pilgraimages

 

etc.

maadhav

 

 

[Guest guest]

<< Even Pakistan, Aghanistan and Bangladesh which became Islamic where actually Buddhist majority and not Hindu. >>

 

Per what authorative source you learned this?

 

Hinduism survived because:

 

- it is universal in nature

- hindus fought, fleed, paid tax for being hindu

- mountains and rivers of the country

- saints and sadhus,aacharyas, sampradayas

- gita, mahabharat, ramayan, etc.

- vastness of the counry

- adherance to traditions

- brahmanas, even many not perfect.

- temples, places of pilgraimages

 

etc.

maadhav

 

 

[Guest guest]

b/c we are sanatan dharma... eternal religion... we can never be destroyed.

 

there is an excellent quote by Ramakrishna, which propounds the awesomeness of sanatana dharma... but i dont remember

[Guest guest]

Ravi...you are way matured and intelligent than men of your age.

 

Keep it up!

 

Jai Shree Krishna

Jai SHiv Shambho

[jay74]

Ravi, prabhu, maadhav,

 

Thanks for your responses. But Iam still not really satisfied with the reasons. Look at what happened to the Zorastrians and Jews.

 

Arabic invaders hit a brick wall in India. Buddhists of east asia got saved.

 

[barney]

No one can take away what is original. Buddhism/Sikhism were founded my someone whereas Hinduism or Sanadhana Dharma has no founder and has been rooted into the lives of Hindus irrespective of race. It is the religion of the Indians for thousands of years. So how can an imposter with a concocted cult take away what is ours from the biginnning of time.

 

Hinduism will live till end of time while Islam and Christianity would disappear from the face of earth soon. Hinduism is a way of life. Whatever we do is what the vedas prescribed for us. So our daily life is Hinduism whereas Islam is only for Fridays and Christianity is only for Sundays. Look at the Hindu temples around the world, we have daily prayers and rituals and Hindus congregate daily at temples. The gathering in Mosque and Churches are only on Fridays and Sundays. That is why Hindus are far more greater in devotion than any others.

 

 

 

 

OM NAMASHIVAYA

 

[narayanadasa]

Jai Sriman Narayana:

 

Sanatana Dharma is from time immemorial. As Kaliyuga aproached people started committing sins and hence it started deteriorating. Whatever invasions/onslaughts happened can be taken as God's punishment for our sins. Even during those time there were a lot of them who did follow Sanatana Dharma well enough. They provided guidance to the others because of whom it survived. For example; Chanakya once refused to teach a larger portion of the vedas to his students, quoting the reason that "there are adharmis causing disturances to society at the moment, it is more important to learn how to fight, I will teach you warfare so that you can effectively fight them out(somewhat contrary to Mahatma Gandhi's method!)". Islam only managed to convert the very weak. Infact some of them even today keep the Gita hidden within the Quran.

 

We need more Chanakya's today to remove even the traces of Islam atleast from the current India. People need to more worry about God than about Nehru, Gandhi etc.

[Guest guest]

 

Do you have any idea how many Hindus have been killed due to Islamic (Asuric) attacks? An estimate by Francoise Gautier indicates about 80 million Hindus have been annihilated by Islamics.

 

 

You should know that meat, blood and money for the expansion of Islam world wide has been sucked out of Hindustan.

 

Hindu blood and money haven been used to create a behemoth monster like Islam today.

 

But, as it is said, Hindus paid the price for Kaliyuga effect as Narayanadasa has said , at the same time the devotion of God has been kept alive in true sense only in India, hence Hindus survive.

 

A saying:

 

Kuch baat hai ki hasti mita ti nahi hamari

Dauron rahan hai dushman sara jahan hamara.

 

Today by Grace of Lord Vishnu Hindus are third largest in the world in spite of all the swords Islam could use and other colonizers could proseltyze.

 

And, you will see the Surya of Vedic Dharma will rise again. Have faith and say oncemore:

 

HAre Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare

Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama HAre Hare.

[jay74]

http://www.historyofjihad.org/india.html?syf=contact

 

Fierce and persistent Hindu resistance to the Islamic Jihad prevented the complete Islamization of India

 

Unlike the complete Islamization of Persia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Turkey, North Africa, the Islamization of India was not complete. At the end of one millennium of Muslim Tyranny from 715 up to 1761, more than 70 percent of the population of India remained Hindu. This was NOT due to any Muslim charity or benevolence, since they have none of these characteristics. The Muslim tyranny was as blood-thirsty and savage as it was in all parts of the globe that were unfortunate to be trampled by the Jihadis. The Hindus suffered initial setbacks due to the belief amongst them, as amongst all other no-Muslims, that the Muslim too wee normal human beings, who would after a victory, settle down to govern the defeated population. But once the nightmare of Muslim tyranny began, the Hindus grew wiser faster than the other unfortunate victims of the Jihad. The Hindus never surrendered to the Muslim tyrants. They waged a relentless and violent struggle against the Muslims. And when fortunate favored them, they returned with almost equal measure, the barbarism of the Muslim. We use the qualifier “almost” since the Hindus slaughtered the Muslims on the battlefield, but did not go to the extent of slaughtering Muslim civilians and giving them the choice of Hinduism or death, molesting Muslim women, destroying en masse all Mosques, and building Hindus temples on them (the Babri Masjid-Ramjanabhomi struggle being a one off case) and imposing a penal tax like the jaziya on all Muslims.

 

It was this valiant Hindu resistance that put paid all the savagery of the Muslims to convert al the Hindus to Islam at the pain of death. But otherwise the sordid tale of Muslim savagery was no less brutal from that in other parts of the world overrun by the Islamic Jihad.

 

Muslims invaded India only four years after they invaded Persia

 

Very few know that while the Muslims invaded Persia in 634, they invaded Sindh in India in 638, just a gap of four years. But while Persia succumbed in seventeen years by 651, Muslims took seven hundred years to overrun India (today Sindh is a part of a Muslim country called Pakistan that was carved out of Hindu India in 1947). And even after that they could not rule India in peace. The Hindu resistance was not just fierce, but it kept increasing in ferocity till with the Marathas, the Hindus overtook the Muslims in their ferocity. It was this lesson which the Hindus learnt from the Muslims an applied against the Muslims that led to the Hindu (Maratha) victories against the beast-like Muslims. It was the Marathas who presaged President Bush when he said “We will hunt down our enemies” The Marathas literally hundred down the Muslims. The only other case of a Muslim defeat in face of such tactics was in Ethiopia and Southern Sudan (Nubia) where the African Christians of Nubia used guerilla tactics against the Muslims to hunt them down and finally to defeat them.

 

Foul Tactics used by the Muslims against Indians

 

Although the Arab Muslims attacked India in 638, they were repeatedly defeated by the Rajas of Makara (Makran) and Sindh. The Arab chroniclers then wrote derisive accounts of the reasons for their defeats at the hands of the Hindus by saying that the Hidus practice Voodoo and Black Magic and so bring Jinns and Shaitan to help them in war. So the Arabs cannot defeat them, the way they could easily defeat the Persians and the Byzantines. We need only to remember how the Greeks under Alexander overcame the Persian Achemanian empire in a few years, after which they attacked India and the Hindus after initially being defeated the Greeks on the river Jhelum (Vitasta – Hydaspes), harassed the Greek army so much, that the Greek troops mutinied and refused to advance further into India.

 

How the Muslims blackmailed a guard to open the door of the fort of Debal

 

The Muslims too had a tough job with the Hindus. After an unsuccessful campaign of more than eighty years, the Muslims captured the Fort of Deval (Debal near modern Karachi) by deceit, by kidnapping the three children of the chief guardsman of the fort of Debal, beheading one and threatening to behead the other two. With this blackmail, they forced him to leave the door open, after they had feigned retreat. Due to this betrayal, the Muslims could finally sink their ugly claws into India under the beast-like leader Mohammed-ibn-Qasim (Mohammed bin Kasim). The Hindus never forgot this treachery. And the two princesses of the King Dahirsen (Raja Dabir) who were captured by Qasim and sent to the Khilafa (Caliph) as a gift with a message that they were royal virgins, meant to be ravished by his holiness (sic) the lecherous Caliph himself. But these princesses outsmarted the Caliph.

 

They tore apart their hymen with their own hands and told the caliph that their modesty had already been violated by Qasim. The Caliph did not believe them, but when he saw for himself the ruptured hymens, he was convinced that Qasim had violated the modesty of the princesses and then sent them over to him. That though so enraged him that he summoned Qasim to present himself at Baghdad. With Qasim in chains, the Caliph accused him of betrayal. Although Qasim pleaded his innocence, the Caliph, asked for Qasim to be locked in a barrel with nails stuck on the inside and had him rolled down a hill. Qasim died a cruel death. And the first generation of Hindus whom this beast-like Muslim had tormented and slaughtered, received poetic justice in the death of this accursed Muslim general who vandalized Sindh.

 

How the Rajput Hindus trounced the Muslims for five hundred years

 

After the Muslim occupied Sindh, they did not rest quiet, they attacked Punjab, but were repulsed, then they attacked Rajputana, but were repulsed by Kings like raja Bhoj, and when they attacked Gujarat, they were defeated by the Chalukyas (Solankis) of Anahilwada. Thus the Muslims could not make any headway into India from their occupation of Sindh in 715, up to 980. It was only in the year 980, that the Muslims could attack India once again. But they had to use another gateway. Instead of attacking Rajasthan, Punjab and Gujarat from Sindh, they attacked the Shahiya kingdom in Upaganastan (Afghanistan – literally the land of allied tribes). The attackers were not Arab Muslim, but were the Persian and Turkish converts to Islam. The first Muslim chieftain to attack the Hindu domains was name Sabuktagin. He ruled from Ghazni and had forced his way up to the domains of the Hindu Raja of Kubha (later renamed as Kabul by the city’s Muslims occupiers).

 

How the Muslims used the nobility of the Hindus to craftily defeat them

 

The Muslims had studied Hindu warfare practices and misused the weakness of the Hindus to their hilt. Sabuktagin’s spies had told him that the Hindus start warfare at Sunrise and end it at sunset. The crafty Muslim chieftain decided to use this weakness of the Hindus against them. He challenged Jayapal Shahiya to pen warfare and decided the place and date of the war. True to his word the Hindu king reached the appointed place one day before the day of the war. This was in the year 980. The Muslim too had assembled at the appointed place and the two adversaries exchanged ambassadors and decided that the hostilities would commence at sunrise the next day. After the Hindus retired for the night, the Muslim were busy preparing for a night assault. While the Hindu army was in deep slumber, except for a few scouts, taking cover of the dark and stormy night, the Muslims stealthily crept towards the camp of the Hindus, after crossing the few hillocks that separated the two camps.

 

The Muslims had muffled the sounds of their advance by covering the hooves of their horses with felt and cloth. Dressed in dark clothes the Muslim almost reached the Hindu camps at two in the morning. When they were spotted the Hindu scouts raised a hue and cry to awaken their sleeping troops. But it was too late. Before any significant number of the Hindus could arise and don their armor and be ready to fight the Muslim, a large number of them were done to death while they were half awake of struggling to prepare themselves for war. The entire Hindu army was caught unawares, but they still put up a stiff fight against their beastly adversaries. The battle continued till past dawn, but the Hindu army had been overpowered, tricked as it had been to give the advantage of surprise to the Muslims. By late morning the remnants of the Hindu army retreated back to their capital Kubha, with the Muslims in pursuit. The Muslims soon occupied Kabul and continued to push the Hindus eastwards. The disgraced Hindu king Raja Jayapal Shahiya decided to shift his capital to Udabandapura (modern day Und in North West Frontier Province – Paktoonisthan) But he could not bear the humiliation of defeat and decided to immolate himself rather than live with the shame of having been defeated by the Muslims with treachery. Thus ended the first Hindu-Muslim encounter after the Arabs had occupied Sindh in the 8th century.

 

How the Muslims poisoned the elephants of the Hindus at the Battle of Lahore to snatch victory once again with subterfuge

 

The Muslims seized on their victory over the Hindu army and overran the capital Kubha (which was renamed Kabul by the Muslims) who destroyed the Hindu temples there and force converted the remaining Hindu population to Islam). After the defeat of Jayapal Shahiya, his son Anandpal Shahiya, moved his capital from Kubha present day Kabul) to Luvkushpura (Lahore). He gathered all allies he could from Northern India and opposed the invading Muslims now led by Sabuktagin’s son Mahmud of Ghazni. The armies met on the banks of the Ravi near Lahore. In the initial skirmishes, the Muslims were worsted by the Hindus, who were determined to liberate their motherland from the schizophrenic savages which is what the Muslims were. In the initial defeats of the Muslims, the Hindus had used armored elephants. The Muslim realized that the Elephants would be their nemesis. As the Muslims came from Afghanistan, they had no access to elephants, so they decided to use subterfuge. They sent an envoy to Anandpala, saying that they are suing for peace, their conditions were that they should be allowed safe passage out of the country. As a gesture of goodwill they wanted to come over to the Hindu camp and have a common meal with the Hindus, to seal the peace treaty. The innocuous and unsuspecting Anandpala agreed going against the advice of his allies.

 

The Muslims came for the luncheon arranged at the banks of the Ravi river where the Hindu army had encamped. While intermingling with the soldiers, the Muslims moved about in the stables of the Hindu camps and expressed surprise at how the Hindus fed their mighty elephants. With the Hindus playing the role of the gracious hosts, indulged their “guests” with every query they asked. After all the Muslims were their guests and the Hindus had a quaint belief that “A guest is like God” (Athithi Devoh Bhava), but little did these unsuspecting Hindus realize that these Muslims guests were Satan incarnate. While the unsuspecting Hindus showed them around the stables, the Muslims secretly fed the elephants poppy seeds (opium) mixed with fruits. The poppy seeds being raw did not have immediate effect and everything seemed normal. The dastardly deed being done, the Muslim contingent left the Hindu camp and returned to their own camps. The Hindus self-satisfied that the war was over and the peace had now been sealed with a common luncheon began preparations to dismantle their camp.

 

To their utter amazement, in the next few hours, the Muslim cavalry surrounded the Hindu camp in a pincer move and began a fierce attacks with shrieks of Allahuakbar. The confused Hindus belatedly, realized that they had been double crossed by the Muslims. But manfully they fastened the howdas (seats for the riders of the elephants like saddles for horsemen) to their elephants and charged at the besieging Muslims in a disorderly manner. The Hindus were in far a shock when their elephants refused to obey their mahouts (elephant riders) orders and started running amok and away from the battled. The opium had begun to have its effect. With Anandpala also on one of the elephants which had started running helter-skelter, the confusion grew in the remaining Hindu troops. The Muslim cunningly spread the word that Anandpala was retreating, since he knew that a twofold Muslim army had joined the existing Muslims forces. The rumor gained credence, as the Hindus saw that Anadpala’s elephant had gone a considerable distance from the battle. There isolated from his main army, Anandpala was pursued by the Muslims who had kept him under watch. They surrounded him, cut down the leather strips that held his howdah on the elephant, and when the howdah fell on the ground, they decapitated the unfortunate Anandpala, beheaded him, stuck his head don a spike and paraded it before the Hindu army which was already in confusion. This grisly sight further demoralized the remaining Hindu troops who had initially lost heart when they saw their leader in “retreat”. Now with his head on a spike, a sight which they had never seen in battles before totally unnerved them, and the Hindu retreat turned into a rout, with many of the Hindus massacred on the battlefield.

 

The rest was easy, for the Muslims to tear down the remaining Hindu troops and turn what was on the way to becoming a Hindu victory into a Muslim one, with the use of subterfuge and betrayal of the innate faith which the Hindus had even in an unscrupulous enemy. This should have been a lesson of the Muslim mind for the Hindus. But it was not to be as, we shall see such foul tricks repeated over and over again by the Muslims in the coming centuries in their duel of death with the Hindus

 

How the Muslims tricked Trilochanpala, kidnapped and murdered him by luring him using Muslims dressed as Hindu hermits (Sanyasis)

 

After snatching victory through subterfuge at Lahore, the Muslims began to penetrate deeper into the country. Anandpala attained veergati (martyrdom through the deceit of the Muslims, as had his father Jayapala. Now the teenaged grandson of Jayapala Shaiya, Tirlochanpala Shahiya took the reins of the death struggle against the Muslims in his hands. He was then just a teenager at seventeen years of age when the ascended the throne of the Shahiyas. The first move he did was to shift the capital from Lahore to Kangra in today’s Himachal Pradesh. Kangra was in a relatively fortified position, from where he tried to reorganize the defense of his vastly reduced domains.

 

The Shahiya empire which stretched from Heart to Haridwar, was now pushed to one fifth its size and its western border which was once at Heart during the reign of Jayapala Shahiya was now pushed about a thousand miles east at Kalka in the Shivalik Hills which were the foothills of the Himalayas. The Shahiya domains had now shrunk and did not occupy a position to block the further advance of the Muslims into India. But he followed the valiant example of his father and grandfather and allied himself with the kings of Kashyapmeru (Kashmir) and Tibet, to eject the Muslims from Punjab and Upaganasthan (Afghanistan). The enraged Muslim governor of Punjab, wanted to nip this effort in the bud. He again made use of the patented Muslim mechanism of subterfuge. He sent a group of his soldiers dressed up as Hindu mendicants to meet Tirlochanpala. These mendicants went to Kangra and sent in a message that they come from Kubha (Kabul) and bring a message to their king whose ancestors originally ruled Kabul. With this trick, they gained entry into Tirlochanpala’s humble household (As the former imperial Shahiyas had now been reduced to penury, as against the opulence they once commanded). Once inside his house, the mendicants surrounded the unsuspecting young prince and sliced his neck and made off with his severed head, leaving a note beside his headless body that Islam will finally overcome anyone who decided to block the path of Allah’s soldiers.

 

The remainder of the once formidable Shahiya army, became leaderless and demoralized. They migrated deep into the Himalayas and settled down as Shepards and goatherds. They came to be known as Gaddis. These Gaddis follow this profession to this day and they still inhabit the Himalayas coming down to the Shivalik foothills and the plains of Punjab in the winter to graze their cattle. Thus with Tirlochapala’s death, the last scion of the Hindu dynasty that ruled Afghanistan and Punjab passed away. The next Hindu king of Punjab was to be Maharaja Ranjit Singh who ascended the throne after a gap of eight hundred years in the 18th century. The interregnum was to be the dark interlude of Muslim tyranny, during which the majority of the Hindus of Afghanistan, Paktoonistan and West Punjab were to become Muslims at the pain of death.

 

The plunder of Somnath by Mahmud Ghaznavi

 

The defeat of the Shahiyas opened the Indian heartland to these heartless invaders and Mahmud of Ghazni, repeated attacked India and plundering and destroying Hindu shrines at Somnath, Palitana, Thanesar (Staneshwara), Mathura, Kannauj, Khajuraho regularly every year, collecting a large booty every time as also many Hindu captives who were sold into slavery in the bazaars of Baghdad and other Muslim cities. His raid on the famous Hindu shrine of Somnath located at Prabhash Patan in Gujarat is seared in Hindu memory till today. The many Hindu captives that he took from were transported on foot across the Western ranges of the Himalayas. Many Hindu captives could not face up to the merciless treatment of their cruel captors, and died in large numbers along the way. These deaths of the Hindus are remembered in the name which the Muslim gave to the Western Himalayas as Hindu Kush, which means the Killer of Hindus (Kush means to kill in Persian)

 

How the Hindus inflicted the first major and decisive defeat on Muslims at the battle of Baharaich in 1033

 

The fact that in spite of the subterfuge that the Muslim used, the Hindus did register one spectacular victory over the Muslims in 1033 at Baharaich in today’s Uttar Pradesh. The invader was Mahumd of Ghazni’s son Masud, who following his father’s footsteps invaded India with a large army with the intention of occupying the entire country and not simply raising it as his notorious father had done, He penetrated up to the Ganges valley and established his camp at Baharaich, and sent word to the surrounding Hindu kings to surrender and embrace Islam

 

As was their practice, before the beginning of hostilities, the Hindu kings also sent a messenger to Masud that this land being theirs, his troops should peacefully vacate it (as was done once again by the Government of India at the inception of the 1999 Kargil war). But Masud sent a reply that all land belonged to Khuda (the Persianized version of Allah) and he could settle wherever he pleased. And that it was his holy duty to convert to Islam all those who did not recognize his Khuda and accept Islam.

 

Consequently, Masud's huge army was besieged by the even greater Hindu army and no side gave the other any quarter. The Hindus, for once as an exception had learnt their lesson about Muslim treachery, after being victimized for four hundred years from 638 onwards. At the battle of Baharaich. gradually the Hindus began to decimate the Muslim army and as the hostilities progressed, Masud saw the unsuccessful end of his expedition. This bitter and bloody war was fought in the month of June 1033. In this furious war, no side took any prisoners and it ended only with the slaughter of the entire invading army along with many martyrs from the defending Hindu army.

 

What was exceptional during this war was that the folly of pardoning a defeated enemy, that was displayed by Prithviraj Chauhan 160 years later in 1191, was not to be seen. The Hindus seemed to have followed the tradition of their ancient king Ramchandra of Ayodhya when he defeated and killed Ravana.

 

The battle of Baharaich ended on 14th June 1033. At the gory end, the entire invading army along with their commander lay dead. Not one enemy soldier was allowed to return. There still exists today near Baharaich the grave of the commander of the invader - Prince Ghazi Mian Masud. There he is hailed today by the local Muslims as a Ghazi and a Peer (a Muslim who is raised sainthood by being a killer of non-Muslims). And every year till this day an Urs (Muslim religious assemblage) is held in his memory. What is forgotten is the valiance of the Hindu soldiers who lost their lives in this major victory against the first Jihadi invasion of India.

 

After this Hindu decisive and ruthless victory, peace prevailed in the country for a century and a half; till the next (and now once again successful) wave of Muslim invasions started under the leadership of Mohammed Ghori.

 

This interlude of one hundred and fifty years from 1033 up to 1187, had made the Hindu forget the treacherous nature of the Muslims. The Ghaznivid kingdom of West Punjab, had made peace with its Hindu neighbors and the Hindus came under a delusion that the Muslims were like any other invader who would settle down in India and be absorbed into Hindu society. The policy of the Ghaznivid to issue coins in Sanskrit and use the Sanskrit version of Muslim names as Mahamada for Mohammed, fuelled this wrong impression about the true nature of the Muslims.

[jay74]

Mohammed-ibn-Sam or Mohammed of Ghauri, the tormentor of Hindus was a descendant of Hindu converts to Islam

 

The next Muslim onslaught came in the year 1187, when the Muslim chieftain of a place named Ghor in Afghanistan, overthrew the Ghaznavid ruler in Ghazni. These Gauris (pronounced by the Muslims as Ghauri, Ghori and rendered in English as Ghurid) were originally Hindu cowherds and were subjects of the Shahiyas, who had been converted by force to Islam, by the Ghaznavids, who overthrew the Shahiya power in Afghanistan in 980 C.E. Now in the 1180 After a lapse of 200 years, these ex-Hindus had become cruel and merciless like any other Muslims and not a trace of their Hindu ancestry was left, except the name Gauri (derived from Gau which mean cow in Sanskrit) which traced their humble origins as Hindu cowherds. Though Muslims, the Gauris got poetic justice, by annihilating the kingdom of their former tormentors, the Ghaznavids. But ironically these former Hindu cowherds, the Gauris had now become the new ruthless tormentors of their former compatriots - the Hindus.

 

Mohammed defeated by the Solankis of Anahilwada in 1187

 

After overcoming the Ghaznivid governor of Punjab, Mohammed Ghori found his way into India proper blocked by the two powerful kingdoms. He allied himself with the Muslim governor of Sindh and in 1187, unleashed the full fury of his aggression on Gujarat. But to his misfortune, the Hindu Solankis (Chalukyas) of Anahilwada, defeated him utterly and forced him to retreat across the Thar desert. Thus they for the last time lit the flame of Hindu valor in Gujarat bright in repelling a Muslim attack. The next time this flame was to be lit once again in resisting a Muslim barbarity was when in March 2002, the Hindus of Gujarat, retaliated massively against the Muslims who had roasted alive 58 Hindu pilgrims returning from a pilgrimage to a Hindu holy town Ayodhya, where Babar another Muslim invader had demolished a major Hindu temple dedicated to Rama, an ancient Hindu king, who has been deified as a god by the Hindus and is a popular deity in India.

 

How the Muslims covered their retreat by using a herd of cows to prevent the Hindu army from pursuing them

 

Returning to the 12th century when Mohammed Ghori was defeated by the Solankis and had to retreat from the western edge of the Thar, he tried invading India from another route. But on the other side of the Thar lay the domains of the Maharaja of Sambhar (Shaka-amabara) Prithviraj Chauhan, who was known for his bravery and chivalry. Mohammed having tasted defeat at Hindu hands once, decided to make use of subterfuge. He studied Hindu warfare, as had been done by Sabuktgin two hundred years before him. Thus fully prepared to invade India, he advanced through West Punjab and laid siege to the fortress of Bhatinda in East Punjab, that lay on the borders of Prithvitraja’s domains. Soon, he had to face the wrath of the Rajputs and at Tarain (also known as Taraori) in today’s Haryana, the two armies clashed furiously. In face of the repeated onslaughts of the Rajput cavalry, the Muslims broke ranks and fled leaving their king a prisoner in Prithviraja’s hands. Their defeat by the Solankis of Anahilwada had given them a foretaste of Hindu valor. But in that retreat they had left behind many of the best steeds in their cavalry in the hands of the pursuing Solanki army. This time, they had resorted to a trick. Once the fortunes of the battle turned against them, and their king Mohammed Ghori himself was captured by the Rajputs, and the Muslims broke into retreat, with the Rajput sin pursuit, the Muslim general Kutub-ud-din Aibak let loose a large herd of cows chained to each other to block the path of the pursing Hindu army. Thus with their path blocked by bovines, whom the Hindus looked upon as a deity, it was impossible for the Hindus to cut down the cows blocking their path, and the Muslim army shrewdly made its escape, reducing its losses and preventing many Muslim soldiers from falling into captivity of the victorious Hindus.

 

How Prithviraja foolishly pardoned the defeated and captured Mohammed in 1191

 

When the captured Mohammed Ghori was brought before Prithviraja bound in chains, he pretended to be humiliated, while internally he was seething with rage at being humiliated for having been captured by a Kafir king. This rage proved itself a few years later when their roles were reversed. Mohammed begged for mercy from Prithviraja from promised that he would never lift his eyes toward India. This melted the innocuous Prithviraja and he ordered that Mohammed’s chains be removed. In his feigned gratitude Mohamed told Prithviraja that he was like his brother. Going against the advice of his general Hammira,and the brave warrior twins Aalaa and Uddhal, he ordered Mohammed to be released and as a token of his generosity, he also gifted his captive some horses and elephants and honorably released him. Once freed, the vengeful Mohammed was seething for revenge.

 

On reaching Ghor, he promptly murdered the escorts and envoys that Privithrajas had sent to accompany Mohammed to Ghor. He immediately started preparing for another assault on India. Going by the experiences of his two defeats at the hands of the Solankis and Chauhans, Mohammed decided to go by subterfuge, the trademarked mentality of the Muslims that has given them victory over more powerful, but less scheming adversaries. Mohammed’s spies told him that whenever the Hindu battled each other, the armies fought from sunrise up to sunset. There was no warfare in the hours of darkness.

 

Mohammed’s use of subterfuge to defeat Prithviraja

 

In the following year, Mohammed broke his sham promise to Prithviraja and attacked India once again. The two armies once again gathered at the same battlefield at Tarain. The Rajput army was camped near a river so as to do their morning ablutions before the war could be joined on the next morning, as was decided by the two commanders. But violating convention, the Muslim army attacked before dawn, as had the army of Sabuktgin in the year 980 (a fact which the Hindus had foolishly forgotten). When the Muslims unexpectedly broke into the Hindu camp, Prithviraj’s soldiers had begun their morning ablutions, and were unprepared for the assault. But they did their best to group their forces and resist the Muslims. The Muslims had the advantage of surprise which they had gained by deceit. The uneven battle continued till noon, by when the Muslims had slaughtered many of the Rajputs. But the Rajputs did not yield and it looked like the second battle of Tarain would also go the way the first had gone. Mohammed saw victory slipping from his hands once again. He resorted to another patented Muslim subterfuge of single combat – called Mard-o-Mard in Farsi – is a technique which Muslims had used quite cunningly against the Zoroastrian Persians, some six centuries earlier when the Muslim first burst out of Arabia In order to humiliate Prithviraj, Mohammed sent word that he would call off the battle, if Prithviraja came and fought his champion Qutub-ud-din Aibak in single combat. To save the lives of his soldiers, and to conclude the war quickly Prithviraja agreed. The rule in single combat was that when one combatant is either pinned down or killed, the army to which he belongs concedes defeat retreats. No other combatant is allowed to participate in this combat, hence the name single combat. But when the two met and Prithviraja’s sword felt heavy on Qutub who risked losing his life, he resorted to a feint and by whirling below his saddle he cut off the feet of Prithviraja’s horse before Prithviraj could realize what he was up to. This made Prithviraja trip and fall of his horse. This was a foul move, but it would have been fair, had Qutub, also dismounted and fought Prithviraja on foot. Instead at a pre-arranged signal from Qutub, a band of truculent Muslim soldiers, who had till then stood aside in the grab of horse-tenders, jumped on Prithviraja, pinned him down, pressed on his face a dose of hashish (that grew abundantly in the poppy farms of Afghanistan) bound the drugged Prithviraja in chains and galloped away with him as a prisoner into their ranks, before the Rajputs could realize what had happened. When they came to know this treacherous capture of their Maharaj (King), the lost nerve and through enraged, fell back against Pithoragarh, their fortified capital at Mehrauli near Delhi.

 

The betrayal and blinding of Prithviraja and how he avenged his humiliation

 

When Prithviraj was presented in chains before Mohammed, he reminded Mohammed how he was himself presented before Prithviraja in chains and how Prithviraja had honorably release him. On hearing this Mohammed and his courtiers laughed derisively at Prithviraja. When Prithviraja glared back at Mohammed and his courtiers, Mohammed ordered him to lower his eyes as he was now a captive. When Prithviraja told him that a Rajput’s eyes are lowered only after death, Mohammed in a fit of rage ordered that Prithviraja’s eyes be pierced with red hot irons. He kept the blinded Pritiviraja in solitary confinement and had him occasionally hauled to his court for being made fun of as the “Lion of Delhi”. Here Prithviraja was joined by his friend and biographer Chandra Vardai who joined his master in prison, after offering himself as a prisoner to Mohammed. It was in Prison, that Chandra Vardai told Prithviraja of a plan to avenge his betrayal and humiliation. Before an annual event of Buskhazi (a kind of Turkish sport in which the Afghans indulged) , Chandra Vadrai told Mohammed, that Prithviraja would like to show his skill in archery, but he would accept orders only from a king who had defeated him. And as Mohammed was the only king who had done that, he himself would have to order Prithviraj to shoot. Mohammed’s ego being rubbed the right way, he readily agreed. On the said day Prithviraja was brought to the assemblage. And when Mohammed gave the order for Prithviraja to shoot, Chandra Vardai in the following poetic stanza “Char bans, chaubis gaj, angul asta pramaan, Ete pai Sultan hai (Taa Upar hai Sultan). Ab mat chuko Chauhan." (Ten measures ahead of you and twenty four feet away, is seated the Sultan, do not miss him now, Chouhan). On hearing these words Prithviraja whirled in the direction of Mohammed and shot three arrows one after the other to wound Mohammed fatally. Thus Prithviraja had his justice, although due to his folly in pardoning the ghoulish fiend Mohammed, he lost his kingdom and India lost its sovereignty.

 

After the Muslim conquest how the Muslim tormentors forcibly converted the Hindus of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh to Islam

 

Today we do not have an idea of how a merciless jihad transformed Hindu society of Pakistan and Bangladesh into a Muslim one. While in Pakistan and Bangladesh Hinduism was supplanted entirely by Islam, in India, the Muslim tyranny succeeded only partially in converting a part of the population to Islam. In fact those parts of India where a majority of the Hindus were converted to Islam have become Pakistan and Bangladesh today. These countries were parts of India, before the Muslims invaded that part of the world.

 

We shall see at the end of this article the methods used by the Muslim tormentors to convert a large part of the Hindus to Islam. Many Muslims today raise a canard about an alleged tolerant nature of Muslim rule in India. They try to pull wool over your eyes, and are supported by the unabashedly pro-Jihadi, pro-terrorist anchors like Rajdeep Sardesai, Rajeev Srinivasan, Barkha Dutt, in the Indian media like the electronic media that includes the Prannoy Roy managed NDTV and the English language press like the Muslim owned Asian Age, and The Hindu along with the Times of India, Indian Express, and many other leading (rather misleading) national dailies in India. These scoundrels often pose (rather impose) a question as to how only eleven percent of the population of India is Muslim if the Muslim rulers were tormentors who made Hindus accept Islam at the point of the sword?

 

The issue here is that in historic times when we refer to India we include all those parts that were inhabited by Hindus before the Muslim aggression. So what is today Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan as well as India, are parts of historic India. And so when we considered this as one whole, the population of Muslims accounts for forty five percent. The fact that Hindus still accounted for fifty five percent of the population is due to the fact that in Rajputana, Maharashtra, Orissa and South India, the Hindu defeated and rolled back the Muslim aggressors, so its was these parts that remained predominantly Hindu. Other parts which were under Muslim rule for an unbroken one thousand years, the Hindu population was decimated to almost zero. As in former Indian provinces of Gandhara (Kandahar), Kubha (Kabul), Makara (Makran), Sakastana (Siestan/Balouchistan), Sindh, West Punjab, Paktoonistan, East Bengal (Bangladesh). Today this process of Islamization is still on in Kashmir through the use of terror, but in other parts of India where these tactics would be fiercely resisted by the Hindus the process of using the womb bomb to increase the Muslim population is being used to the hilt by the mushrooming of high fertility rates among Muslim who can have four wives at one time, and women are treated like baby producing factories. This is happening in the Terai region of Uttaranchal, northern Bihar, Assam, parts of Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. There are many districts in India which today are Muslim majority areas. According to unofficial estimates the Muslim population in India is today at 15 percent. Thus if we look at historic India those parts which were under Muslim tyranny the Hindu population was decimated to nil. And on the rest of the country, it was the fierce Hindu resistance and counter attack that led to the Hindu character of some Indian provinces to remain. In the following paragraphs we shall see the fierce resistance put up to Muslim tyranny by Hindu rulers like Man Singh Tomar, Maharana Sangram Singh, Maharana Pratap, Harihara Raya, Krishna Deva Raya, Narsimhadeva, Lachit Barphukan, Guru Govind Singh Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj and other Hindu bravehearts

 

It was after repeated experience with Muslim treachery, subterfuge, deceit, that wisdom finally dawned on some of the Hindus. Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj was the epitome of this successful Hindu counter-attack on Islam which turned the patented Muslim techniques of deceit and subterfuge on the Muslims themselves.

 

The Hindu Counterattack on Muslims

 

The Hindu counterattack against Islam does not have any fixed date. From the very first battle of the Rajas of Makara (Makran) and Sindh in 638, till the Muslim rule was finally eliminated by the Maratha, Jats, Rajputs, Gurkhas and Sikhs in the 18th and early 19th centuries, this constant Hindu-Muslim war did not stop. So we can only define the counterattack as that period when the Hindus started turning the tactics of their tormentors on the Muslims. The first to do that were the kings of Orissa.

 

How Narasimhadeva defeated Tugan Khan in 1248 C.E.

 

After the easy victories over North India from Punjab, through Bengal, the Muslims turned and attacked Orissa. Here the Muslim met their match. The people of Orissa were hardy fighters. (In ancient and medieval times, Orissa was also called Kalinga or Utkal – from Uttam Kala which means Excellent Art that reflects the tradition of sculpture of that region) They had given a hard time when in the 3rd century B.C.E. the king of Kalinga Kumara gave a tough battle to Samrat Ashoka Mauya, before Orissa could be annexed to the Maurya Empire. When Tugan Khan attacked Orissa, the then ruling king of Orissa, Narsimhadeva, decided to use subterfuge against the Muslims. He sent word to the invader that he wanted to surrender as had Lakshmansena, the ruler of Bengal without a fight. Tugan Khan had easily conquered Bengal a few years earlier, since the king of Bengal instead of fighting fled the advancing Muslim armies and Begal fell without a fight. Tugan thought that Orissa would also be a cakewalk, as he had put the fear of death in the heart of the Hindus.

 

Tugan accepted Narasimhadeva’s surrender proposal and asked for the surrender of the major city of Puri (Narasimhadeva had his capital elsewhere at Jajanagara), hand over all weapons and embrace Islam in the central square in front of the Jagannath Temple and convert the temple into Mosque. To the delight of the Muslims, all these terms were accepted and the Muslims advanced into the city, blissfully aware that the shrewd Hindu king had laid a trap for them. On the orders of Narasimhadeva, the bustling city had been completely evacuated of its pilgrims and soldiers from all over the kingdom had occupied every nook and cranny of the city, hidden away inside the closely built houses Once the Muslim army was inside the city, it had to disperse itself into the maze of narrow lanes and bylanes with which they were not familiar and where thy had to dismount from their horses and advance single file. And unaware of the danger lurking they advanced cautiously and slowly towards the central square where the surrender ceremony was to take place.

 

When the Muslim army was dispersed, at a prearranged signal from one of lookouts from the temple spires, the temple bells started ringing, and this was the signal for the Hindus to pounce on the Muslims. The pitched battle lasted whole day and went into the night pierced by the cries of wounded and dying Muslim and Hindu soldiers. While the Hindus took many losses, the entire Muslim army was caught like in a mousetrap and annihilated. Very few Muslims could escape this trap. And this idea succeeded, as it had never been used till then, by any Hindu king, as it went against the Hindu rules of warfare. But precisely because of it being totally unexpected, the Muslims had to suffer from a bloody nose and the Hindus emerged victorious. Orissa was to remain a Hindu bastion for many centuries and this accounts for the very low percentage of Muslims in Orrisa even today, unlike Bengal, where the eastern part (known today as Bangladesh) has been totally Islamized, and the Western half is undergoing the process of Islamization especially in the district of Murshidabad.

 

The victorious King Narasimhadeva erected a victory pillar designed as a war chariot. This temple was dedicated to Surya the Sun god, at a place near the temple town of Puri. He named this place Konark which means “Essence of the Corners” While the structure commemorates the victory in the battle against the Muslims, the name Konark commemorates the science of astronomy of which the King was an avid student. Although the Hindus of south India, like the Kings of Vijaynagar and the Marathas, displayed this shrewdness against the Muslims, in the North the Rajputs continued to wage a noble war with the ignoble Muslims and lost out. It was for this reason, that the Muslim could never subjugate the Southern half of India (Dakkan or Deccan from Dakshin which means south in Sanskrit) as they did with North India. It was Hindus of Vijayanagar in the South who gave a tougher time to the Muslim and held back the tide of Muslim aggression at the Krishna river, to finally throw off the Muslim yoke and march northwards to liberate North India, when the Marathas marched to Delhi, and Punjab and beyond up to Attock in Paktoonisthan.

 

How Vijaynagar survived for two hundred years all through battling the Muslim Aggression from 1331 up to 1565

 

Vijaynagar, was the first Hindu kingdom which gave up the Hindu practice of not molesting non-combatants. Thus they started paying the Muslims in the same token. When the armies of Vijaynagar overran any Bahamani town or village they torched it. With this they put the fear of death into Muslim minds and soon, the Adilshahi and Nizamshahi sultans sued for a treaty that would proscribe the killing of civilians. Thus from then on till Vijaynagar was finally defeated at the battle of Talikotai, was this treaty adhered to by both the Hindus and Muslims. But with the final defeat of the Hindus at Talikotai, the Muslims repudiated this treaty, as their founder had repudiated the treaty of Hudaibiya, and indulged in a gory slaughter of all the inhabitants of Vijaynagar, they could lay their hands on. Not a single person was allowed to live in that beleaguered city. The city itself was reduced to rubble, after six months of pillage and wanton destruction.

 

This teaches us two lessons. One that only when you pay back the Muslims in the same barbaric token, that they can come temporarily to their senses. But never ever trust the Muslims for their word, since it s given only as matter of expediency. Whenever fortune favors them, they would go back on their word. Likewise, when all non-Muslims should enter into any agreement with Muslims only if the Muslims cannot be beaten militarily, and when the fortune favors the non-Muslims, they should repudiate any treaty with the Muslims and resume hostilities with the one single aim of destroying Islam. There is no other way of salvation for humankind, from this vile creed of the Muslims.

 

The Punjabi Hindu resistance to Islam is called Sikhism

 

In one North Indian province, Punjab, the Hindus resisted Islam by removing the deficiencies from their own religion, and then first matching and finally outmatching the ruthlessness of their Muslim tormentors. The Sikhs considered themselves neither Hindus nor Mussalmaans. But in the eyes of the Mughal rulers, the followers of the Gurus were Hindus who tried to undermine Mughal sovereignty. For this the Sikhs were violently repressed. In the reign of the Mughal Emperor Jehangir, Guru Arjan Dev Ji was the first Guru to be martyred (at the hand of the Mughal oppressors). Jehangir sentenced Guruji to be beheaded after being tormented for days. Burning hot sand was poured on his bare body. After being subjected to such inhuman torture, Guruji we are told, expressed a desire as his last wish, to have a bath in the Ravi river before being beheaded. Guru Arjan Dev Ji who had suffered brutally at the hands of his Mughal tormentors, went into the river till his head disappeared into the swirling currents of the Ravi - never to return. Thus he became the first Sikh Guru to lay down his life due to Mughal oppression.

 

It was under the later Gurus that Sikhism came to appear as the militant wing of the Hindu community. The idea of Sikhs being defenders of Hinduism was strengthened during the tenure of the 9th and 10th Gurus. Guru Tegh Bahadur and Guru Gobind Singh. During the tenure of these two Gurus the nature of the Sikh religion underwent a fundamental change. And from being a sect with ascetic and pacifist ideals, the Sikhs were transformed into an aggressive military theocracy.

 

Militarization of the Sikhs due to Mughal Oppression.

 

The changes brought about by Guru Gobind Singh were so fundamental that they represented a new phase in the history of Sikhism. It is worth recalling the circumstances that led to this change. Understanding this phase of Sikh history is all the more important as it led to the formation of Sikhism as we know it today.

 

This phase of the Sikh religion was a direct result of Mughal oppression. The Mughal rulers had no love for a sect that originated from among the Kafirs (Hindus) but had adapted Islamic ideas like monotheism rejection of idol worship, military theocracy and who with the indigenous Hindu terminology of expression tried to secure a following also among the adherents of Islam. This was unbearable to the Mughals who looked upon the Sikhs as wanting to usurp the platform of Islam and stall the process of converting Hindus (in Punjab) to Islam.

 

Sikhism was in the eyes of the Mughals - a Panic Reaction of the Hindus against Islam

 

For the Mughals, Sikhism represented a panic reaction from within the Hindu community to salvage its status as non-muslim by accepting the positive ideals of Islam like rejection of idol worship, casteism and ritualism of its Hindu parent religion and infusing militancy into the new Hindu converts to Sikhism. In the eyes of the Mughal rulers, the Sikh reform was detrimental to the conversion of the Hindus to Islam; and the militancy of the Sikhs was harmful to the security of the Mughal empire. Hence the bitter oppression of the Sikhs by the Mughals which was even more severe than the oppression of the Hindus in general.

 

During the reign of Aurangzeb the severest wave of oppression was unleashed on Non-Muslims with a view to Islamize the country. As the Mughal oppression found tough resistance from the Sikhs they were the favourite target for the Mughals. Here the story of Guru Tegh Bahadur and Guru Gobind Singh needs to be

 

The Martyrdom of Guru Tegh Bahadur

 

During the reign of Aurangzeb Guru Tegh Bahadur who was the then Guru of the Sikhs was approached by a group of Hindu Pandits from Kashmir with a plea for protection from Mughal oppression. True to the spirit of his faith the Guru decided to approach the fanatical Mughal emperor Aurangzeb himself for a redress of the grievances. Unfortunately at the Mughal court he received abuses and threats. He was told to accept Islam at the pain of death. To prove his word the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. tourtured to death the members of the Guru's entourage one after the other. But Guru Tegh Bahadur did not lose his composure and calmly demanded a halt to the repressive policies. Wanting to teach a lesson to the obstinate Guru and to set an example to his followers the emperor ordered that the Guru to be beheaded. Thus after Guru Arjan Dev, Tegh Bahadur was the second Sikh Guru to meet a violent death at the hands of the Mughals. But after his execution some of his followers managed to sneak out the Guru's severed head from Delhi and carried it to Anandpur. At the place where the Gurus severed head was cremated, a Gurudwara was erected to commemorate this sacrifice undertaken in defence of the Dharma. This place is known to us today as the Anandpur Saheb Gurudwara.

 

The Khalsa Panth of Guru Gobind Singh Ji

 

When Guru Tegh Bahadur was martyred, his son Gobindrai, who later became Guru Gobind Singh) was still a boy, but the events which had overtaken his father, influenced him deeply and after succeeding his father as the next Guru, he was determined to carry out the struggle against Mughal oppression. Towards this end he undertook a radical transformation of the Sikh religion. This transformation was too fundamental to be termed as a reform and it virtually amounted to the establishment of a new religious order. And though he transformation differentiated the subsequent Sikhism (the Khalsa Panth from the earlier one; more in temporal and worldly aspects rather than in spiritual matters, it led to the first major split among the Sikhs.

 

The five Ks (Kakkars)

 

The transformation of Sikhism as the Khalsa Panth was formally launched by Guru Gobind Singh Ji on Baishakhi (New year) day in the year 1699. The new community was termed the Khalsa Panth or the 'Pure Sect' as its followers were required to be far more strict in observing the tenets of their reformed faith. The followers of the Khalsa were required to observe five visible symbols of membership. These signs as we know were: 1) Unshorn Hair (Kesha), 2) A curved dagger (Kirpan), 3) A comb (Kangva), 4) A steel bangle (Kada), 5) A pair of shorts (Kachha). All members of the Khalsa were required to suffix their name with the term 'Singh' meaning 'lion'. Guru Gobind Singh's aim in forming the Khalsa Panth was to build up a militarized community which could resist Mughal oppression. An anecdote about his forming of the Khalsa army is worth recalling.

 

The Formation of the Khalsa Army

 

Once the Guru was delivering an inspiring speech before a group of Sikh youths on the necessity for every youth in the community to be ready to sacrifice everything he had including his life for the cause of his faith. The response of the youths was enthusiastic and many expressed their readiness to get enrolled in the Khalsa Panth. But the Guru' s standards of integrity were very high and he said that he would require the heads of those who wanted to join the Khalsa. The Guru pulled out his sword and beckoned the enthusiastic youths to come forward and lay down their lives there and then.

 

The youths were dumbfounded and for some moments nobody volunteered to sacrifice his life, while the Guru waited with his unsheathed sword in hand. Finally one of the youths turned up and offered his head to the Guru saying that his head already belonged to the Guru and the Guru may have it if he wanted. The Guru caught hold of the youth and led him inside the sacrificial tent that had been erected for the occasion. After sometime there was a piercing scream form the youth and the Guru emerged from the tent and in his hand was a blood-stained sword. The Guru now demanded another head.

 

His audience was benumbed at this evident gruesome scene and many devotees fled the place in disgust saying that the Guru had gone mad! But out of the few remaining youths another one offered his head to the Guru. After some time a few select youths had offered their heads to their Guru and has been "sacrificed" by the Guru, while many others had fled carrying with them the memory of a ghastly episode.

 

But those who fled were never to learn the secret of what happened to those brave youths, five in number, who had offered their heads to the Guru and who were the first Panj Pyaras. Contrary to the impression that he created, after leading every youth into the tent, the Guru embraced each of them and installed them as his select soldiers who were to form the Khalsa army. This army was the bravest that could be had as it was made up of men who had proved that they would lay down their lives to serve their Guru and the Panth in their struggle with the Mughal oppressors.

 

The Fierce Commitment to Overthrow Mughal Oppression

 

There is also a less known tradition which Guru Ji is said to have shared orally with the Panj Pyaras in the tent after they had offered him their heads. After baptising them as the first 5 members of the the Khalsa "Pure" Panth Guru Ji decided to have the Panj Pyaras observe the 5 kakkars which included wearing a Kada (signifying a bangle) - as a sign of not yet having fulfilled a commitment of overthrowing the Mughal tormentors who then ruled Punjab(and the rest of India). The Kada was meant to instill a compelling sense of commitment in them to defeat their Mughal tormentors. This aspect of the kada signifying womanhood and shame was later not mentioned for obvious reasons and is not reflected in the Sikh legend. It was this act on part of Guru Ji that spurred on his followers to avenge their oppression by the Muslims and finally led to their successes under Maharaja Ranjit Singh in 1799.

 

(This tradition of fighting Delhi was quoted again by the terrorists during the anti-Indian insurgency of the 1980s. But then the rulers of Delhi were different in 1980 from those in 1699!)

 

Sahejdharis and Keshadharis

 

Those members of the Sikh Panth (sect) who observed the five visible signs, and also used the suffix "Singh" (lion) with their names, imbibed the fighting spirit inculcated by Guru Gobind Singh. They came to be known as Keshadharis (wearers of unshorn hair) and those Sikhs (i.e. virtually all the remaining people of Punjab) who revered the Gurus but did not accept the 5 Kakkars laid down by Guru Gobind Singh Ji and did not use the suffix "Singh" were called Sahejdharis (casual devotees), or plainly speaking - Punjabis (i.e. Punjabi Hindus).

 

The Sahejdharis were also followers of the Gurus, though they did not belong to the Khalsa Panth. And despite this difference, there did not exist a feeling of belonging to different sects among the two sects of the followers of the Gurus till recent times.

 

Banda Bairagi

 

Banda Bairagi personifies the ethos of Punjab. His story signifies the oneness of the Sahjedharis and the Keshadharis. Banda Bairagi was born into a Sahejdhari family. He was a devout person from his childhood. Immense love for the Guru attracted him to Guru Govind Singh Ji. In his youth, Banda Bairagi became a Keshadhari and was baptised as Banda Singh Bahadur by Guru Ji. Banda Singh Bahadur carried on a relentless fight against the Muslims. After a stormy life, full of daring adventures, he died on the battlefield fighting the Mughal Oppressors. His name has become legendary in Punjabi folklore.

 

The Political History of the Sikhs

 

The later history of the Sikhs is more a political history rather than religious and centers around the establishment of a sovereign kingdom by Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Here let us digress into the politico-military situation in North India in the mid 18th century.

 

The Persian Invasion of 1740 by Nadir Shah

 

The immediate impetus for the establishment of the Sikh kingdom came from the invasion of North India by Ahmed Shah Durrani (Abdali) the ruler of Afghanistan in 1759/61. On his way to Delhi, Ahmed Shah burnt down the Harmindar Saheb Gurudwara at Amritsar. for 2 years and was planning to settle in India forever, when he was challenged by the Marathas. The Marathas who then were on their ascendancy in North India had since the first Persian-Afghan invasion by Nadir Shah, the king of Persia in 1740, established themselves as a dominant power in Northern India. The 20 years from 1740 to 1760 saw a see-saw battle between the Afghans and the Marathas for the domination of North India.

 

With the defeat of Mohammed Shah, the Moghul Emperor in 1740 by Nadir Shah (in whose army Ahmed Shah Abdali was a general), the Mughal power steadily declined and its place was usurped by the Rohillas who were led by an ambitious and ruthless chieftain named Najib Khan. Najib's ambition was to supplant the Moghal Emperor and crown himself as the ruler of India by capturing Delhi.

 

The Rise of the Marathas in Punjab

 

But the growing power of the Marathas in their northward expansion, stood between Najib and his ambition. To overcome the Marathas, in 1755, Najib invited Ahmed Shah Abdali from Afghanistan to help him in defeating the Marathas and crown himself the ruler of India. In this, he was thwarted by the Marathas who decisively defeated the Rohillas and Afghans near Delhi in 1756. The defeat was so decisive that Najib Khan surrendered to the Marathas and became their prisoner. The Maratha forces were led by Shrimant Raghunath Rao and Malhar Rao Holkar.

 

After defeating the Afghan-Rohilla forces, the Marathas pursued the Afghans into the Punjab upto the Khyber pass. The last frontier of the Marathas was at Attock in today's NWFP (or Paktoonistan) on the Afghan border. Thus after nearly 800 after the last Punjabi King Tirlochan Pal Shahi had been defeated by Mahmud of Ghazi in 1020 C.E. did that part of India come under Indian rule in 1756 due to the liberation of Punjab by the Marathas.

 

Meanwhile with machinations and trickery, Najib Khan won over Malhar Rao Holkar and secured his release. On his release Najib started to undermine the Marathas once again and treacherously killed Dattaji Shinde (eldest brother of Mahadji Shinde) . Najib continued to battle the Shindes in 1757-58 and with his newly found confidence again invited Ahmed Shah Abdali to invade India.

 

The 3rd Battle of Panipat - 1761

 

Abdali's second invasion was launched in 1759. The Marathas who after their successes in 1756 had been hibernating in Maharashtra and Central India again woke up and in alliance with the Jat King Suraj Mal of Bharatpur formed an alliance. This alliance led by Shrimant Sadshiv Rao Bhau and Shrimant Vishwas Rao (the Peshwa Shrimant Balaji Baji Rao's son) won spectacular victories and captured Delhi and Kunjapura (where the Afghan treasury and armoury was located).

 

Here the alliance developed cracks due to the Maratha insistence on not allowing the Jats to loot Delhi. This ultimately split the alliance and Suraj Mal withdrew from the alliance.

 

The Marathas consequently marched upto Panipat, but instead of continuing their attacks to completely defeat the partly defeated Abdali and Najib Khan, they stayed put at Panipat, blocking the way of the Afghans back to Afghanistan. Seeing their way back to their homeland blocked, the Afghans now became restless. They in turn, decided to block the way of the Marathas back into the Deccan. This stand-off continued for a few months, while the Afghans cut-off all supplies to the huge Maratha army. The Afghans with Najib Khan meanwhile recaptured Delhi and Kunjpura.

 

On the decisive day of 14th January 1761, the Marathas decided to break-through the Afghan blockade and re-enter Deccan. The disastrous battle saw about one hundred thousand Maratha troops being slaughtered in a matter of eight hours. But the Afghans too suffered heavy losses and decided enough was enough and went back to Afghanistan. Abdali never returned to India after this stormy campaign, but his decscendants did make unsuccessful attempts to do so. The invasion of Abdali's grandson (Sher Shah) was one such attempt. This time the invader was challenged by the Sikhs. Sher Shah could not proceed beyond Lahore due to the challenge of the Sarbat Khalsa. Thus, this last of the Muslim invasions also turned out to be the only Muslim invasion of India ever to be defeated by the people of Punjab.

 

Maharaja Ranjeet Singh Ji and the Rise of the first Sikh Kingdom

 

However, during this period the Sikhs were still unorganised and in the period after the defeat of the Marathas and the withdrawal of the Afghans there existed a power vacuum in North India in the period 1761-1799. It was this vacuum that was filled up by the rising Sikh power under the dynamic leadership of Maharaja Shri Ranjit Singh Ji.

 

Maharaj Ranjeet Singh Ji was born in 1780 and witnessed these turbulent times in Punjab's history. By 1799, Maharaja Ranjeet Singh had started his attempt to unify the different Sikh Misls, which was to grow into a powerful Sikh Kingdom in the early decades of the 19th century and remained a powerful force till Maharaja Ranjeet Singh's death in 1839.

 

The Sikh kingdom was also the last of the Indian kingdoms that held out against the British (More of this later)

 

When the history of Maratha-Afghan warfare was being enacted, the Sikhs in Punjab had formed themselves into Misls (Local Armed Battalions). Though they did not actively participate in helping the Marathas against the Afghans, they nursed a grievance against the Rohillas and Afghans.

 

Jussa Singh Ahluwalia

 

Jussa Singh Ahluwalia was a leader of the Alhuwalia Misl prior to Maharaja Ranjit Singh's ascent. Before Maharaja Ranjeet Singh's Asendency the Sikhs had formed themselves into various misls which were under control of various tracts of land of the Punjab. Some of these Misls refused to get themselves integrated into the Sikh Army formed by Maharaja Ranjit Singh Ji. These rebellious Misls were eventually overcome and integrated into the Sikh army by Maharaja Ranjit Singh Ji.

 

Hari Singh Nallua

 

On the departure of the Afghans, the Sikhs reasserted themselves in the Punjab and Maharaja Ranjit Singh Ji who was the leader of the Gujranwala Misl - which was one of the most powerful Misl, formed a kingdom with its capital at Lahore in today's West Punjab in Pakistan. His kingdom stretched beyond the Hindu Kush into Afghanistan. Able generals like Hari Singh Nallua helped in pushing the frontiers of the Sikh kingdom into Afghanistan.

 

It was a tradition in those days for the eldest son of every family from Punjab to join the army (of the Maharaja) by observing the 5 Kakkars. Brave generals like Hari Singh Nallua took the Sikh armies deep into Afghanistan and they are reputed to have brought back the original Gates of the Somnath Temple which had been desecrated by Mahmud of Ghazni in the 11th century. The gates had been carried off by Mahmud to Afghanistan and had remained there ever since. Maharaja Ranjit Singh Ji retrieved them and brought them back to India.

 

Maharaja Ranjit Singh Ji's reign marked the consolidation of Indian sovereignty in Punjab after first Muslim invasions eight hundred years before in 1020. The Marathas had broken the continuous Muslim occupation of Punjab by liberating it in 1756 and Maharaja Ranjit Singh Ji consolidated Indian rule in Punjab a few years later.

 

The kingdom established by Maharaja Ranjit Singh Ji successfully resisted the Afghans, and Rohillas and also out-matched the new imperialist power of the British successfully till Maharaja Ranjit Singh Ji was alive. At his death, the Maharaja had warned about the impending coming of the British.

 

(On his death-bed he is said to have expressed a desire to offer his most precious possession to the Jagannath Puri temple at Orissa. He was asked by the chief Mahant (priest) of the Jagannath Puri temple as to what he considered most precious. In reply Maharaja Ranjit Singh Ji is said to have told the Mahant that as a Keshadhari follower of the Guru, his unshorn hair was most precious to him and he wanted to donate that to the temple along with umpteen gold and jewellery.)

 

It was during the reign of Maharaja Ranjit Singh Ji that the Harmindar Saheb Gurudwara at Amritsar which had been burnt down by Ahmed Shah Abdali in 1760, was repaired and was completely plated with gold and from then onwards it came to be known as the Golden Temple.

 

Such was Maharaja Ranjit Singh Ji who consolidated Indian rule in India's frontier state which had been earlier liberated by the Marathas. Unfortunately the Marathas could not retain their hold over the liberated areas, many of which were re-occupied by the Rohillas and Afghans after a few years. But the rise of the Sikh power ensured that a large part of the Maratha achievements of rolling back alien rule could be consolidated and expanded. Even today the Sikhs continue to form an important element of troops in the Indian army and are an effective bulwark in the fight against Muslim terorism that afflicts India especially so in Kashmir.

[jay74]

How the Maratha Hindus outmatched the Muslims at their own game from 1650 onwards

 

Now we move to the South where the Marathas were the first who crossed the Muslim invader Malik Kafur's path, when he invaded Central India in 1314 C.E. They were then led by the last scion of the Yadava dynasty - Ramdev Rai Yadava who ruled from Devagiri (today's Daulatabad, near Sambhajinagar aka Aurangbad). In their first clash with the Muslims; the Marathas lost to the invaders and accepted the status of being vassals and mercenaries of their tyrannical Muslim masters. Shivaji's mother, Jijabai was a direct descendant of the erstwhile Yadav royal family of Devagiri. She seems to have nursed deep within her mind the idea of recovering independence from Muslim rule which her Yadav forebears had lost in the year 1318. Shivaji grew up with these ideas embedded into him. His childhood stories are those of playing games in which he and his friends attacked and captured forts held by the enemy. When Shivaji was seventeen, he decided to transform what were till then simply games to a reality. He and his friends encouraged by Jijabai and his Guru Dadoji Kondeo; decided to take a formal oath to free the country from the shackles of Muslim tyranny. This was done in the year 1645 in a dark cavern housing a small temple to the Hindu God Shiva (locally called Raireshwar).

 

Here Shivaji and his select band of teenaged Maratha friends slit their thumbs and poured the blood oozing from it on the Shiva-linga (Phallus representing the Lord Shiva). By this act they declared a blood-feud against Mughal tyranny. This was the beginning of a long and arduous Maratha-Mughal struggle that went on for the next century and a half to culminate in the defeat of the Mughals and their replacement by the Marathas as the dominant power in India when the British came into the scene.

 

When Shivaji started his military career by capturing the fortress of Torana, it sent shockwaves in the Adilshshi court at Bijapur. Here was a local Hindu chieftain, daring to challenge the might of a Muslim ruler. The retribution was swift and Adil Shah sent in his most fearsome general named Afzal Khan to bring back Shivaji dead or alive to Bijapur. Afzal Khan who was reputed to be more than six feet tall and of a real massive built, set on his mission and in order to lure Shivaji down into the plains, he destroyed the Hindu temples at Tuljapur, Pandharpur and Shikhar Shenganapur.

 

This ploy failed to work and Shivaji stuck to his Hill fastness in the Sahyadris. Shivaji even sent a letter to Afzal Khan praising the legendary strength of Afzal Khan's powerful arms and his reputed fearlessness. Shivaji addressed him as his uncle and said that he was afraid to come down to meet Afzal Khan. Shivaji asked him to come up into the hills to meet him and on condition that Afzal Khan came with not more than few select soldiers. The proud Khan felt that the Dekkhan-Ka-Chuha (Rat of the Deccan as the Muslims scornfully addressed Shivaji) had really chickened out.

 

Shivaji’s ensnaring and slaying of Afzal Khan proved that the Hindu’s had finally come of age in turning against the Muslims their tricks of subterfuge

 

Before inviting Afzal Khan up to the fort in the densely forested ranges, Shivaji had gone down to the plains in the guise of a fruit vendor with a basket of fruits on his head. This ploy was done so that Shivaji could have a good look at Afzal Khan’s face when the Khan traveled on horseback. No other person could have an excuse to look up to the Khan’s eyes. But a fruit vendor would have to look up to ask if the Khan wanted fruits. This way Shivaji made sure he knew who was the real Khan, as he knew that for meeting enemies, the Muslims sent imposters whenever they sensed that they would be betrayed at the meeting. But this way Shivaji ensured that he knew that it was the Khan himself who had come to meet him and not an imposter in his place.

 

This action of Shivaji clearly indicated that he had made plans for slaying Khan when the two met at the Fort. Afzal Khan agreed to go up the hills at Pratapgad Fort to meet his nemesis. When the meeting took place, Shivaji had come in full armor, that was hidden beneath his thick satin robes, while Afzal had no such protection. When they came face to face Afzal Khan embraced Shivaji and with his formidable enemy (Afzal Khan was about six feet tall while Shivaji was less than five feet) in his embrace, Shivaji suddenly slipped his the 'Wagh Nakh' into the Khan’s abdomen. The 'Wagh Nakh' (literally tiger’s claws) are a sharp weapon resembling tiger claws that could be hidden in the grip of one's fist. In addition, he had the Bichhwa – a curved dagger hidden in the pocket of his waistcoat with which he repeatedly stabbed the unprepared Khan. When Khan realized that he had been betrayed he bellowed “Dagaa, Dagaa” “I have been betrayed” and called for his bodyguard Syed Banda to come to his rescue. The fact that the Khan had not attacked Shivaji is lent credence by the fact the he yelled out “I have been betrayed”. Had he attack Shivaji first, then there was no question of his yelling out that he had been betrayed.

 

After Shivaji had wounded him, the Khan then tried to attack Shivaji in self-defence by using his own dagger, and tried to stab Shivaji. But Afzal's dagger could not plunge into Shivaji Maharaj due to the protective armor which Shivaji was wearing, Afzal tried to throttle him. But the wily Maratha was more than prepared for this as he had come down not only with full armor that was hidden by his thick satin robes, but all his palanquin bearers were hardened Maratha warriors who had been armed to the teeth with their weapons hidden in their clothes and turbans.

 

When Syed Banda, also a burly Muslim was about to strike Shivaji with his sword, Shivaji's bodyguard Jiva Mahalya struck off Banda's upraised arm in the air itself. After this commotion, the bleeding Khan tried to make good his escape and rushed into his palanquin. As the palanquin bearers set off with the fleeing Khan, Santaji Kawji, another of Shivaji's select warriors cut-off the feet of the bearers and Khans' palanquin, with its load of Afzal fell to the ground. Santaji Kawji, then finished off the task of sending Khan to his final resting place. Khan's army which was waiting in the valley was ruthlessly massacred by the Marathas who were hiding behind every crevice and bush in the densely wooded jungles around the Pratapgad fort. At the place where this encounter took place on 10th November 1659 between Shivaji Maharaj and the Khan, there stands today a Kabar (grave) erected by Shivaji for the departed Khan's soul to rest in peace. Thus for once a Hindu had outwitted a Muslim who was twice as strong and was also a towering giant. The pigeons of Muslim subterfuge had come home to roost and with a vengeance too.

 

Thus the Shivaji’s ensnaring and slaying of Afzal Khan proved that the Hindus had finally come of age in learning Muslim tricks of subterfuge. Tricks that were unheard of in ancient Hindu India and which would have been looked down upon according to the ancient Hindu rules of warfare. Shivaji’s attack on Afzal was a pre-planned one, and for which he used the Muslim psychology of killing their enemies, even if there was no immediate provocation. Unfortunately not many Hindu later followed this illustrious example of Shivaji, and so today India remains condemned to face the Muslim threat, which is raising its ugly head once again.

 

Another example of Hindus learning subterfuge from the Muslims - Shivaji’s outsmarting another Muslim general Shaista Khan

 

The next Muslim Khan to come down 'literally' before Shivaji was Shaista Khan. On hearing Shivaji's depredations, Aurangzeb was furious and wanted to desperately crush this infidel upstart. He sent his uncle maternal Shaista Khan with a large and powerful army to checkmate Shivaji. But even this time the wily Maratha proved that brain was stronger than the brawn. Shaista Khan came into Maharashtra and started devastating towns, villages fields, temples, forts and everything that came in his path.

 

To provoke Shivaji, Shaista Khan established his camp in Shivaji's home in Pune called Lal-Mahal. And to top it up, he put up his Harem in Shivaji's Devghar (prayer room). He bided his time for many months and one on fine day (night), he with a select band of Maratha Samurais, sneaked into Pune and into the Lal-Mahal. He tracked down the sleeping Khan to his bed. The Khan sensing that his time was up tried jumping out of the window. At that point Shivaji cut off the Khan's fingers with which he was holding on to the window sill.

 

When the Khan's wife's pleading before Shivaji to spare her husband's life as she considered Shivaji to be her brother (sic). And so killing her husband would mean making her a widow, Shivaji spared the Khan's life. This was a mistake for which Shivaji was to pay dearly later. Shivaji made good his escape from the Khan's lair, but not before the treacherous Khan ordered his troops to give chase and try to capture the fleeing Shivaji. Here too Shivaji had tied burning torches to the horns of a herd of cows and bulls and with bells jangling making a ruckus like swords clashing. So instead of pursuing Shivaji who escaped into the night, the Muslim army went in the direction of this cows and bulls which they though to be the Maratha army that Shivaji had brought out. But when they reached the cows and bulls, they were flustered when they realized the trick played on them by the shrewd Hindu. The Khan then, decided that enough was enough and returned to Delhi - without his fingers. This happened in April 1663.

 

The Hindu counterattack had now begun in earnest. The Marathas after Shivaji managed to reach Delhi in 1720 and by 1756, they had occupied the whole of Punjab to reach the border of Afghanistan. But after Shivaji, there were very few Maratha leaders who realized the depth of the Muslim threat. There were some like Mahadji Scindia, but they were very few. The later Marathas under their Prime Ministers called Peshwa (who came from the crafty Hindu priestly class), opened negotiations with the Mughal (Muslim) King at Delhi and fought battles on his behalf against other Muslims like Nadir the King of Persia and Ahmed Khan Abdali, the ruler of Afghanistan. This was a disastrous policy as the Maratha Hindus became a tool in the hands of the Muslims and suffered many defeats, the most disastrous one being at Panipat in 1761 at the hand of the Afghan invader Ahmed Khan Abdali.

 

But where the Marathas stopped, the bearded and turbaned Sikhs took over and they carried the saffron flag of India into Afghanistan and planted it at Kabul in the year 1820. A city which the Hindus had lost in the year 980 when Sabuktgin had treacherously defeated Jayapal Shahiya, the last Hindu king of Kabul(then called Kubha).

 

Why the Marathas and the Sikhs failed to completely defeat the Muslims

 

After liberating large tracts of the country from Muslim rule, neither the Marathas nor the Sikhs follow the illustrious example of the Spanish Reconquistadors of reconverting the Muslims to their original faith (Hinduism in this context). It was only because of the three alternatives of re-embracing Christianity, leaving Spain or facing death; which the Reconquistadors gave to the defeated Spanish Moriscos (Moors or Muslims), that Spain regained its original Christian character. But there was no such thing in India that was liberated by the Marathas. In fact the Marathas stupidly and shamefully accepted the Mughal (Muslim dynasty in India) court customs, their attires, their habits, except that of converting the subjugated to their religion at the pain of death. This is where the Marathas failed, to consolidate their military victories, while the Spanish Reconquistadors succeeded. The Maratha policy contrasted starkly with the coercion used by the Muslims to convert Hindus to Islam. This proved that for all their valor and skill on the battlefield, the Marathas like all other Hindus had not gauged the nature of the Muslim threat, as the Spanish Conquistadors had succeeded in doing so.

 

The saving grace was that the Marathas were not displaced again by the Muslims, but by the growing colonial power of the British in the year 1818. Later the Marathas disgracefully joined forces with the Muslims in 1857 to launch an uprising against the British. Fortunately this uprising failed to dislodge the British, but it marked the formal demise of Muslim power in India, as the British dethroned the last Muslim (Mughal) king of India, the wretched Bahadur Shah Zafar, a task which the Marathas should have done a century earlier when they became the dominant power in North India. But under the Macheivellian Peshwas who came from the crafty Hindu priestly class, they instead of dethroning the Mughal king, had made him a status symbol and tried to derive legitimacy for Maratha conquests in North India by asking for his seal of approval and wielding power in his name. It was both ironical and shameful that the Marathas collected taxes in North India as subsidiaries of the tottering Mughal king and not in their own right (as Shivaji Maharaj had done), although it was they who in fact controlled the Mughal king. And hence the destiny of formally ending Muslim rule in India lay with the British and not with the Marathas a task which the British thankfully did in 1857.

 

By comparison, British rule in India was looked upon by the Hindus as a relief from the ruthless Muslim tyranny. The departure of the British saw the Muslim clamor for the Muslim majority provinces to be cut off from India and made into a synthetic nation which they called Pakistan. This moth-eaten nation split into two parts when in 1971, the eastern wing of Pakistan split from the Western half, and formed a new nation named Bangla Desh. Today both Pakistan and Bangla Desh are at the forefront of fomenting Islamic Terrorism and trying to destabilize India with the aim of intimidating Indians to five in to Islam and become one more Terrorist nation like any one of the Muslim nations from Morocco to Indonesia. Whatever is India’s fate, this populous nation that boasts the highest number of Software Professionals and Doctors is destined to witness it.

 

How India is once again in danger today

 

If the Hindus do not learn from the Spanish Reconquistadors, on the right way to deal with the Muslim challenge India could be in deep trouble. The clock of the Islamic Jihad has started ticking once again and a swath of disctricts from Kashmir, thruogh Himachal, Uttaranchal, Northern Uttar Pradesh, Bihar up to West Bengal and Assam have become Muslim majority or ones with Muslims fast approaching majority through demographic multiplication and migration. This is a ploy of the Muslim to use demographics to kink up Pakistan with Bangla Desh. Again the proportion of lands owned by Muslims along the Sea shores across India’s vast sea shore is increasing.

 

The strategy is to block off all lands facing the sea, to enable nefarious activities like landing of explosives like RDx, and possibly napalm, and depleted uranium, for serial bomb blasts that were first started off by the Muslim mafia in 1883 at Mumbai in Western India. If Hindus do not wake up then they would in a few decades be pushed towards their own destruction, like the Zoroastrians of Iran who 1300 years back disgracefully surrendered to the warriors of the crescent moon!

 

So we see how after subjugating Persia and Byzantine the Hindus of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh had to shed their blood to resist the Islamic Jihad. Coercion used by the Muslims to convert Hindus to Islam

 

Sir Jadunath Sarkar, the pre-eminent historian of Mughal India, wrote the following in 1920 regarding the impact of centuries of jihad and dhimmitude on the indigenous Hindus of the Indian subcontinent:

 

Islamic theology, therefore tells the true believer that his highest duty is to make 'exertion (jihad) in the path of God', by waging war against infidel lands (dar-ul-harb) till they become part of the realm of Islam (dar-ul-Islam) and their populations are converted into true believers. After conquest the entire infidel population becomes theoretically reduced to the status of slaves of the conquering army. The men taken with arms are to be slain or sold into slavery and their wives and children reduced to servitude. As for the non-combatants among the vanquished, if they are not massacred outright, - as the canon lawyer Shaf'i declares to be the Qur'anic injunction,- it is only to give them a respite till they are so wisely guided as to accept the true faith.

 

The conversion of the entire population to Islam and the extinction of every form of dissent is the ideal of the Muslim State. If any infidel is suffered to exist in the community, it is as a necessary evil, and for a transitional period only. Political and social disabilities must be imposed on him, and bribes offered to him from the public funds, to hasten the day of his spiritual enlightenment and the addition of his name to the roll of true believers...

 

A non-Muslim therefore cannot be a citizen of the State; he is a member of a depressed class; his status is a modified form of slavery. He lives under a contract (zimma, or 'dhimma') with the State: for the life and property grudgingly spared to him by the commander of the faithful he must undergo political and social disabilities, and pay a commutation money. In short, his continued existence in the State after the conquest of his country by the Muslims is conditional upon his person and property made subservient to the cause of Islam.

 

He must pay a tax for his land (kharaj), from which the early Muslims were exempt; he must pay other exactions for the maintenance of the army, in which he cannot enlist even if he offers to render personal service instead of paying the poll-tax; and he must show by humility of dress and behavior that he belongs to s subject class. No non-Muslim can wear fine dresses, ride on horseback or carry arms; he must behave respectfully and submissively to every member of the dominant sect.

 

As the learned Qazi Mughis-ud-din declared, in accordance with the teachings of the books on Canon Law: ‘The Hindus are designated in the Law as ‘payers of tribute’ (kharaj-guzar); and when the revenue officer demands silver from them, they should, without question and with all humility and respect, tender gold. If the officer throws dirt into their mouths, they must without reluctance open their mouths wide to receive it 18. By these acts of degradation are shown the extreme obedience of the zimmi [dhimmi], the glorification of the true faith of Islam, and the abasement of false faiths. God himself orders them to be humiliated , (as He says, ‘till they pay jaziya) with the hand and are humbled…The Prophet has commanded us to slay them, plunder them, and make them captive…No other religious authority except the great Imam (Hanifa) whose faith we follow, has sanctioned the imposition of jaziya on Hindus. According to all other theologians, the rule for Hindus is ‘Either death or Islam’.

 

The zimmi is under certain legal disabilities with regard to testimony in law courts, protection under criminal law, and in marriage…he cannot erect new temples, and has to avoid any offensive publicity in the exercise of his worship…Every device short of massacre in cold blood was resorted to in order to convert heathen subjects. In addition to the poll-tax and public degradation in dress and demeanor imposed on them, the non-Muslims were subjected to various hopes and fears. Rewards in the form of money and public employment were offered to apostates from Hinduism. The leaders of Hindu religion and society were systematically repressed, to deprive the sect of spiritual instruction, and their religious gatherings and processions were forbidden in order to prevent the growth of solidarity and sense of communal strength among them. No new temple was allowed to be built nor any old one to be repaired, so that the total disappearance of Hindu worship was to be merely a question of time. But even this delay, this slow operation of Time, was intolerable to many of the more fiery spirits of Islam, who tried to hasten the abolition of ‘infidelity’ by anticipating the destructive hand of Time and forcibly pulling down temples.

 

When a class are publicly depressed and harassed by law and executive caprice alike, they merely content themselves with dragging on an animal existence. With every generous instinct of the soul crushed out of them, the intellectual culture merely adding a keen edge to their sense of humiliation, the Hindus could not be expected to produce the utmost of which they were capable; their lot was to be hewers of wood and drawers of water to their masters, to bring grist to the fiscal mill, to develop a low cunning and flattery as the only means of saving what they could of their own labor. Amidst such social conditions, the human hand and the human spirit cannot achieve their best; the human soul cannot soar to its highest pitch. The barrenness of intellect and meanness of spirit of the Hindu upper classes are the greatest condemnation of Muslim rule in India. The Muslim political tree judged by its fruit was an utter failure.

 

Nearly four decades later, Antoine Fattal, whose 1958 Le Statut Legal de Musulmans en Pays' d'Islam remains the benchmark analysis of non-Muslims (especially Christians and Jews) living under the Shari'a (i.e., Muslim Law), observed 19:

 

…Even today, the study of the jihad is part of the curriculum of all the Islamic institutes. In the universities of Al-Azhar, Nagaf, and Zaitoune, students are still taught that the holy war [jihad] is a binding prescriptive decree, pronounced against the Infidels, which will only be revoked with the end of the world... If he [the dhimmi] is tolerated, it is for reasons of a spiritual nature, since there is always the hope that he might be converted; or of a material nature, since he bears almost the whole tax burden. He has his place in society, but he is constantly reminded of his inferiority...In no way is the dhimmi the equal of the Muslim. He is marked out for social inequality and belongs to a despised caste; unequal in regard to individual rights; unequal in the Law Courts as his evidence is not admitted by any Muslim tribunal and for the same crime his punishment is greater than that imposed on Muslims...No social relationship, no fellowship is possible between Muslims and dhimmis (Hindus, Christian, Jews and other non-Muslims)

 

The Paradox of Hinduism while fighting Islam

 

The more a Hindu become hinduized, he becomes more tolerant, relegating everything to fate, considering all misfortunes (attacks by others such as Muslims) as divinely ordained.

 

But the more a beast (Muslim) gets beastalized (Islamized), he becomes more cruel, more practical and oriented to killing kafirs, So how do you resole this paradox, So the question is do you Hinduize the Hindus or make them atheistic and practical – Sri Krsna is the only exception who practicalized Parth at Kurukshetra, (few other examples are those of Sage Vidyarnya with Harihara and Bukka and Swami Samartha Ramdas with Shivaji Maharaj) otherwise all Hindu saints make Hindus increasingly vulnerable. This is the Paradox of Hinduism while fighting Islam We have no answer on how Hindus will resolve this paradox

 

What has defeated Islam so far and what can defeat it in future

 

The history of Islam tells us that he only contest which the Muslims lost was that between them and the Atheistic-Communists. This was so as it is only the Communists who have it in their outlook to force-fit the Communist outlook in the population, something which it shares with Islam, so when Islam came into conflict with Communism, and when communism had political power, it did not allow Islam to exist, as it also did not allow any other religion to exist. This way the Communist and Islamic outlooks complimented each other. Both the Muslims and the communists had zero tolerance of each other. In this context all other religious outlooks failed to counter Islam, as all of them differing levels of tolerance for other faiths, while Islam has none. So only that outlook can defeat and destroy Islam which has zero tolerance of Islam while its methods are more ruthless, cruel, pervasive , persistent and global than those of Islam. So far only communism has been such an outlook. Maybe in future there would a non-Communistic outlook which is as effective against Islam as Communism was

 

All this notwithstanding today’s alliance of the Communists with the Muslims is because both of them see in the USA a common enemy of Islam and Communism.

 

But ironically whenever the communists had power, they did not initiate a dialogue with any religion, they simply acted, by taking over the education system, closing down the places of worship, or severely circumscribing them, they sent religious (and other) dissidents to re-education centers, and the more committed of the dissidents to Concentration camps and the most incorrigible ones to the firing squad.

 

Communism has been the only attitude that has destroyed religion, although the destruction was unfortunately not complete.

 

Interestingly, it is the ruthless (communistic) attitude in global state policy (after the War on Terror destroys some religions and weakens all others) that will complete this unfinished task of destroying all religion. Communism in the 20th century was a false start for atheism. Now in the 21st century, the real start for atheism (minus the economic ideology of communism) will come, which will sound the death knell of all religions.

 

We do not advocate Hinduism at all, as some might think, we only support the free-thinking that goes with Hindu culture (and all other natural human societies that existed before organized monotheism of Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and then the missionary Christianity, and finally the ISLAM of the schizophrenic savages came about) We also do not support the economic ideology of communism.

 

We support a natural human state of existence where atheism and scientific temper rules human outlook. And although we advocate free thought, we will prevent religion to grow in human minds. Since to enable free thought to exist, we need to prohibit religion from being reborn, since religion prohibits free thought.

 

But ironically going by the track record of religion over the last three millennia, especially that of Christianity, and finally the Islam of the schizophrenic savages, freedom of though would have to sanitized so that religious belief never takes hold over the human mind ever again.

 

In this scenario of the fight between religions (war on terror) and the following fight to get rid of the weakened religions, the Hindus are the least capable of being active players in the scenario of the demise of religion, since Hindus cannot battle anybody with their open-ended theology. And so most Hindus will not fight Islam, but advocate peace with Muslims, while Muslims call for the destruction of all religions, including Hinduism.

 

Hence the Hindus are most ineffectual and in fact most Hindus would effectively be obstacles in the process of destroying Islam. Most Hindus would be sterile spectators of this process and some of them (psecs and pacifists) in fact would be trying to defend and save the Muslims. Such Hindus would themselves have to be actively destroyed, if not by the Muslims in their fight with all religions, then by the any anti-Islamic agency.

 

Once Islam is militarily defeated and then destroyed; the need of the day would be to come up with workable creative ideas, for brainwashing the remaining religious fanatics with techniques like anesthesia leading to amnesia and re-education of such brainwashed ex-religious fanatics; or the use of mass lobotomy to achieve the same result. Only such a technique could prevent religious fanaticism from being resurrected with a name other than Islam and insure the progress of human civilization without any obstacle from any religion.

 

The War on Terror is the first step towards that, so we are not surprised whenever there is an escalation of this war, after all in today’s situation, we need an escalation of violence for the next few years or decades to prevent sustained religious violence in the coming centuries. A violence that has been exacerbated to blood-curdling depths by Islam - the most violent and cruel expression of the malady called religion.

 

_____________________________

[Guest guest]

Hari OM

 

"Interestingly, it is the ruthless (communistic) attitude in global state policy (after the War on Terror destroys some religions and weakens all others) that will complete this unfinished task of destroying all religion. Communism in the 20th century was a false start for atheism. Now in the 21st century, the real start for atheism (minus the economic ideology of communism) will come, which will sound the death knell of all religions."

 

This is very much similar to my own analysis and thinking.

 

In the one end of spectrum we have ruthless, cunning, shrewd, heartless and mericless Jihadis who want nothing else but 72 virgins.

 

In other end of spectrum we have confused and idioatic politcians, police,intellgience, beuracrats etc., who are more worried about their job, promotion, increment, pensions, family, children, press reports, human (or animal) rights, tv coverage,etc.,

 

So this is a skewed and asymmetric war with the probability of non-muslims success very low. So i fear that muslims will continue to win for quiet some times with the support of press and gandhians. By the time people would wake up, it may be too late, with some sort of calipha installed and tranny let loose with world slipped many centuries back.

 

At this point a much more cruel, cunning, shrewd and heartless group (consisting of Athesists, scientists and rational thinkers minus the gandhians and comedians, since they would have been elimanted by the calipha) would arise.

 

They will be so angry against religions that they will start destroying all religious people without any notice.

 

Until here i think we both agree, even if it is based on only logical thinking without any direct proofs.

 

But they will not succeed in destroying all religions, a small group of Hindus will move to a secret place (called sambhala) and live under the fear of persecution by the other group until the end of kali yuga when Kalki destroys this group and re-establishes the Dharma again.

 

Even though the above seems to be too much dastardly and every body wants to avoid it, i doubt these events can be avoided unless some sort of miracles happen

 

[narayanadasa]

Jai Sriman Narayan:

 

I also read somewhere (dont remember) that Christianity and Islam will die very soon with whatever traces left of these will be in India only (in whatever corrupt form). I dont know if the source of this information is authentic but neverthless so just thought I will post it. This may seem real because christianity is almost dying in America with people going towards Islam and Buddhism too. Hindus need to eventually work harder to save Hinduism by learning, following and preaching at whatever opportunity available to make the above come true.

 

[jay74]

Reading the article brought tears to my eyes. We should be proud how brave our ancestors were.

 

At the same time be ashamed how morally bankrupt we have become. Where are the new Shivaji's?

 

Iam not a big fan of the Hindutva bandwagon either. They fool people and they are equally corrupt like the congress/communists.

 

My analysis is that only way Hinduism can be saved is by movements like ISKCON. They need to proliferate into the nooks and corners of INDIA.

 

Every other Hindu organisation is controlled or dominated by caste Brahmins which automatically alienates 90% of other Hindus.

 

ISKCON needs to enter into all universities and High schools. Relentless pursuit of Hindu Dharma should be followed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

thank you for the comment Prahbu.. but i do not consider myself a man yet.. im still a teenager.. not even in college.

 

sigh...

[ajit12]

India is the only country which has resisted & defeated the muslims after a struggle lasting more than a thousand years. Contrary to the popular misconception India did not have Muslim rule for thusand years. Some parts of India had msuslim rule for 100/200 years some for 800 years & some for nil. Contrary to the popular opinion hindus fought every inch of the way.

 

The real story, however, begins with Hajjaj Bin Yusuf who was Governor of Iraq. The story of Arab merchants returning from Ceylon to Basra having been looted by Sindhi pirates is well-known. It is related that some of the women who were being carried away by the pirates implored Hajjaj to rescue them.

 

Hajjaj took serious notice of the incident and wrote to Dahir, the ruler of Sind, for the release of captives as well as the goods which were being sent to the caliphate as presents by the ruler of Ceylon. Not receiving a favourable reply, Hajjaj, with the permission of Caliph Walid, sent a force to Debal under the command of Abdulla bin Nabhan. This force was annihilated by Dahir's army and its commander killed in battle. Again, Hajjaj sent a bigger expedition to Debal, to oppose which Dahir sent his son Jaisia with a fairly large contingent. For the second time Arabs were defeated and their commander Badil bin Tuhfa killed in action at Debal.

 

Before Mohammad Bin Qasim's arrival here, Rajputs were the ruling race in Sind and in the rest of northern India. The last Rajput ruler of Sind was Raja Sahasi II whose dominions extended up to Kashmir. He was a contemporary of Prophet Mohammad and professed Buddhism as did his father Siharus. The rule of Raja Sahasi II ended in 632 A.D. the year Prophet Mohammad died. He was succeeded by his Brahmin chamberlain, Chach, who had become a favourite of Sahasi's wife. Chach ruled over Sind for about 68 years from 632-700 A.D. His son Dahir was the ruler when Mohammad Bin Qasim arrived here in 711 A.D.

 

The line of rulership before Islam runs thus: Siharus, Sahasi II, Chach, Dahir. The first two were Buddhist Rajputs and the last two Hindu Brahmins. The new Brahmin rulers were extremely hostile towards the Buddhists who were in substantial numbers in Sind at that time and they had ruthlessly suppressed the Jats and Meds who formed the bulk of the peasantry. Humiliating conditions were imposed on the Jats depriving them of many civil rightsIt was because of this background that Mohammad Bin Qasim received cooperation from the Buddhists as well as the Jats and Meds during his campaign in Sind. Among others who did not oppose Mohammad Bin Qasim's advance and made peace with him was the Bhutto tribe. In fact he was hailed as deliverer by several sections of local population. The humble position of the Buddhists in Sind seeking support from outside can be read in the Chach Nama.

 

In Sind the recall of Mohammad Bin Qasim was followed by a Hindu reaction and rebellion which almost wiped out the results of the first victories.

When Hakam bin Awanah was appointed Governor of Sind, he found that the natives had rebelled and apostasized.The Muslim reule in India was thus at astandstill for the next 200 years

After conquering Turkey and Kabul the Arabs fixed their gaze on Kashmir in the middle of the 8th century. During the middle of this era the Arab Chieftains attempted, many times, to trample Kashmir but they licked dust because of the powerful Kashmiri emperors and chivalrous soldiers. Kashmiris not only put up fierce resistance but defeated the invaders.Everytime they returned without any success. In 713 Emperor of Kashmir, Chandrapeed, defeated Mohd. Bin Qasim. Second time Emperor Lalitaditya defeated the Arab Chietain, Hisham, in 724 and finally in 754 one Arab Chieftain, Kalif Mansoor, set his foot on Kashmir but had to return aftering tasting defeat. The same way Mohd. Gaznavi witnessed defeat twice at the hands of Kashmiris and fled to Gazni and never came to Kashmir, thereafter.

The Hindushahi dynasty in Kabul,Peshawar[Purush war] held further muslim encroachments at bay for more than 200 years. This contribution of the hindushahi dynasty is not acknowledged.The Hindushahi Raja Jaipal was successful in building up a vast empire extending from Sirhind to Lamghan with Bhatinda its capital. After establishing its firm sway over Afghanistan, the new Turkish regime entered into armed clashes with Hindushahi Jaipal of the Punjab. The struggle between the two powers lasted several decades. In or about A.D. 991, Jaipal organised a confederacy of Hindu Kings, to ward off the growing Muslim menace, but failed in his endeavour. However, Trilochan Pal of this dynasty who ruled from A.D. 1012 to 1021 restored some of the prestige of the dynasty. He shifted his capital from Bhatinda to Sirhind. Thus Sirhind acquired the honour of being the capital and first city of the Hindushahis.

 

But the Hindushahi rulers could not stand against the incessant invasions of Mahmud Ghazanvi who made as many as seventeen attacks on India. Ghaznavi's path lay through Punjab and this part of our country was laid waste by the hordes of plunderers. The Hindu Kingdom of Shahiya which ruled Punjab at that time was completely extinguished.

 

From such conditions of chaos created by the continuous onslaughts of the Mohammadan invaders and especially those of Mahmud of Ghazanavi, the Rajputs rose to power after the fall of the Hindushahis in the Punjab. The Chauhans first ruled in Ajmer but it appeared that by A.D. 1164 they had occupied Delhi as well as the entire tract of territory lying between it and the Satluj. Sirhind and Bathinda constituted the two most important military stations on the north western frontier of the Rajput Kingdom.

Shihabuddin Muhammad Ghori (A.D. 1186-1206) brother of the sultan of Ghor, he was made governor of Ghazni in 1173 and from there launched a series of invasions of India. By 1186 he had conquered the Muslim principalities in the Punjab. He was severely defeated by the Rajputs under Prithvi Raj in 1191, However he defeated and killed Prithviraj Chauhan, the last illustrious king of this dynasty the next year i.e.1192. As a result of this, not only Sirhind but also the entire territory up to Delhi passed under control of the Turks.

With the defeat of Prithvi Raj Chauhan at the hands of Muhammad Ghori in A.D. 1192 at Tarain, Punjab entered a new chapter of History, during which the Hindus had to face subjugation, intimidation, humiliation and hardship. At times the persecution led to total destruction of villages.

The Delhi sultans tried to convert Hindus & put the people through untold amount of hardship. However Hindus kept fighting & resisting .Orissa,and parts of Bihar and Assam did not pass under Muslim rule for a considerable period of time.

Rajputs & Parmars then retreated to Rajputana & were never ever subjugated by Muslims, only when Akbar the great used guile and made them join forces with him were Rajputs under a Muslim king.Even then the Rajput Kingdoms were more or less independent.

Muslim sultans were never safe. They faced continued opposition from the Hindu majority who rebelled against their conquerors. Malik Kafur reached and captured Warangal, later on reaching the Malabar kingdoms. Mubarak of Delhi reached Warangal again in 1323. Between 1334 and 1336, Muhammad Tughlaq of Delhi again overran the region, capturing AnegondiIn about 1510, Both Harihar and Bukka founders of Vijaynagara kingdom were captured, converted to Islam And taken to Delhi as children. However they escaped, came back to the south .Swami Vidyaranya converted them back to Hinduism and inspired them to found Hindu kingdom of Vijaynagar.This was again a glorious chapter .

The Vijaynagar empire is generally considered to have reached its peak during the rule of Krishna Deva Raya. Krishna conquered or subjugated territories on the east of the Deccan that belonged previously to Orissa. Many of the great monuments of the empire date from his time.

He was followed by Achyuta Raya in 1530. In 1542, Achyuta was succeeded by Rama (of the third dynasty), who seems to have made a point of defying & provoking the Deccan sultanates, so that eventually they allied against him. In 1565, at the battle of Talikota, the army of Vijayanagara was routed by an alliance of the Deccan sultanates. The Muslim armies proceeded to raze the capital virtually to the ground. The Raya fled south to Penukonda.

Within 50 years of the end of Vijaynagar you have Shivaji & Marathas rebelling & establishing hindu kingdom. Marathas in fact defeated Mughals during Aurangjeb’s lifetime.Aurangjeb admitted this during his last days. The Sikhs ,rajputs ,jats etc. immediately rushed in and overthrew muslim rule within 80 years from the death of Aurangjeb.When the British firmed their rule the majority of the Rajahs were hindus.

This is a continued history of dogged resistance & victory culimanating in 1971 Bangladesh war which no other country can claim against the muslims .Through out the muslim rule there were hundreds of smaller states which were with the Hindus.Hindus took a savage battering over the centuries but rose again & again.

[jay74]

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The line of rulership before Islam runs thus: Siharus, Sahasi II, Chach, Dahir. The first two were Buddhist Rajputs and the last two Hindu Brahmins. The new Brahmin rulers were extremely hostile towards the Buddhists who were in substantial numbers in Sind at that time and they had ruthlessly suppressed the Jats and Meds who formed the bulk of the peasantry. Humiliating conditions were imposed on the Jats depriving them of many civil rightsIt was because of this background that Mohammad Bin Qasim received cooperation from the Buddhists as well as the Jats and Meds during his campaign in Sind. Among others who did not oppose Mohammad Bin Qasim's advance and made peace with him was the Bhutto tribe. In fact he was hailed as deliverer by several sections of local population. The humble position of the Buddhists in Sind seeking support from outside can be read in the Chach Nama.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Finally this is what happenend.

 

 

Enslavement by the Arabs

 

During the Arab invasion of Sindh (712 C.E.), Muhammad bin Qasim first attacked Debal, a word derived from Deval meaning temple. It was situated on the sea-coast not far from modern Karachi. It was garrisoned by 4000 Kshatriya soldiers and served by 3000 Brahmans. All males of the age of seventeen and upwards were put to the sword and their women and children were enslaved.1 “700 beautiful females, who were under the protection of Budh (that is, had taken shelter in the temple), were all captured with their valuable ornaments, and clothes adorned with jewels.”2 Muhammad despatched one-fifth of the legal spoil to Hajjaj which included seventy-five damsels, the rest four-fifths were distributed among the soldiers.3 Thereafter whichever places he attacked like Rawar, Sehwan, Dhalila, Brahmanabad and Multan, Hindu soldiers and men with arms were slain, the common people fled, or, if flight was not possible, accepted Islam, or paid the poll tax, or died with their religion. Many women of the higher class immolated themselves in Jauhar, most others became prize of the victors. These women and children were enslaved and converted, and batches of them were des-patched to the Caliph in regular installments. For example, after Rawar was taken Muhammad Qasim “halted there for three days during which he massacred 6000 (men). Their followers and dependents, as well as their women and children were taken prisoner.” Later on “the slaves were counted, and their number came to 60, 000 (of both sexes?). Out of these, 30 were young ladies of the royal blood… Muhammad Qasim sent all these to Hajjaj” who forwarded them to Walid the Khalifa. “He sold some of these female slaves of royal birth, and some he presented to others.”4 Selling of slaves was a common practice. “From the seventh century onwards and with a peak during Muhammad al-Qasim’s campaigns in 712-13”, writes Andre Wink, “a considerable number of Jats was captured as prisoners of war and deported to Iraq and elsewhere as slaves.”5 Jats here is obviously used as a general word for all Hindus. In Brahmanabad, “it is said that about six thousand fighting men were slain, but according to others sixteen thousand were killed”, and their families enslaved.6 The garrison in the fort-city of Multan was put to the sword, and families of the chiefs and warriors of Multan, numbering about six thousand, were enslaved.

 

In Sindh female slaves captured after every campaign of the marching army, were converted and married to Arab soldiers who settled down in colonies established in places like Mansura, Kuzdar, Mahfuza and Multan. The standing instructions of Hajjaj to Muhammad bin Qasim were to “give no quarter to infidels, but to cut their throats”, and take the women and children as captives.7 In the final stages of the conquest of Sindh, “when the plunder and the prisoners of war were brought before Qasim… one-fifth of all the prisoners were chosen and set aside; they were counted as amounting to twenty thousand in number… (they belonged to high families) and veils were put on their faces, and the rest were given to the soldiers”.8 Obviously a few lakh women were enslaved in the course of Arab invasion of Sindh.

 

 

 

[Sephiroth]

My dear forumer ... you are very much mistake.

 

The war is over in physical aspect (unless you count India and Pakistan going at each other since 1950s) but the healing process is still going on. Compare to fighting a war, it is the healing process which takes most out of the survivors of war.

 

1,000 years of slavery cannot be healed in about 50 years of (so-called) independance.

 

Hindusm suffered a lot in India during the last 1,000 years but it continued to suffer even today due to the effect of Slavery exist in India today.

 

Christians are still a threat ... you kicked out British Christians but went an invited even worst Christians than British - the Americans. At least the British were intelligent and had class, Americans are barbaric and stupid to boot. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

Muslims are still a threat ... Indians managed kick them out of the border but this parasites are still trying to get back in. Worse still ... they managed to grab hold of portion of Kashmir.

 

Atheists are still bunch of ba$tards (in whatever country), they don't deduct the Hindusm properly and spend their useless existence condemning Hindusm and some even go to extend of mimic Americans who they say as very civilized people. This sort of people should be gathered and shot in the street. PS : Sorry, I really don't like atheists.

 

India are facing similar era as what Japan had in 1880s - 1910s during Meiji Restoration Era. It was era of turmoil and great suffering and it took everything Japan had and hold to get out in one piece as it is today. Frankly speaking, I don't know whether Indians have what it takes to come out like what. If they don't, India will perish. /images/graemlins/frown.gif

[narayanadasa]

Jai Sriman Narayan:

 

Yes, it is good that ISCKON is doing good work preaching in the west and elsewhere by a simple method - hari nama sankirtana. May be for a start this is really very very good. I also found very very useful information in Srila Prahbhpada's books especially since the purport takes the latest worldly situation since it was written very recently compared to other books.... so easier for a layman to understand.

 

Being a non ISCKONite (since they are non-hindus as they sometimes say, may be not wrong if I say this)

I certainly dont like some ideas of (1)changing stances on whether they are hindus or non-hindus as applicable (2)saying that vedas are not for this age.. why not? there are many even today them who learn, and can recite correctly, why not encourage them? (3)making very strong comments about Sri.Sankaracharya, Advaita - they have the right/freedom to disagree but not the right to make strong negative comments which they can make more polishly (4) Still going by the christian/islam way stating that "ISKCON is the only way (same like what is said in Christianity about Jesus and Islam about Prophet Mohammad)".

 

[Guest guest]

Hari OM

 

Your articles are quite good and relevant please dont waste your time arguing with people like ajit who had entered the forum with an agenda, who is not interested in truth or any historical proof.

 

his kind says that the local population loved muslims and hated brahmins, which is continued till date by the politicians and population.

 

Even through there is no one shred of evidence for brahmin suicide-bombers, or brahmin looters, rapists anywhere, only thing brahmins were accused of is highly proud people who didn't mingle freely with other groups.

 

They don't care about the facts, only thing they want is that dharma to be destroyed and replaced with adharma since they see adharma as dharma and all things upside down (typically living example of tamo guna persons stated in gita)

 

They can go any extent to lie, corrupt anything to achieve their objective, since their objective is so much dear to them than truth.

 

They keep on repeating the propoganda that caste, oppression , sea pirates, etc., etc., was the reason and India deserved to be attacked and teached a lesson by the muslims. But the fact of matter is that muslims are a barbaric race who does not know how to co-exist with others , even within their own sub-sects and want to eliminate every body else. How much of intellectual juggelry these people do they can't cover this fact (as they say in tamil you can't hide a full pumpkin inside a rice bowl)

[ajit12]

Dear Guest, what exactly in my post you found to be anti dharma.Iam giving the background to the glorious struggle of more than a thousand years put up by the Hindus.it is also necessary to ensure that we look at our mistakes critically and in an objective way,so that we do not become slaves again through the same mistakes.

I am the only one who has pointed out that despite a number of defeats it is we hindus who were victorius and not defeated.What is important is that we do not lose our victory

Your irrational anger is more Tamoguni than my post.Despite Gita saying 'Krodhat bahvti snmoha etc.'

[Guest guest]

his kind says that the local population loved muslims and hated brahmins, which is continued till date by the politicians and population.****

 

Correct, but politicians are also to be blamed for blaming everything on the Brahmins.

 

Even through there is no one shred of evidence for brahmin suicide-bombers, or brahmin looters, rapists anywhere, only thing brahmins were accused of is highly proud people who didn't mingle freely with other groups.***

 

Unfortunately, that's treated on par with atrocious acts committed by sick muslim/christian terrorists.

 

They don't care about the facts, only thing they want is that dharma to be destroyed***

 

And the best way to do that is to attack the foundation itself, namely the Brahmin. Our enemies are playing their cards well.

 

They can go any extent to lie, corrupt anything to achieve their objective, since their objective is so much dear to them than truth.***

 

In kali yuga, more so than in other yugas, the asuras (rajasic and tamasic souls) outweigh the satvikas. No wonder, innocent people are suffering and asuras like our politicians, NGOs are actively helping *other* asuras, of whom I don't have to make an explicit mention.

 

They keep on repeating the propoganda that caste, oppression , sea pirates, etc., etc.***

 

Yes, it is funny how they always focus on caste when there are more important issues like communism killing 100m in hardly 100 years, christianity that's killed 500m people, Islam which has killed another 500m, muslim suicide bombers who celebrate diwali on a daily basis, christian preachers who cure your insomnia by preaching the boring message of some guy who felt cozy on a cross, and so forth. What frustrates me more is the average hindu falling for this.

 

and India deserved to be attacked and teached a lesson by the muslims***

 

You're right, this is a very common argument, but the average dumb hidnu will fall for it. An intelligent Hindu will ask, "If Hindus deserved it, perhaps mulsims also deserved gujarat aftermath. After all, karma is applicable to everyone, right?" Unfortunately, we don't have hindus with guts.

 

But the fact of matter is that muslims are a barbaric race who does not know how to co-exist with others***

 

Both christians and Muslims, the former subtle and the latter too gross to be described.

 

even within their own sub-sects and want to eliminate every body else***

 

SUnnis have killed millions of shias and shias have killed millions of sunnis. Yet, they comment on shaivite-vaishnavite problem. Ha-ha!

 

How much of intellectual juggelry these people do they can't cover this fact***

 

No such thing is needed, because the average hindu is only too willing to believe all this, god knows why. Perhaps, it is some suicidal wish, I don't know. All I know is that most Hindus are brainless and spineless, brainless because they can't even see through this game and spineless on account of tolerating this ignominy again and again.

[Guest guest]

Hari OM

 

Thanks for the reply.

 

One more cunning trick deployed by these people

 

--we love Hinduism very much, I am fond of its teachings, HOWEVER (the keyword) it has some faults/ some misgivings and needs to be rectified to become perfect.

 

An average Hindu would accept this logic and try to focus on the "so-called mistakes" of Hinduism , which may be trivial or imaginary, and try to correct them , thinking that these "intellegensia" would do the same kind of stuff to other religions making them correct their mistakes. But Alas! poor souls they don't know these guys are not even interested (or too much afraid) to point out the mistakes of other religions, leave alone correcting them.

 

These guys go on making accustations, mistake after mistake, trivial and punny, even contradicating (saying like Hindus forced their widows to burn with husbands in one thread, and in another thread Hindus tried to exploit widows --- if widows were burnt whom did they exploit and how? did they exploited the ghosts or what) and so on and so forth.

Even minor mistakes of Hindus are maginified 1000 times in the name of self-correction, while the major mistakes of others are diminished 100 times in the name of adjustment.