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

routes. Their multiple infantry, cavalry and artillery brigades were gaily
fluttering their saffron-coloured banners and rending the skies with their
war-cry ‘Har Har Mahadev!’ And in those very districts, towns and cities of
Mysore, Karnataka and Maharashtra, through which these warriors paraded
their victorious exultation, lay rotting and slaving in various Muslim
houses, the thousands of abducted Hindu women, while men equally large
in numbers, were leading a miserable life of shame and remorse for their
forced conversion to Islam. The exultant war cries of ‘Har Har Mahadev’ of
these Hindu warriors, following closely the glad news of victory and the
downfall of the Muslim state of Mysore, must have informed them of the
triumphal march of the Maratha conquering armies through their own
towns, villages and cities. How eagerly these unfortunate Hindu converts—
and especially the women—must have hastened to crowd the windows,
doors, fissures and small openings of those Muslim prison-like houses and
cottages, to have, at least, a fleeting glimpse of those martial processions!
And how keenly must their sorely afflicted hearts have felt the happy yet
acutely painful pangs of intense expectation of imminent deliverance from
those satanic Muslim dungeons and confines! ‘At last—at long last—they
have come! ’They might have said to themselves, “Our/my Hindu brothers
have come trampling down the wicked hearts of the Muslim tyrants to
deliver us from their abject servitude!’ On occasions, some of them might
have very probably seen their own fathers or brothers or husbands or
relatives or at least some neighbours proudly strutting through the streets in
their triumphal marches!
The lack of will
579. On such occasions, if only these proudly marching military
detachments of Hindu warriors had simply willed it, they could have in no
time set free those thousands of miserable Hindu men and women rotting in
Muslim bondage. They could have simply gone on doing it just as they
passed along the streets! So simple the whole thing really was. But...!
580. For, at that time, the Muslims, neither individually nor collectively,
had any courage or strength left in them to oppose the triumphant Hindu
army. At the approach of the Maratha soldiery, the Mullah-Maulvis and the
rogues, knaves and brigands were at great pains to hide their faces into
whichever nook or ditch they could find, in order to save their lives.
580A. If only one gay blast from the Maratha bugle had rung out and
reverberated through every town and every village, assuring the people in