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

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