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

hastened our terrible downfall as determinedly and as enormously as even
our enemies, the Muslims, could not perhaps accomplish. Manliness and
valour came to be condemned as the vilest of vices. The unmanly, the
imbecile, the valour-lacking coward, not only lacking the ability but even
the desire to avenge the national insult and injustice, came to be highly
respected in religious circles as the greatest and most magnanimous saint,
ripe for an honourable place in heaven.
646. This point has already been adequately discussed with sufficient
proofs and illustration in chapter VIII under the caption ‘Perverted Sense of
Virtues’ and in other chapters also; and it will be touched again, while we
shall be narrating the events on the political front. Here, it has to be
remembered that as all the invasions on India after the Puranic times had
been political and not religious (at least not of such huge dimensions as
those of the Rakshasas so as to shake the very foundation of our religion),
we had completely forgotten the old war-strategy to meet such terrible
religious aggression. Our very definitions of virtues and religion and their
practice had undergone a complete change. The war-strategy of Nursinh of
the ancient times, which sought a tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye had
now become vegetarian, submissive, tolerant and shameless!
647. Naturally, when Islam invaded Hinduism with far more ferocity and
bitterness and with more dangerous weapons than the Rakshasas of the
Puranic age, our Hindu ancestors of the seventh century had no other war-
strategy to face it with than the imbecile, impotent and suicidal—one which
offered milk to a venomous serpent. To encounter the wolf, the sheep had
preferred its own neck! All this, as also our consequent enormous losses on
the religious front, has been clearly shown in the earlier chapters. Hence,
we shall now begin a critical study of the political side of this Hindu-
Muslim epic struggle.