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

Sahajdharis follow the path of Guru Nanak. They don’t allow the hair to
grow uncut, nor are they particular about following the other ‘kakkas’.
Thousands of such Hindu Sikhs fall under this Sahajdhari sect. But it must
be remembered that it was Shree Govind Singh who, by giving them a
martial garb, built the Sikhs into a virile sub-Hindu nation, which could
ultimtely oust the Muslim rule from the Punjab at the point of the sword.
975. Shree Veer Banda Bairagi—The name, which can never be omitted
from the list of the brave martyrs of Hindu history, is that of Veer Banda
Bairagi, who for the first time avenged the wrongs done by the Muslims on
the Hindus and even boldly attacked them. He was originally a Vaishnav
saint known round about Nanded, where he happened to meet Guru Govind
Singh, from whom he gradually learnt of the miserable plight of the Hindus
in Punjab, of the harrowing calamities that befell Guru Govind Singh’s own
family and of the relentless war he himself had carried out in spite of all
odds. He was particularly much moved to hear the despairing complaint of
the Guru that there was nobody left in Punjab to avenge the tragic deaths of
his four sons. His blood began to boil and he once again took the bow and
arrows of his former vocation in life. Guru Govind Singh wrote a note to all
his former disciples to render Veer Banda every possible help. Taking that
note and vowing terrible revenge upon the Muslims for the inhuman
atrocities committed by them on the Hindus, this brave Hindu soul made his
way to the Punjab.
976. But alas! want of space and my own old age makes it imperative that
whatever is written so far should be somehow rounded up. Else I would
certainly have described, if not in full, at least briefly the havoc Veer Baba
Banda wrought amongst the Muslims of Punjab, their grand slaughter, the
most appropriate retaliation of the molestation of the Hindu women, the
capture of the same Sirhind, where Guru Govind Singh’s two sons were
buried alive behind the brick-walls, and the eventual burning of the Muslim
locality there, not to speak of the abject parade of Muslim men, women and
children, barefooted. In the hot sun, the same atrocious tortures of the
Muslims as were visited upon the Hindus for not renouncing Hinduism and
finally the proclamation of a Hindu State in the whole of Punjab. We have
already shown in the sixth chapter of this book, how the Muslim
community was panic-stricken whenever the Hindus opened up religious
aggression on the Muslims. Baba Banda also struck terror in the hearts of
the Punjabi Muslims by his retaliatory aggression. At last, the Emperor of