भारतीय इतिहास के ६ स्वर्णिम पृष्ठ (वीर सावरकर - विदेशी आक्रान्ताओं पर विजय गाथा)
Six Glorious Epochs of Indian History by Veer Savarkar
स्वातंत्र्यवीर विनायक दामोदर सावरकर द्वारा
establishment of a new Hindu Kingdom by Maharaja Ranjit Singh right
from the river Shatadru (Sutlej) to the Sindhu (Indus) and much above
towards Jammu and Kashmir by uprooting the Muslim power from Punjab
and avenging the defeats of Jaypal and Anangpal. But even today, it pains
me to say that the manuscript of that book must have very likely fallen into
the English hands who destoryed it. Else, the person with whom I had
entrusted it to be taken to India for being printed and published, must have
drowned it into the sea for fear of the search by the English police
somewhere on his way to India. Doubtless it is, that Marathi book of mine
has been lost before it could be published—has been destroyed!
978. Even then whoever has a mind should read my poem composed in
the Andamans on this tragic, yet imperishable and resplendent martyrdom
of Shree Veer Banda, which is available even now.
979. According to the belief prevalent among his disciples, Veer Banda’s
body was thrown away into the debris on the outskirts of the city under the
impression that he was dead. But with his magic power and some
miraculous herb that his disciples made him eat, Veer Banda Baba came to
his senses and he was secretly and immediately taken to Punjab. Further on,
an institution grew up in his name and hundreds of his Sikh followers have
kept it running to this day under the name ‘Bandai’. Like the Kuka
followers of Guru Ram Singh of a later date, these ‘Bandais’ call
themselves Hindus.
980. After the tragic death of Veer Banda, there was no armed force left
either of the Khalsas, Bandais, Sahajdharis or any other Sikh or Hindu sect.
Every one of them was disorganized and disgruntled. But on the contrary,
the Muslim political power had begun to crumble down by the time it was
fighting with Veer Banda. Throughout the whole of India, a new resurgent
Hindu power—the Maratha military and political aspiration—was dealing
knock-down blows to the Moghal imperial power and the latter existed only
nominally from Delhi to Punjab, Multan, Kashmir and Kandahar. Only the
local ruffians terrorized the general populace with their bands of
scoundrels!
981. How the Sikh power grew thereafter and how, at last in the times of
Maharaja Ranjit Singh, it spread throughout the whole of Punjab and
Kashmir, obliterating every vestige of the Muslim rule and how the Hindu
independent empire came into existence—we can only just hint at here! For
all these events fall out of the period under discussion here.
- However, two or three statements about this period of Punjabi
History can be made here briefly and it is necessary to do so. - The first successful attempt to overthrow the Muslim rule in Punjab
was made by the Marathas. The belief prevalent in the histories of the Sikhs
and in the other loosely written history books of India that the Sikhs ousted
the Muslim rule from Punjab for the first time is erroneous. Even when the
Sikhs were at the height of their glory, they could not conquer the
neighbouring Muslim capital, Delhi. In bringing this to light, we do not in
the least mean to disparage the Sikhs, but we do certainly want to stop
every attempt at belittling the national glory of the Marathas, by pointing
out false things. No doubt, the credit of overthrowing the Muslim rule, at
least in the precincts of Punjab and establishing there an independent Hindu
State, like that of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, goes primarily to our Sikh
organisation. But it is equally true, beyond any vestige of doubt, that the
Maratha valour which, lunging, as it did, from Poona, fluttered the
victorious and resplendent flag of the Hindu nation to the South right up to
Tanjawar (Tanjore) and to the north to the very banks of the Sindhu (Indus)
and beyond, fighting battles after battles and reducing the Muslim Emperor
of Delhi to a nominal existence—a thing of shreds and patches—can have
no parallel at least in the Hindu history of that long period of seven
centuries. - The Independent Hindu State of Nepal: In our history books and the
school textbooks of Indian history, almost every Indian region is mentioned.
But strangely enough, the state of Nepal and the valiant Hindu Kingdom
there is never mentioned—or if at all, only in passing over the campaigns of
Ochterloney—as if Nepal is in no way connected with Hindu India. But, in
fact, Nepal is as much an indivisible part of India as are Maharashtra,
Punjab or Madras. These regions might have been governed by different
rulers at different times, but the term Hindu Nation is equally applicable to
all of them. The rest of the Indian continent was subjected to aggressions by
Asian Muslims and European Christians during the last nine or ten centuries
and there were constant wars. But fortunately, Nepal was singularly
immune to all the political and religious aggressions. On the whole, in
Nepal alone, could Hindu religion and Hindu culture maintain its
independence unimpaired against the incursions of the foreigners. As such,
Nepal must really be considered to be the best part of Hindu India, and
should be given the palm of honour in the history of our Hindu Nation! But
because of our thoughtlessness, the result is just the reverse. Only because
Nepal did not get lost in the mire of foreign domination and slavery and
because it kept itself aloof from the political upheavals in India, our
frivolous history books mention that nation only in passing or never at all!
985. In order to rectify this spineless (dishonourable) perversion, we
started a movement in India as soon as we were released from the
Andamans in 1924 in respect of Nepal, as people well know. At that very
time, we wrote a book on the History of Nepalese Movement! (नेपाली
आंदोलनाचा इतिहास) and in it we gave an account of the brave history
of Nepal and its role in the protection and maintenance of the independence
of Hindu religion and culture. But now in this discourse on Hindu history,
paucity of space prevents any such detailed account--and there is no need
for it. In the early part of the tenth century and onwards, Nepal was
governed by Newari Hindus. Thereafter, it was captured by some of the
Rajputs who left Rajputana because of the Muslim aggression to seek
fortune elsewhere. Gradually, these Rajputs spread up to Kathmandu, which
they made their capital. The strong Hindu government which these Rajputs
established there is the modern Nepal. This much reference is enough here
to attract the attention of the Indian Hindus to its importance and to the
homogeneity of race of Nepal with ours.
986. These Rajputs being strong worshippers and protectors of the cow
(गोरक्षक), eventually came to be called Gorkha by caste.
986A. Although it refers to the more recent times, we should like to make
a special mention of the fact that while the whole of India was being
governed by the English, thousands of Gorkhas (Gurkhas) had joined the
English army and in both the great world wars, they showed so much
prowess and bravery and exceptional skill in fighting, that even the best
soldiers in England, America and Germany, too, were astounded. Hence,
today a Gurkha soldier has proverbially come to mean an excellent warrior!
The latter half of Akbar's life
987. It has already been shown, in Paragraphs 946 to 954 of this book,
what cruelty and atrocity Akbar resorted to in order to crush Hinduism and
the Hindu rulers. Even those passing references alone are quite sufficient to
prove that he was as fanatical and as fiercely inimical to Hinduism and the
Hindu nation, as was either Allauddin or Aurangzeb.
- European writers on Indian history slowly hint and our Hindu writers
slavishly and thoughtlessly imitate them. When they say that Akbar was not
like other Moghal or Muslim fellows, meaning thereby that he did not hate
Hinduism and the Hindu nation, that he was just, and never differentiated
between the Hindus and the Muslims, that he ruled equitably and, as such,
the Hindus must be highly grateful to him. This eulogy of Akbar is utterly
false. We, Hindus, can either show respect, gratitude and affection for Rana
Pratap or for his dire enemy, Akbar. How can we show equal affection and
respect for both of them? How can we worship God and the devil at the
same time? How even can we compare the fanatical Akbar who deprived
the independence of the Hindu kings like Rana Pratap and thrust the yoke of
slavery on their necks, who demanded the Hindu royal princesses as queens
and concubines in order to add insult to their injury and attacked with his
vast armies those, who declined to do so, and crushed them completely—
how can we compare him with those thousands of martyrs and valiant
Hindu leaders like Rana Pratap and Rani Durgawati, who laid down their
lives on the battlefields in defence of Hindu Nation, Hindu states and Hindu
religion? - Another important point that has so far escaped the notice of many of
our gullible and slavish Hindu writers, is that to say that Akbar treated all
his subjects equally and sponsored equality of status for the whole humanity
—as is being taught in schools—is absolutely erroneous and is the result of
bad habit of extolling the Muslims unproportionately. For, being a Moghal
Emperor, he never hesitated to crush down ruthlessly anyone who refused
to bear the yoke of his sovereignty—might he then be a Muslim or a Hindu!
Now all the Muslims were not Moghals. As a matter of fact, many of them
hated the Moghals bitterly, because he had extended his empire by
destroying the old Afghan and Turkish Sultanates. It means that like any
other ambitious adventurer, Akbar fought for the sake of his own Moghal
glory not only against the Hindus alone but against others also. Obviously
enough, he did not treat even the Muslims equally. He liquidated and
annexed many Muslim kingdoms. Only with a view to safeguarding the
interests of his empire, did Akbar in his later life repeal the revolting
religious taxes like the Jizia and refrained from opening campaigns of mass
conversion of Hindus. There was no such intention of behaving equitably,
the Hindus and the Muslims behind this policy, as is generally supposed.
On the contrary, he knew quite well that whenever such atrocities were
committed on the Hindus, in the name of religion, by the former Sultans,
they were followed with disastrous revolts. Sometimes, even the whole
Sultanates were consumed in the conflagration of the Hindu wrath. In order
to avoid this disastrous end for his empire, and to establish a tranquil
administration of his own, did he treat all his subjects, whether they were
Hindus or Muslims, justly so far as their individual life was concerned and
much more leniently and harmlessly than other emperor like Allauddin or
Aurangzeb. But once again, let it be remembered that it was not because he
believed in the equality of men or the equality of the Hindus and the
Muslims irrespective of their religion, certainly not because he did not
consider the Hindus to be kafirs!
990. Once he became the all-powerful and absolute monarch in temporal
affairs of his empire, his ambition goaded him on to found a new religion to
be another Paigambar and lord of the spiritual life of the people! To that
end, he thought of starting an absolutely new religion quite different from
either Hinduism or Islam. But here, also, it must be remembered that as he
knew it would be disastrous to force it cruelly on the people, as had other
Muslim Sultans done earlier or as Aurangzeb did it later, Akbar very slyly
tried to undermine Hinduism through his Din-e-elahi; for the Chief
Paigambarship of this religion was to be ceded inevitably to Akbar himself.
No Hindu could greet others with a ‘Namaskar’, he had per force to say
‘Allah-o-Akbar!’ The accredited language, too, of this new religion ‘Din-e-
elahi’ was Arabic! It may, however, be noted in passing, that this quixotic
ambition (idea) of Akbar of becoming the spiritual lord of the human race
came to nought. For, beside the flattering sycophants in his court, none of
the Hindus or the Muslims accepted it as their creed; the sycophants
themselves had nothing to do with it the moment Akbar died.
990A. However, of the many great emperors that lived at the time in
Europe or Africa or Asia, Akbar was the greatest in respect of his strategy,
his wielding of the widest power, bravery, founding of a vast empire, his
patronage of learning and arts and crafts. Although, according to some
writers, he was illiterate, he patronized great authors and encouraged the
writing of famous books! This comparative greatness history can concede
to him, and we do not hesitate to call him great as he really was. But with
all that greatness, he was, from our Hindu point of view, foreign, belonging
to another religion and mean-minded and, as such, he should be decried by
us, Hindus!
(इस पृष्ठ पर कोई पाठ्य सामग्री नहीं है / This page contains no text.)
Come the Avengers of the Atrocious
Muslims' Rule: The Marathas!
991. It is a common belief that the writing of history must be a prosaic
account of bare facts describing them as they have actually happened, and it
is mostly right. There ought to be a marked difference between the
descriptions of something that is purely imaginary and poetic and of
something that has actually happened. The one can best be well expressed
in a faithful and matter-of-fact way.
991.A. Yet merely to list out the correct dates and years of historical
events, to note the deaths and births of certain individuals, and to keep a
record of battles fought or the occurrence of famines and floods cannot be
called history, although such a bare record of these various events is the
basis of history. It may, at best, be called a chronological account. But there
is a borderland between pure history and pure unalloyed poetry, which can
adequately and effectively be expressed by a fine blending of history and
poetry. Without such a blending of history and poetry, descriptions of such
events can never be living. While describing such events, history itself
becomes poetry. Such occasions and events can never be effectively
described without resorting to mythological and romantic metaphors and
grand poetic style. Simple events can be described as truthfully as they
happen in prose, but human nature demands that everything that is unique,
everything that is stupendous and splendid and exciting, must be expressed
in a highly emotional and ornate style, be it an event of a very recent
occurrence. Simple dry prose will never be able to sustain it. It is these
exciting events that make a man roar with laughter, groan with sorrow,
dance with joy or get wild with rage—in short, exciting events make him
speak the language of poetry! It may be prose, but poetic prose, often
bedecked with dazzling ornaments of simile, metaphor and other figures of
speech, as is the prince of princes adorned with the real ones!
992. निषादविद्धाण्डज दर्शनोत्थः
श्लोकत्वमापद्यत यस्य शोकः
“His grief at the destruction of the bird by the hunter took the form of a
four-lined verse—a श्लोक”
- Is it not testimony enough that the very first quatrain by the very first
poet should be born of a highly exciting sentiment, which could never be
conveyed in simple words? - Precaution, however, must be taken that the poetic description of
such exceptional yet exciting events should not pervert the original facts. A
well-authenticated history should express itself through all this emotional
display. - The period of Indian history, which we are now going to discuss in
this book is from the point of view of the Hindu Nation so glorious, so
thrilling, and so full of daring events that the poetic style of writing alone
can describe it adequately and in a living manner. - In the twentieth chapter of this book, the Hindu-Muslim war, which
had been going on for six centuries, had entered the seventh. But even when
such a long time of bitter warfare had elapsed and even when the Hindu
Nation had been sorely plagued and profusely bled by the ferocious religio-
political aggressions of all the Asian Muslims—the Arabs, the Afghans, the
Pathans, the Turks, the Moghals—yet even by the beginning of the
seventeenth century, the Hindu Nation had, neither in the north nor in the
south, been completely vanquished! Nay, it was still fighting on bravely on
the battlefield itself, although sorely smarting under the countless wounds it
had so far received. On the contrary, the aggressive might of all the Asian
Muslims had been steadily but surely getting weaker and weaker after their
incessant warfare with the Hindus right from the beginning of the eighth
century to the death of Akbar. We have already shown, in Paragraphs 818 to
857 of this book in the chapter named ‘The Beginning of the Fall of the
Muslim Power’, how that ‘beginning’ was made from the 14th century and
how the ground was being prepared for the establishment of the victorious
Hindu Kingdoms, like that of Vijaynagar. - The same resurgent spirit of the Hindus grew steadily every day and
ultimately by the time which the course of our story has now reached, the
presiding deity of the Hindu Nation seems to have felt the dire necessity to
use the histro-mythological phraseology, of bringing forth an
extraordinarily, illustrious Hindu family which could ultimately lead the
ever-growing Hindu might throughout the whole of India. In the old times
when that deity felt a similar need of extirpating the Saka-Hun and other
Mlenchhas, she performed, according to Chand Bhat in his epic ‘The Story
of Agnikula’, a great sacrifice on Mount Abu and brought forth four Indian
Hindu heroes. But unfortunately, it was not sufficient to bring forth four
such valiant heroes to meet the exigency of the times of which we are
telling here, to extirpate the Muslim political power throughout India. A
whole generation of such divinely blessed heroes was needed for such a
stupendous task! As such, to use again the metaphorical style of Chand
Bhat, the presiding deity of the Hindu nation glanced all over India. That
enraged deity sprinkled her holy water on the heights of Sahyadri thinking,
perhaps, that region alone was the fittest one for the final overthrow of the
Muslim power after a millennial war with it. How could a small sacrificial
pit at Abu be equal to that stupendous task! And all of a sudden, the whole
of the Sahyadri mountain was aglow with the fire of war and resonant with
the beat of the drum. And there arose a whole class, a whole generation of
brave warriors. Each one lighted his individual torch on the general
conflagration and traversed the whole of India with the war cry, ‘Har, Har
Mahadev’ on his lips to wipe out the Muslim political menace. The name of
this national race? It is—
‘MAHARASHTRA BORN OF THE TIMES OF SHIVAJI’
Hindu Maharashtra alone fought with the whole Muslim World
998. At this time in the millennial Hindu-Muslim epic war, such a great
catastrophe befell the whole of India—and especially Maharashtra—as had
menaced perhaps a very few nations of the world. To add to the Muslim
maelstorm, from the north European nations like the Portuguese, the Dutch,
the French and the English dashed on India—and especially the Deccan,
with an avalanchine force, and it was practically the lot of the Maharashtra,
born out of the times of Shivaji, to face all alone all these terrific
aggressions. Stranger than this is the fact that this Maharashtra, born as it
was from the sacrificial fire of dire calamities, faced them all successfully
and was a match for all the enemies! The Muslim imperial throne of Delhi
was hacked to pieces by the Marathas and the Muslim power was finally
rooted out throughout the whole of India.
999. The legend of this exceptional glory and valour of Maharashtra has
now been generally known in its true perspective and form, to the common
people in Maharashtra at least. The credit of making it widely known in its
grand and spectacular aspect, in its all-India context, must necessarily go to
the great research-scholars and writers of history like Rajwade, Ranade,
Khare, Itihasacharya Sardesai and others. But with the exception of Ranade,
others have written their books in Marathi. Histories of the Marathas
written in languages other than Marathi have been mostly written by our
age-old enemies like the Muslims, the Portuguese, the English and others
with horrid perversion of facts, and unfortunately, our Hindu writers from
the other Indian States have echoed them mostly through ignorance.
1000. Hence I, at least, felt, right from my student days, that this post-
Shivaji history of Maharashtra should be written in English, based on the
research-work done in this field till today; so that non-Maharashtrians and
other foreigners might know! But, as I had selected warfare with the then
enemy of our nation rather than that of the past, as the field of my action, I
was more and more involved in the revolutionary activities against the
British. Hence, till the time I was released from the Andamans, I had no
time to write about the past history of Maharashtra. Again I thought people
like Sardesai who had devoted themselves to the writing of history should
better undertake that job and it was, I thought, proper from the point of
view of division of labour. So off and on, I tried in that direction.
Sardesai Himself sees me
1001. By the way, it would, I think, be proper to relate just here a small
incident that bears on this topic. I had an earnest desire to see the late Shree
Sardesai from my very young days. For, his books on Indian history, we had
been reading constantly. But we were all revolutionaries, while he was a
high placed servant of a king—although that king happened to be the ruler
of a feudatory state like Baroda—subordinate to the British government!
Again, he was older; I was younger! Later on, I was transported to the
Andamans and was eventually released from there in 1924. I learn from
other people that Sardesai praised my revolutionary activities as brave
deeds. So up to the time I was at Ratnagiri, I sincerely felt that Sardesai
should write a History of the Marathas in English. As such, I sent oral
messages to him to that effect, because every letter of mine was a burning
spark of fire, which was most likely to reduce to ashes the whole house of a
government officer like him. Such things often happened in our
revolutionary life. So I kept quiet. And one fine morning, an old gentleman
appeared at my doorstep, my rented tenement in the house of Shree Nana
Patwardhan at Ratnagiri. I got up in deference to his grey hair and asked,
‘Whom have I the pleasure to receive?’ ‘I am Sardesai from Baroda’, came
the answer, ‘whom you know as the writer of Indian history’. I was
surprised. ‘What? Riyasat-Kar Sardesai?’ When he nodded his head in
assent, I told him how I had cherished high respect for him ever since I had
read his big volumes on Muslim Riyasat. I told him that I had read all of his
books. But having had a chance of mixing with non-Marathi scholars, I
could authoritatively say that they had no knowledge of the greatness of nor
even a nodding acquaintance with, the essence of Maratha history: that
many of them bore a sort of grudge towards the Marathas. So I requested
him to undertake the writing of an authentic, handy history based on solid
facts so that non-Marathi world might know it in its true form and
perspective; upon which he said that some one else should do it now. So I
said, ‘No, at least today, you are the only authoritative writer who can
possibly do it. Although your old age may present difficulties, you should
undertake it as the crowning glory of your life work. Possibly it will be
completed! You seem to have been blessed with a long life. At least, you
should begin at once to write such a history in English.’ Then after some
casual talk while seeing him off, I expressed my gratitude at the visit of
such a great historian at my residence. Before even my sentence was
completed he said ‘No, No, the real pleasure is mine! We are all the writers
of history; but you are the makers of history! When you make history, we
note it down and I came here with a sincere desire to see you as the maker
of history! And then we took leave of each other with thankful hearts.
1002. And I think it would be proper to set down just here that some
fifteen years or so after this visit of ours, he wrote as the ripe fruit of his
life, a detailed history of the Marathas in English in three volumes.
1003. As soon as I came to Ratnagiri, after being released from the
Andamans, I was forbidden to take any active part in politics and because
of the ban on the change of district, I was forced to set limits to my
movements. So in this restricted life of mine at Ratnagiri, I decided that I
myself should write a discursive book although without any help from
reference books that would interpret and explain the unrivalled valour of the
post-Shivaji Maharashtra and the freedom of the Hindu nation that it
effected by destroying the Muslim domination. Why, before the end of
February 1925, I completed the writing of that book.
Hindu Padpadshahi
1004. The very name of that book I chose as ‘Hindu Padpadshahi’ rather
than merely the history of the Marathas. For, in my opinion, the Marathas in
general did not fight only for Maharashtra, nor for their household land or
their fields. Their sole objective was to liberate Hindu religion and Hindu
Nation—of which Maharashtra was known to them to be only a part—from
the yoke of Muslim domination and to establish all over India, a sovereign
Hindu power. The inner urge of the new resurgent Maharashtra was to
dethrone the Muslim imperial power at Delhi, and to hoist in its place the
Hindu imperial standard. The anguish that rankled in the hearts of the
Hindus and that found expression in Shree Ramdas’s famous couplet—
1005-6.या सकल भूमंडला ठायी।
हिन्दू ऐसा उरला नाही।
(‘Nowhere on the face of this whole earth is there left any Hindu’)
was mainly responsible for all the future glory of the Marathas! The
heartache of the Hindus as expressed by Shree Ramdas.
1007-8. प्रस्तुत यवनां चे बंड। हिन्दू उरला नाहीं चंड।
बहुत दिसां चे मुंड। शास्ता न मिले तयासि।
(At present, the revolt of the Muslims has come to stay, and no daring
Hindu has been left; no one is able to curb and subdue this long standing
evil)
set aglow the whole of Maharashtra. The Maharashtrian movements in
that century spread far and wide throughout India, the invasions and
campaigns, the battles and pursuits and retreats, consistent or inconsistent
historical events, which so far baffled the greatest of historians, can well be
explained by the magic words ‘Hindu Nation’ and ‘Hindu Imperial Power’.
Hence, it is, that I named that book as, ‘Hindu Padpadshahi’, the name
which stamped its own seal on the history of the millennial Hindu-Muslim
war, by gaining ultimate victory over it.
1009. Even in this book of mine, the history of the Marathas has not been
given in all its details, because historians have already done that work
most painstakingly and on a larger scale. Jadunath Sarkar, who wrote in
English, and Riyasatkar Sardesai, who wrote in Marathi, had already
written books collocating all the available research-work most laboriously
done by several research scholars and assimilating and interpreting it in
the best way they could. It is, therefore, to avoid needless repetition that I
did not attempt to write a detailed history of the Marathas. Moreover,
sitting as I was in the small room, made available to me for my residence
in a small village of Shirgaon near Ratnagiri, by my friend Shree
Vishnupant Damale, even in those days of local detention imposed on me
by the British Government, I could not think of writing such a big volume
without the aid of reference books!
The Hindu Nation
1010. Just as a man lost in a dense forest on a dark night can see
everything in its true perspective, in its form and colour, as soon as he
throws around him a flashlight from the electric torch in his travelling kit,
and in that enlightened state of his mind can very easily find his way out,
similarly very early in my college days, when I threw the electric
searchlight of the Hindu national point of view on the then extensive but
chaotic mass of details about the history of the Marathas, my mind, too,
became suddenly enlightened. Viewed in that brilliant light of the national
Hindu outlook, that whole incoherent, loose and chaotic mass of historical
details regarding the Marathas' enterprise appeared to me absolutely
consistent and well-defined. Then alone was it that its essential greatness
and unique character became apparent to me. The import and essence of
Maratha history is most certainly not as it appeared to most of the
historians, including Jadunath Sarkar, who read it simply as the history of
the Marathas and found it self-centred, self-seeking, marauding, bellicose
and mediocre. On the contrary, I could well see in it the grand
manifestations of a Maharashtra (a great nation), which had singly
accepted with a grave determination, the onerous responsibility of meeting
and beating down the challenge for the supremacy over our country,
thrown by all the foreign powers in the three continents of Asia, Europe
and Africa—i.e. the whole of the then known world—by the non-Hindu
aggressors who had attacked our great Hindu Nation. Especially, when
even after continuously fighting, although not unitedly, severally, yet
grimly enough, with these aggressors, for over ten centuries, no other
Hindu state nor any other Hindu community seemed to win that epic war,
annihilating the enemy completely, it is significant that Maharashtra should
do it.
The Hindu War of Independence
1011. It is, therefore, as a sacred national duty, that I earnestly request
every loyal Hindu, setting aside all false humility to read the above-
mentioned book of mine, viz. 'Hindu Padpadshahi', which surveys the
Hindu War of Independence, carried on by the Marathas from the
seventeenth century, from the Hindu national standpoint. For looking at it,
as impersonally as it is possible to do so, this one of all the extant books on
the history of this period, appears even to me as the most stimulating, most
searching and teeming with the national spirit imbued with Hindutwa.
Ranade forever closed the mouths of the foreign as well as our own
historians, which derided the Maratha history of the times of Chhatrapati
Rajaram as the anarchy of the rabble, and called it the Maratha War of
Independence.
1012. But the all-India war, which the Maratha fought for nearly a century
subsequent to the times of Rajaram, was not merely a Maratha War of
Independence, it was an all-India war of Hindu Independence. My book
‘Hindu Padpadshahi’, is really the golden temple of the survey and
appraisal of that great war—an enthralling piece of sculpture in colour and
solidity, of the Goddess of that great war, like any in the Caves of Ajantha.
1013. And still every paragraph in that book is based on solid evidence
not because extracts from the writings of other renowned historians of
acknowledged authority have been freely used therein, but because the
very sentences uttered by the heroes who actually fought on the various
battlefields and by those who actually played the political and diplomatic
game are cited. Extracts from the letters fresh from their hands, written just
after the events have been profusely used. As such, the book is as
authoritative, as it is interesting to read. The genius of the historians,
Rajwade, does not seem to have altogether missed this all-India character
of this Maratha history. But in his writings, it did not receive the all-round
treatment it deserved. Perhaps his writing itself was so extensive and varied
as to preclude even the vast intellectual capacities of the man from
grasping its full significance and import. His incidental and desultory
discourses on the subject appear, by the very nature of their topics,
incomplete and inconsistent. About the English, the Muslim and other
historians, we had better not say anything. Under such circumstances,
therefore, my book Hindu Padpadshahi estimating this great Hindu-Muslim
War through the Hindu national angle of vision is the only one of its kind.
That is why I recommend it whole-heartedly to every Hindu nationalist.
1014. That is why, again and because of my failing health, I do not
propose to go in for that review of the war in these pages. The curious
readers might advisedly read it from those pages. It is only necessary here
in these pages of the ‘Six Glorious Epochs of Hindu Victories over the
Aggressors’ to display the golden chain of events that led ultimately to the
pinnacle of glory that the Hindus obtained by finally subduing the Muslim
power at the close of this millennial Hindu-Muslim war of epic dimensions.
A Chain of rare and remarkable events
1015. The first of such rare and remarkable events, which at the outset
appears trivial but, viewed now from the telescope of historical studies,
assumes exceptional importance and which follows immediately after the
account of this Hindu-Muslim war given in this book up to Ch. 20 is The
Birth of Shivaji either in 1627 or 1630 A.D.
1016. Shivaji’s father, Shahaji, was reckoned among the petty Maratha
chieftains and noblemen, who took active part in the political movements of
the time. But all of them had to owe allegiance to some one of the five
Muslim Sultans that they might enjoy their own knighthood or ‘Jagirdari’.
Not a single Hindu independent State—not even the smallest that can be
thought of—had remained throughout the whole of Maharashtra. But the
son born to the above-mentioned Shahaji Raje, was, however, destined by
Providence to lead the Hindu War of Liberation and to be honoured with the
auspicious red mark, applied to his head, of the gushing blood of the
mortally wounded Muslim power, heralding the advent of Hindu
independence!
A wonderful coincidence
1017. Whether because of good fortune or because it was the will of God,
whether again owing to mere accidental coincidence or as the extraordinary
harvest reaped from the well-coordinated sowing of the seeds of gigantic
efforts—call it what you will—but ever since the birth of Shivaji from the
womb of his mother Jijabai, there was a strange turn given to the technique
of the national front in this Hindu-Muslim War.
1018. Generally speaking, right from the beginning of the eighth century
to that of the seventeenth, wherever the mighty armies of the Muslims and
the Hindus fought, wherever the Hindus and the Muslims were engaged in
decisive battles affecting the destinies of the states and the Hindu Nation as
a whole, it was the Hindu who usually, barring honourable exceptions,
suffered crushing defeats with heavy losses in men and material, sometimes
because some leader sat in ‘Hawda’ on the elephant, while at others one sat
in palanquin—sometimes because there was treachery in the Hindu ranks,
at others again when victory was almost in Hindu hands—mere chance
coincidence deflected it towards the Muslims. This cruel verdict of the
Goddess of War was, as it were, predetermined. The resistance offered by
the brave Daheer, the one offered by the valiant Jayapal or his son
Anangpal or the last battle given by Veer Prithviraj or again the one fought
by Maharana Sanga, in every decisive action fought throughout, through all
these centuries up to that fought in 1565 A.D. at Talikot by the dauntless
Ramraja of Vijaynagar the scales of war turned always against the Hindus
—the Hindus alone were unmistakably defeated!
But since the beginning of the 17th Century
1019. That means from the birth of Shivaji, so to say, the same cruel
Goddess of War began to show a highly astonishing difference in her
verdict regarding the same Hindu-Muslim struggle. And it was this! Just as
formerly, it seemed almost predetermined that the Hindus were bound to be
defeated in every Hindu-Muslim struggle, similarly now onwards, wherever
the Hindu-Muslim armies met, the Hindu victory was almost assured and
the Muslim defeat a foregone conclusion! From this seventeenth century
onwards, wherever they met the Muslims in a state of war, the Hindus
invariably vanquished them! Whether they were the decisive battles shaking
the very foundations of states or nations or whether they were only fleeting
skirmishes, the victory for the Hindus and the rout of the Muslims was the
result! Every Hindu young man should necessarily read the long list of
Hindu victories from the same book of mine viz: Hindu Padpadshahi, the
victories which swell our hearts with pride, the victories again that were
won not only on land from Punjab to Kanyakumari in the south seas but in
hundreds of naval engagements from the Western (the so-called Arabian
sea!) to the Eastern (the Bay of Bengal) seas!
The guiding principle of the new Maratha strategy—Aggression—not
merely defence
1020. The most important reason why since the time the Marathas
assumed the military leadership of the Hindu nation, the Hindus alone went
on winning victories, as has been already shown above, all over the vast
subcontinent of India whenever they joined battle with the Muslims, was
that these Marathas with their daring valour, had at once purged the Hindu
mind of that pernicious epidemic of the perverted sense of virtues, which
had afflicted and paralysed most of the Hindu society all over India and
which had given birth to the false notion of chivalry, deeming it highly
despicable from the ethical point of view, a veritable sin, as it were to lead a
military attack—even against the direst enemy.
- In fact, the creed of every national army is to march upon the enemy
even before the latter attacks—to lead a blatant aggression, not merely to
stage defensive formations! The first successful attempt to inspire this
aggressive mentality amongst the Hindus was made at the time of the
establishment of the Vijaynagar empire against the Muslims, even before
the Marathas took the lead. But it was restricted to the south alone and the
terrible defeat at Talikota deterred the Hindu mind from invading the
Muslims. It was then that the Marathas inspired the Hindus with a new war-
like spirit by successful inroads upon the Muslims. - To invade the enemy territory is the chief aim or the chief duty of a
national military strength. The nation that maintains armed forces just
strong enough for the purposes of defence—and does not build it up so as to
be capable to undertake an invasion and considers it improper to do so—-is
either basically coward at heart or is labouring under a delusion. Perhaps it
is to camouflage that inward cowardice that such high sounding
declarations are made. A nation, whose armed might is evidently built up
on the basis of its aggressive capacity, is certainly capable of self-defence. - Again, the Hindu aggression against the violent and unjust political
domination of the Muslim rulers was basically not an aggression at all. The
really unjust aggression was that of the Muslims who had invaded the
territories of the Hindus. The aggressive risings of the Hindus against the
outrageous Muslim rule can never be called revolts or rebellions. For, the
aggression of the Muslim rulers against the independent and rightfully
established Hindu states was itself mutinous and revolting. The rising of a
robber against the rightful owner can be called mutinous, not the taking up
of arms by the rightful owner to chastise the rebellious freebooters! It is,
therefore, to inspire with indomitable courage the majority of the Hindu
society all over India, which had taken fright of these Muslim freebooters
that Shree Ramadas raised his war-cry from every peak of the Sahyadri.
‘प्रस्तुत यवनांचे बंड’
“It is the Muslim-insurrection!”
“The insurgents are the Muslims and not the Hindus! In order to punish
them severely invade them from all sides all at once!” - ‘धर्मासाठी मरावें। मरोनि अवघ्यांसि मारावें।
मारितां मारितां घ्यावें। राज्य आपुले।’
(One should court death for the sake of religion (But) while dying, one
should kill (the enemies) and by thus killing them, one should win back
one’s kingdom.)
1025. The most important weapon of this aggressive war policy of the
Marathas was at least, till that time a new one to the Hindus. It was not used
so far by any before them. That weapon is
Guerrilla Warfare
1026. This type of war is called in Sanskrit’ Vrikayuddha’ (वृकयुद्ध).
This Vrikayuddha (वृकयुद्ध) of the Marathas humbled the vast armies of
the Muslims. According to the peculiar mode of this guerrilla warfare, the
Marathas never faced the highly well-equipped fourfold armies of the
enemy. Whenever the Maratha force were small in number, they attacked
the enemy from the right or the left flanks or from behind.
1027. Yet, it should be borne in mind that while thus harassing and cutting
off the huge armies of the Moghals with their meagre numbers and
inadequate arms, they never hesitated to offer pitched battles standing face-
to-face at the most unexpected moments, if they found that their own
military strength had grown sufficiently strong to do this. As even when the
Maratha forces went on increasing in number and quality, and their
responsibility about the various states, smaller or greater in size, about the
forts and territories that fell in their hands, began to assume enormous
dimensions, they did not lie idly in their different capitals, guarding their
own positions. Everyone of them had always a keen eye on the
neighbouring or the distant Moghal territories and pushed on into those
territories as soon as the monsoons were over, even before the enemy had
time to come aggressively against the smaller Maratha feudal lords and
Jagirdars or their forts. The Maratha forces attacked even the Muslim
Nawabs and Nizams, who never gave them offence under some pretext or
another. Moreover, they were hardly to be found in their usually known
capitals, great or small, or in their forts or caves known to be their usual
resorts. On the contrary, they seemed to carry their so-called capitals on
horse-back while they started on their campaigns against the Muslims. The
de facto address of the various Maratha warlords and their brave followers
was not their homes or fortresses; it was invariably their ever shifting
camps or bivouacs in the Moghal territories.
- Even a solitary instance in the times of Rajaram, regarding
Aurangzeb, may be suffcient to show clearly what great havoc was caused
amongst the vast and unwieldy Muslim armies, harassed, hacked and hewed
by these Maratha guerrillas! The huge armies of Aurangzeb pursued the
Maratha force right up to Jinji (or Zinji) in the South, reducing their
territories as they went. But? - the moment they turned their back, they saw
that smaller bands of the Maratha irregulars had already crossed the
Narmada and after having entered Gujarath, they had frightened the
Subhedar of that province out of his wits. Farther off, the Marathas were
often reported to have attacked the central provinces to the utter dismay of
the already confused Moghal Emperor. In the end, giving up Maharashtra as
precipitately as they would have dropped a glowing cinder from their
hands, those huge Moghal hosts hacked, harassed and harried by the
indomitable Maratha warriors retreate, crestfallen, back to Delhi. - It is not correct to assume that the Marathas had resorted to this
aggressive war policy only so long as their martial power and their
administrative machinery had not had a sound footing or had not grown
sufficiently strong. On the other hand, they renewed their aggressive
incursions into the remaining Muslim territories under the command of the
invincible veteran war leaders, like Bajirao I, with greater rigour and zest,
when every one of the several Sardars and Chieftains had tens and scores
and thousands of soldiers under them, fighting, conquering and establishing
Maratha rule right from Jinji to Gujarat and even Malwa and Central India!
If at all, they were to establish Hindu-Padpadshahi throughout the whole of
India, the defensive war policy of preserving whatever they had, would
have been of little use. They had necessarily to adopt the bolder policy of
making new acquisitions. That way, those brave and indefatigable Maratha
warriors had an insatiable desire to assail their religious enemies whenever
and wherever they could!
The aggressive war policy of the Marathas stopped the inroads of the
Foreign Enemies beyond the Himalayas - The reports that the bold thrusts of Bajirao I right up to the gates of
Delhi, had convulsed the Moghal imperial power to its very foundations
and rendered it disjointed, and that the mighty Maratha armies were about
to invade the territories even beyond Delhi up to Punjab, did not fail to give
a rude shock to the Muslim powers of Kabul, Ghazni, Iran, Turan, Balkh,
Bokhara, Arabia and other countries beyond the Himalayas!
- It has already been shown in this book how, before the rise of the
Marathas, these very Arab, Iranian, Durani, Turk, Moghal and other
Muslim tribes had often swooped down the Himalayas into the Indian
plains with all the ferocity and barbarity at their command; how some of
these Muslim aggressors overran the Hindu states, dashed towards the
south, worsting the Hindu religion, heaping up inhuman religious
persecutions and untold devilish atrocities on its adherents; and again, how
some other of them established their own independent stable Sultanates at
Delhi and like Alauddin, made straight for the southernmost end of India. - The then Hindu Kings themselves could not invade Iran, Turan or
Arabia beyond the Himalayas even before those diabolic Muslim aggressors
could trespass the Indian territory. They could annihilate those Muslim
invaders in their very homes!
Nadirshah and Abdali - But as soon as the Marathas assumed the Hindu leadership all over
India in this millennial Hindu-Muslim epic war, and so soon again as the
ramparts of Delhi began to crumble with the forcible thrusts of the Maratha
arms, this age-old notorious habit of the Muslim aggressive tribes and states
in Asia of attacking every now and then, like Mahmud of Ghazni, with
vociferous vows of complete destruction of the Hindu and their religion was
for ever broken! Since the time the Maratha arms brought Delhi under their
control, and the imperial administration at Delhi began to obey the dictates
of the valiant Peshwa, like Bajirao I, only two—Nadirshah of Iran and
Ahmedshah Abdali of Ghazni—dared cross the Indian borders from beyond
the Himalayas, putting on the pompous airs of the former Muslim invaders
swearing terrible wrongs unto the people herein and longing in vain to
become the Emperors of India. But really speaking, none of them had come
upon India, like the former invaders, on their own initiative and with an
irresistible itch. The full knowledge that the Marathas had succeeded in
establishing the Hindu rule all over India up to Delhi or that they could do
so, had overawed both Nadirshah and Abdali, too! It was only at the
supplications of the Muslim Sardars of Delhi and Punjab and at times, the
secret invitation of the Emperor himself, that Nadirshah and Ahmedshah
made bold to cross the Hindukush and march upon India. The Rohillas, the
Pathans and the Moghals secretly pleaded that the Marathas had practically
usurped the whole power, that the Kafirs were gradually becoming
dominant throughout the whole of India and that they were approaching