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

enemies of the Hindus and looked down upon them with scorn, they had
fully realized that without the powerful support of this valiant Hindu hero,
they could hold no ground before their adversaries.
901. In A.D. 1543, the Nizamshah of Ahmednagar and Kut-b-Shah of
Gowalkonda jointly thought of teaching a lesson to Adilshah, the Sultan of
Vijapur. They implored Ramraja himself to take the lead. Accordingly, the
three together marched on Vijapur and went on slaughtering the Vijapur
forces. The most noteworthy was the fact that even the Muslims came to
know that the Hindus had been cured of the one hateful vice of the
‘perverted virtues’, which we have so far condemned in this volume
(Paragraphs 401 to 473). For, on the religious front, too, the Hindus
overcame the Muslims and in order to avenge the demolition and
molestation of the Hindu temples, they razed numerous masjids at various
places to the ground. The houses of Muslims, the localities and townships,
where the Hindus were persecuted and Hindu women were treated most
insultingly as slaves, were burnt and destroyed completely. This religious
retaliation by the Hindus struck new terror in the hearts of the Muslims,
and quite contrary to their age-old practice, the Muslim community no
more dared to tread upon the Hindu populations, as they would have upon
ants. It dreaded the resurgent Hindu society as it would have dreaded a
poisonous snake. Naturally, the Adilshah of Vijapur had to sue for peace
and to please every one of the three.
902. This temporary compromise did not end the Muslim feuds for ever.
The Adilshah of Vijapur felt sore about the two forts of Kalyani and
Solapur appropriated by the Nizamshah of Ahmadnagar. As such, he
decided to invade the Nizamshah in 1557 and entreated Ramrai to help
him. So now along with the Vijapur army, the Hindu forces of Vijaynagar,
which had gone out to help the Nizamshah, marched on the Nizamshahi
lands. Needless to say, that the very idea that all the five Muslim states
should seek help from the Hindu State of Vijaynagar thrilled the hearts of
the brave, while the common people came to lose their former fear-
complex about the Muslim might. In this war with the Nizamshah too, the
Hindu forces punished the Muslims in the Nizamshahi lands and avenged
the atrocities on the Hindus in earlier times on a larger scale and even more
sternly and mercilessly than before. Not only on the battlefield, but even
during their marches, the heretofore arrogant attitude of the Muslims to the
Hindus was also punished by way of reprisals in the form of plundering of

their houses and property. The Muslim masjids were destroyed in the very
same way as the Hindu temples had been demolished. On the battlefields,
the Hindus simply routed the Muslim forces.
903. This fierce retaliation by the Hindus to the Muslim fanaticism and
devilish treatment of the non-Muslims, which had gathered momentum
during the last forty years or so, struck terror in the hearts of the Muslims,
and they, in their turn, formed a new fear-complex about the Hindus. They
began to complain most piteously that the Hindus perpetrated insults and
atrocities on them and even exposed their religion to ridicule and shame.
The Destruction of Vijaynagar
904. All the five Muslim States in the Deccan and the Muslim society in
general took a great fright at the defeat of Nizamshahi at the hands of
Ramrai, and especially, the fierce reprisals that the Hindus had newly
begun, and were excited with extreme fear and anger. They came to realize
that if they wanted their kingdoms to last and if at all they wished to live as
Muslims, it was absolutely necessary for them to forget their mutual
grievances, and launch a united and determined attack against the proud
kings of Vijaynagar. For, they knew that none of them by itself was a match
for the Vijaynagar Empire. So, Adilshah of Vijapur and his Vazir
Kishwarkhan decided to take the lead in this daring project. Kishwarkhan
personally went and interviewed the Nizamshah and Kut-b-Shah at their
respective capitals, while all prominent Muslim Sardars and Manasabdars,
and army chiefs and Mullah-maulvis preached jihad (crusade) everywhere.
In order to cement their mutual trust and newly-formed friendship, these
Muslim Sultans intermarried their daughters and formed family-ties, and,
thus, after a thorough preparation the joint forces of all Muslim States
marched on Vijaynagar.
905. Ramrai himself was not quite idle. Every now and then, he got
details about this secret plot of the Muslim States. He was, in fact, an old
man of seventy at that time, but his passion to fight with the Muslims had
not grown a bit less in intensity than what it was in his youth. Undaunted,
he, too, equipped his army in every respect and made ready to meet the
Muslim attack. He posted two big divisions of his forces under the
command of his two brothers—Tirumalrai and Vyankatadri—on two sides
of the city, and he himself took the centre.
906. The Hindu-Muslim armies met for a savage struggle at
Rakshasbhuvan (Rakkasgi-Tangadgi) near Talikot on Friday, the 2nd of

January, 1565. Both the sides had many good cannons and they were
arranged before the armies, tied fast with strong chains. The fact that for
some time after the first shots were fired, there was fierce fighting and that
the Muslims had a very hard knock, which caused confusion amongst their
ranks, is admitted even by the Muslim historians. Enraged at this
unpleasant turn of event, and thinking that the slightest slackness might
bring upon them all total ruin, Sultan Husen Nizamshah dashed right on the
centre and forcing a breach amongst the Hindu ranks, he made straight for
Raja Ramrai. The historians have no consensus of opinion about what
exactly happened at the moment. Some say that a Muslim soldier in the pay
of Ramrai himself treacherously killed him. Others declare that Raja
Ramrai got down from his palanquin, sat on a jewelled throne in the centre
of his army rewarding the feats of valour of his soldiers with gold and
jewels, and encouraged them incessantly. Some others avow that when the
battle reached its high pitch of ferocity, the Muslims, drove an intoxicated
elephant against the royal palanquin and slew him. Whatever that is, one
thing is accepted on all hands that as soon as Raja Ramrai was encircled by
the Muslims, they slew him and on the orders of Nizamshah, his bloody
head was exhibited on the sharp end of a long spear through the entire
army. The sight of that gory head unnerved the Hindus and the Muslims
closed in upon them with triumphant war-cries.
907. In spite of all this confusion wrought amongst the Hindu ranks,
Tirumalrai, the brother and Commander of Raja Ramrai, made haste to
reach the capital city of Vijaynagar with many of the royal family, and
before the Muslim forces arrived there, he left for the south with whatever
royal treasure he could load upon five hundred and fifty elephants, and the
remnant of his army, foot and horse. Mad with triumph, the Muslim armies
soon came in hot pursuit of the defeated Hindu ones and not only did they
capture the city but destroyed it completely with their traditional cruelty
and animosity. They razed to the ground grand palaces, temples, town-
halls, beautifully laid-out gardens, market places and colossal statues.
Libraries of books were burnt to ashes; crores of rupees worth of treasures
were pillaged. The Muslim writers themselves state with evident pride that
the infernal fires started in Vijaynagar by the Muslims kept burning for five
or six months together. Thus perished the grand city of Vijaynagar at the
hands of the Muslim demons in human form.

908-909. It is frivolous to say that the Muslims ravaged Vijaynagar only
to avenge—only as a reaction to—the religious atrocities committed by the
Hindus in return for the similar atrocities of Muslims. It is not tenable
against the mass of evidence now available.
910. But these writers, both the foreign and Muslim ones—and also the
Hindus with a perverted sense of virtues—do not see—do not remember—
when they say so, what cause had the Hindus given to Mahmud of Ghazni,
Mohammed Ghori, Taimurlang, Babar and others to invade them. They had
never harmed any of them in any way. How many masjids in Ghazni had
the Hindus burnt? How many of the Muslim subjects in the lands of Ghor
of Ghazni had been oppressed and how many of their womenfolk had been
raped by the Hindus? How many millions of the Muslim women had been
kept by the Hindus as concubines or maids? What atrocities did the Hindus
commit first on the Muslims for avenging which, the above-mentioned
Muslim leaders marched towards India? Did they not, each one of them,
declare openly in their courts that it was sotely for the sake of completely
destroying the Hindus, for wiping out their race from the face of the earth
and for converting them forcibly to Islam, that they attacked the Indian
continent?
911. While reviewing this destruction of Vijaynagar, it is enough to see if
even the Muslim writers have the face to say that before the mighty armies
of Allauddin and Maliq Kafur marched against the Deccan, the South
Indian Hindus had perpetrated any atrocities on non-Hindus in the north. If
they cannot do so, they should explain why did the Muslim armies attack
the Hindus in the South and brought wholesale destruction on state-after-
state from Devgiri, Warangal to Madurai, much in the same horrible form
as was meted out to Vijaynagar? Why did they hurl insults and indignities
at the Hindu religion and why did those Muslim demons persecute the
innumerable Hindu men and women? Nobody can say by any stretch of
imagination, that it was to avenge the religious atrocities of the Hindus
over the Muslims of the North. It was due to the fact that extirpating the
Hindus was itself considered to be their religious duty—a holy faith as it
was!
912. The unhesitating, shameless and open stand of the Muslim writers of
the times, and of those before and after, is: “We believe that it is our chief
religious duty to annihilate the non-Muslims. To conquer the kafir Hindu
states, to rape the royal Hindu ladies, to enslave millions of other kafir

women and men, and to massacre others, to burn, devastate and demolish
the Hindu capital cities, their temples, the idols of their Gods, to reduce to
ashes their libraries of religious books and do all sorts of wrongs to them
were all the ‘holy acts’ of the Muslim Gazis—the defenders of the Muslim
faith! All these ‘holy’ acts were done to chastise the kafirs strictly
according to the Muslim religious and ethical code, for their inexcusable
(unpardonable) sin of being kafirs! When the kafirs call these holy acts
atrocities, they must be plainly told that they were not atrocities at all!
They were all righteous and virtuous acts! It is the bounden duty of every
faithful follower of Islam, that he must thus chastise the kafirs whenever,
and to whatever extent, he might be able to do so.
913. “But for the Hindus to call our religious chastisement atrocities and
to retaliate against our holy religion as a reaction against our so-called
cruelties, to burn our pure masjids because we have burned their temples—
it is simply diabolic!—atrocious in the extreme!”
914. It is because the Muslims had this perverted conception of their
religious duty that they marched upon Vijaynagar primarily as it was a
Hindu State, and as the Hindus stubbornly refused to become Muslims.
Even if the Vijaynagar armies had not invaded the Bahamani Muslim
States, as they often did, and even if they had not retaliated with equal
vehemence against the usual Muslim atrocities by burning their masjids
and houses and plundering their property, all the Muslim Sultans would
have attacked Vijaynagar Hindus simply for their fault of being Hindus.
They would have committed the same inhuman atrocities, even if the
Hindus of Vijaynagar had not done them any harm, had they but got an
opportunity to do so!
Why did the Muslim Armies go back after the Pillage of Vijaynagar?
915. The underlying reason why the Muslim armies drew back after
pillaging Vijaynagar and did not pursue the fleeing Hindus is that they
dared not do so; for the state of Vijaynagar had broken away from the old
Hindu tradition of meek submission and tight-lipped endurance and had
begun to reciprocate atrocities with counter-atrocities and reprisals with
super-reprisals!
916. As has already been told above, Ramrai’s brother, Commander
Tirumalrai, had already left Vijaynagar with his army into the South and
was re-forming his forces for another knock. Had the Muslims advanced
further they were bound to meet with strong opposition from Tirumal’s

army. Partly owing to this fear, the Muslims retreated from Vijaynagar,
content with whatever they could sack there.
917. Another reason that was responsible for this speedy retreat was the
opening of the ‘old sores’ among the Muslim Sultans! Their belonging to
different sects, like the Shias and Sunnis, had always created bickerings
amongst them. Naturally, as soon as the hostilities with the Hindu state of
Vijaynagar ended, their temporary alliance went to pieces and fresh
warfare ensued. A little later, when their arch-enemies, the Muslims in the
North, the Moghal Emperors, Shahjahan and Aurangzeb, invaded them
with their invincible armies, they could not help looking for support from
the then growing Maratha chieftains and their sturdy followers in
Maharashtra. Being most mercilessly hammered from the North by the
powerful Moghal armies and being internally eaten away by the very
Maratha Sirdars who were called for help, these Muslim powers in the
South perished one after another!
Shahaji, the Valiant!
918. The most prominent of all these Maratha Sirdars, and the one in
whom always blazed the secret ambition to establish a Hindu power was
Shahaji, the valiant of the Bhosale family.
919. It has been already stated that after the collapse of Vijaynagar,
Tirumalrai and other Hindu princes fled to the South and established
another independent Hindu principality at Penukonda in A.D. 1567.
Shreerang, Tirumalrai’s son, removed his capital to Chandragiri after his
father’s death. Other princes, too, founded their small States, but they were
in fact, the fragments of the old Vijaynagar empire, now set adrift after the
deluge of the different ‘Nayaks’ (Subhedars) of the Vijaynagar empire; a
few now consolidated their power and ruled independently. Some called
themselves ‘Palegars’ and founded the states of Jingi, Tanjawar and other
‘small Hindu states. So, even after the collapse of Vijaynagar, the whole
region south of the capital right up to Rameshwaram was under the Hindu
sway. Later still, with the nominal suzerainty of the Sultan of Vijapur,
Shahaji, as a Vijapuri Sirdar, established his “ de facto’ overlordship in the
south and brought them all under his unifying control. Shahaji exerted a
great influence as an able political and military leader, because of his
victories, right from Ahmednagar to Rameshwaram under every Muslim
power, from the Moghals of Delhi to the moribund Sultanate of Vijapur. He
was equally known everywhere as the staunch supporter of the Hindus! His

was the deciding vote in respect of the political manoeuvres in the south. A
line from a contemporary poet, which became a common saying in those
days, stated that the earth was ruled by the two guardians of directions';
उत शाहजहां इत शाहजी है। (Shahajahan in the North and Shahaji in
the South)
920. For Shahaji, thus to conquer the remnants of the Vijaynagar Empire
in the name of a Muslim, would at the first sight, seem highly preposterous
and would even smell of high treason against the Hindu nation. But it
should, at the same time, be remembered that it is because he brought all
these scattered and vanquished Hindu states under his unified control, that
he could overawe his very Sultan and rule the South like an independent
Hindu King at Mysore.
That he did this in order to root out all the Muslim Sultans from the
Deccan and to found an all-embracing powerful Hindu Kingdom can
amply be proved by the act that very soon, one of his sons could set up an
independent, powerful and conquering Hindu Empire and that he could
help him secretly in that great cause. That this ‘insignificant rebellious’ son
of his could not have grown into a successful empire-builder without, not
only the benevolent connivance of Shahaji, but also his active but secret
assistance and guidance, requires no further elucidation. Although for
reasons of chronological sequence, we may not name this illustrious son of
Shahaji just yet, it must already have flashed like a lightning in the hearts
of the readers! There can be no doubt about it!
921. In similar circumstances during the years A.D. 1316-1322,
Khushrukhan commanded the Sultan’s whole army at Delhi as a Muslim,
because the Hindu military help was readily available, and conquered and
consolidated forcibly the Southern Hindu States, which never united of their
own accord, as parts of the vast empire of a Muslim Sultan (Ch XVII). And,
only after he succeeded in perfecting the plans for his coup d’etat, did he
kill the Sultan of Delhi overnight, ascending the throne himself as a Hindu
monarch. He merely brushed aside, as it were, the label ‘Muslim’ from the
imperial throne and wrote in bold letters ‘Hindu’ over it. Within a day, the
all-India Khilji empire became a Hindu empire! Again, a little later, when
Harihar and Bukka were captured and made Muslims and were rotting in
captvity at Delhi, they first employed the same Koutileeya code of ethics to
win the confidence of the Sultan of Delhi under their Muslim garb. They
invaded the rebellious Hindus of the South as Muslim commanders at the

head of a Muslim army and aided by Muslim wealth; but at the earliest
opportunity, they joined the rebellious Hindus themselves, and being
reconverted to Hinduism, founded a strong independent Hindu empire at
Vijaynagar. The same Koutileeya strategy was used by Shahaji in
conquering the Hindu States right up to Jingi and Tanjawar with the Vijapur
army and at the Vijapuri expenditure, and bringing them under the nominal
sovereignty of the Sultan of Vijapur. Immediately after the fall of the
Vijaynagar empire, Shahaji was consolidating the Hindu might to
overthrow the Muslim domination and to establish a sovereign Hindu
government, which was going to be far mightier than any gone before it,
and which was destined to bring the final victory for the Hindus. This was
the momentous job of laying the foundation of the future Hindu victory that
Shahaji was engaged in those perilous times!
922. Because of these heartening events, the indomitable Hindu national
aspiration could easily survive the grievous fall of Vijaynagar, whereas the
Muslims could not avail of it in the least, so as to shape the future in their
favour!
❑

The end of the Sixteenth Century and
After
923. After having so far reviewed Indian History from the standpoint of
the Hindu nation, we shall now take up some connected events of the
sixteenth century and thereafter.
Swarm of European Pirates Invade India
924. The first of the European nations to invade India was Portugal. It was
Vasco De Gama, the Portuguese navigator, who first rounded the Cape of
Good Hope and discovered a straight sea-route to India. He was, however,
guided by one of the captains of the Indian mercantile morine. who plied to
and fro between the Indian and the African coasts. In A.D. 1498, he first
landed in the port of Calikat on the Western coast of India, professing
purely commercial interests, which subsequently served to be a very fine
pretext for the other Portuguese and European nationals, who followed suit,
to camouflage their secret territorial ambitions in India. Accordingly,
immediately after two years in A.D. 1500, came Padro Alvaira’s Cabral,
another Portuguese admiral with thirteen warships fitted with guns and
weapons under his command. Seeing that the Muslim traders had already
established themselves well in Cochin, he went there first to undermine
their preponderance in inter-continental trade. Since the beginning, the
Portuguese had cherished inveterate enmity towards the Muslims as a result
of the horrible religio-political aggression of the latter on Spain and
Portugal as has already been referred to in Paras 539 to 546. Later in A.D.
1509, Albuquerque was made the Governor of the Portuguese possessions
in India. It was he who conquered Goa and the surrounding territory from
the Muslim Sultans of Vijapur in A.D. 1510. It was he again who
encouraged his Portuguese compatriots to marry, even with force and
deceit, if necessary, Hindu girls in order to ensure the permanent Portuguese
settlements in India. About this time, the Portuguese priesthood claimed
that it was their supreme religious duty to proselytize the Hindus even with
force and made their king issue a royal order to that effect. It is under this
royal sanction that the Portuguese in Goa perpetrated the indescribable
atrocities, rapes and various other outrages on the Hindus—men and
women—there as are mentioned in Paras 539 to 546 of this book.

925. The patron-saint directing these blood-curdling Portuguese religious
     formalities was the Jesuit missionary, Saint Francis Xavier, whom the
     persecuted Hindus called Satan incarnate! He came to India in 1540.
     925.A. This so-called ‘Saint’ Xavier himself proudly states in one of his
     letters his triumphant success in the devilish persecution of the Hindus (see
     Paragraphs 539 to 546). He himself and hundreds of other missionaries,
     who came after him, converted innumerable Hindus to Christianity with all
     sorts of brutalities and vandalism. Countless Hindu men and women
     committed suicide to escape this violent persecution. The Portuguese
     gradually conquered Div, Daman, Sashti, Vasai (Bassein), Choul, Mumbai
     (Bombay) on the Western coast of India and Saint Tome near Madras, and
     Hugh in Bengal, of which Mumbai (Bombay) was presented to the English
     King as a dowry in 1668 (1661-2?) by the Portuguese King Charles II. It
     was subsequently made over the King Charles II of England to East India
     Company for a nominal rent of 4-10 a year. The rest of the region round
     about Bombay in the Portuguese possession was released by the Marathas.
     Goa was the only major possession left in the Portuguese hands.
926. The Dutch: Quick on the heels of the Portuguese, the Dutch of
     Holland entered India. The Dutch East india Company was formed in A.D.
     1602 for the purpose, but they could not find a firm footing in India. Jawa
     and Sumatra, however, proved congenial to them. Hence, they directed all
     their attention to that region and made it their stronghold. When the English
     began to dabble there, the Dutch cut them all but one at Amboina, and ruled
     practically the whole of the Indonesian archipelago unhampered.
927. The English: Although the English East India Company was formed
     in A.D. 1600, it could not open its first factory in India till A.D. 1608.
     Jahangir gave them permission to open one at Surat in A.D. 1613. After a
     while in 1689, the monopoly of the British East India Company was
     cancelled because of many malpractices and rivalries in the Company’s
     servants and another company was formulated to carry on Indian Trade. But
     when it was seen that such competition was detrimental to the interests of
     the British Nation as a whole, the two companies were amalgamated.
928. As the British East India Company was later on to enlarge the scope
     of her activities to such an enormous extent as to encompass a foreign
     stupendous Indian empire, it is out of place and even impossible to discuss
     its extensive history in these introductory remarks. Moreover, as the English
     were to meet the Marathas on the battlefields amidst the clash of arms, the

boom of cannons and the swaggering wagers with empires as the tempting
stakes, we would rather discuss it a little later so far as it will be possible to
do so.
929. The French: Of the European nations that followed suit after the
Portuguese and tried their hand at the eastern trade and the overseas
empires, the French, were the last to appear on the scene. For the French
East India Company was floated as late as A.D. 1664. But they prospered
quickly in their commercial activities. Why, if credit is to be given to any
European, who thought for the first time of acquiring not only small
scattered footholds but large empires in India and who tried to realize these
ambitious schemes of his by large-scale military intervention in Indian
politics, it was French Governor Dupleix. The next claimant to that honour
is that vagabond and tempestuous English youth, Robert Clive, who entered
India as a common soldier, but who soon came to command large armies
and to lay the foundations of the vast British Empire in India. The basic
idea underlying the schemes of these two far-sighted young men was that
with proper training, great drilled and well-disciplined armies could be
formed here in India out of the very Indian soldiers within a very short time,
and that, with competent, efficient and uncorruptible European military
officers and commanders at the head of this very Indian army, they could
easily build up their strong Empires in India. It will be discussed in its
proper place, how great was the harvest that these daring schemes reaped in
the years to come.
930. It is, however, proper to discuss the French affairs in India to a
certain extent. For, although for a time, the French and the English fought
amongst themselves on the Indian soil and although they took opposite
sides in the internecine civil wars of the Indian Kings and Princes, in the
end the French were on losing grounds. Again their defeat at the hands of
the English in the European theatres of war rendered the French authorities
in India thoroughly incapable of defending their positions against the ever
increasing severity of the English attacks. The leaders like Dupleix, Busie,
Suffren and others, who worked hard and spent the best of their energies for
the expansion of the French empire in India, were very shabbily treated at
home by the French people and the French Govenment. Nobody
appreciated their best efforts at the proper times nor gave them any support.
Again, this Indian army of the French fought against the Marathas, on a few
occasions, only to receive stunning blows and as such when it was clear that

the chances of the French empire in India were almost nil, they began to
help the Indian princes and especially the Marathas, particularly in respect
of the training of the army and the use of the new guns. The English were
very reluctant to help any native ruler create a disciplined army or to sell
them newer weapons like the guns and cannons. But the French were only
too willing to do that in exchange for large sums of money or substantial
grants of land, and especially so, if that purchasing authority was engaged
in a struggle with the English. The Marathas, in particular, realized the
inevitable greatness of the European type of training of troops and the
production of the efficient new weapons of war like the various types of
small and big firearms. Hence, they employed veteran French military
officers and their satellites in their armies. Ibrahim Khan Gardi, the famous
artillery commander in the Maratha army at the battles of Udgeer and
Panipat, had received his training in that field in the French artillery
divisions. Later on, Mahadaji Shinde (Scindia) employed French officers
like De Boyne and M.Perron as the chief commanders of their artillery and
other divisions and formed a well-equipped, well-trained, mechanized army
of his own. With this well-trained strong army, Mahadaji could overawe the
whole of the antagonistic north and vanquish the enemies in various
military engagements. But after a while, the European nations working in
India had come to a certain unwritten understanding, at least as regards
India, that in the event of any Indian ruler fighting against any of the
European nationals, no European army leader should take sides with the
Indian and help him with his army. As such, later on when Shinde (Scindia)
was engaged in a deadly struggle with the English, De Boyne, who had
been receiving thousands of rupees by way of salary, and the army trained
by him flatly refused to fight. The Marathas, too, were conscious of such a
treacherous behaviour on the part of these salaried foreigners some time or
the other. Hence, the Marathas, on their part, had begun to open factories to
manufacture similar guns and to prepare Indian officers to train and drill the
army on European lines. But in those stormy days of incessant warfare, it
would have been unwise to depend solely on nothing but such trained army
divisions. Even second rate states like the Jats and the Sikhs maintained
such battalions. On the whole, the existence of the French military might in
India, helped here and there check the onward march of the British
imperialistic power, and the Marathas, Tipu, the Sikhs and other Indian
rulers did not fail to utilize it to that extent.

The Simultaneous Attack of all the non-Hindu Nations of the World
on the Deccan (South India)
931. When the European powers, mentioned above, invaded India, they all
did so by the sea. Naturally, their first tremendous onslaughts had to be
borne and resisted by the Deccan and especially by the Marathas. Earlier,
North India had to bear for six or seven centuries, the whole brunt of the
fierce and marauding attacks of the fanatical Muslims like the Moghals, the
Turks, the Afghans, the Arabs and others, and had to offer them the sternest
possible resistance. Eventually, all these Asiatic Muslim nationals and the
barbaric tribes fell violently upon the South with a view to conquering it for
ever. Even while all these enemies were repeatedly invading from the North
and the Deccan was engaged with them in bloody and deadly wars, in
which thousands of Hindus were offering their precious lives for the sake of
defending their religion, as they did in the North, the South Indian people
were invaded, by the sea, by the new European Christian nationals, as
numerous as the locusts themselves. The enemies crowded in upon the
Deccan not only from the north-west or the north-east but also from the
west. Not only by land but by sea also, did all the combative, marauding,
aggressive and fanatic Muslims and Christian nations had simultaneously
attacked the Deccan at the time, to overrun the Hindu states there and to
eradicate Hindu religion from the land.
932. North India had to face only the Muslim nations, which itself was not
an easy job. The deadly war that the Hindus had been fighting with the
Muslims for centuries was as fierce and beset with all sorts of dangers as to
exhaust even the Gods who had fought against the demons! But the Deccan
had the misfortune of facing not only all those Muslims but also the
European Christian nations like the Portuguese and others, who were even
greater enemies of Hinduism than the Muslims, and who tried every form of
cruelty to proselytize the Hindus. And the South Indian Hindus—and
especially the Marathas, who had assumed their leadership in this war—
showed the rarest tenacity and irresistible daring to repel single-handed,
these waves of aggression rising all round them. While thousands of Hindus
had been sacrificing their lives along with those of their wives and children
on the religious front against the Muslims and the Portuguese Christians, as
many others were fighting battles after battles and wars after wars on the
political and military fronts. This exceptional struggle of the Hindus against
foreign aggressors is worth a glorious mention in the history of the world.

Hindu Vikramaditya, Hemoo
933. The many Rajput and Muslim states, which had collected together
under the leadership of Rana Sang, and who had aspired to re-establish the
Hindu empire had joined battle with Babar at Kanvah. But after fierce
fighting, Rana Sang was finally defeated and Babar laid the foundation of
the Moghal empire at Delhi. Soon in 1530, Babar died and was succeeded
by his son, Humayun, who in his turn was overcome by Sher Shah, the
founder of the Sur dynasty. As Sher Shah Sur captured Delhi, Humayun had
to wander in exile through various countries such as Kabul, Kandahar,
Persia and others, of which we need not give any detailed account. It is
enough to say that even in the royal dynasty of Sultan Sher Shah, the
upheavals, usual and inevitable in every Muslim regime, took place and
after violent rebellions and bloodshed, Mohammed Adilshah was at last
installed as the Emperor.
934. This Mohammed Adilshah had enturested his administration to an
able Hindu Vazir named Hemoo. Hemoo, too, without ever endangering his
Hindu religion in the least, appropriated the de facto power of the Sultan to
himself and ruled his dominions efficiently.
935. But this roused the jealousy and anger of other Muslim sirdars. In the
meanwhile in 1542, while he was yet in exile, Humayun had a son, named
Akbar, who was later on destined to be a great emperor. With the help of the
Shah of Iran (Persia), Humayun invaded India and burning the eyes of his
faithless brother, and inflicting exemplary punishments on other enemies,
he reconquered Delhi. But soon after his regaining the throne of Delhi, he
slipped over the marble staircase of his palace and died in 1556, giving rise
to anarchy everywhere. The last emperor of the Sur dynasty, Mohammed
Shah Adil, who was defeated by Humayun, had fled to the north-west
frontier. But his able minister, Hemoo, however, lingered on in Delhi itself,
trying to avail himself of that opportunity.
936. A very scanty reference has been made in the Muslim historical
writings about the past or future life of Hemoo, the valiant Hindu leader. A
Hindu historian was an impossibility at that time and whoever tried his
hand later on at writing history has not said anything independently about
Hemoo. But we have already shown in Chapter Seventeen about Hindu
Emperor Dharmarakshak (Nasir-ud-din), that his actual heroic deed is far
more important and reliable a proof than any written record. Similarly, we

shall try to give here the account of the Hindu Hero, Hemoo, as far as we
can do so with the same unassailable logic.
937. It is to be noted that even while he aspired to form a Hindu Empire,
he received help from many Afghan sirdars, who had fallen foul of the
Moghal Muslims and especially of the Babar faction.
938. It is obvious that the life and career of the earlier Hindu Emperor,
Shree Dharmarakshak (Nasir-ud-din), must have served as an ideal to be
followed before Hemoo as regards the original inspiration to found a Hindu
empire and the formation of a detailed scheme of his war of independence
was concerned. An undying fire of freedom which sought to overthrow the
Muslim rule and found a Hindu Empire in its stead had once inspired Shree
Dharmarakshak (Nasir-ud-din) to bring about a glorious yet unsuccessful
military coup, spurred Rana Sang and other Rajput warriors to cross
swords, although not successfully, with Babar at Kanvah and at hundreds of
places earlier and later, had stimulated millions of Hindu men and women
to undergo all extremities of fortunes, to fight horrible battles or to
immolate their lives to save their religion. The same blazing fire of freedom
glowed clear and bright in the Hindu heart of Hemoo, the ambitious Hindu
leader.
938A. As has been said above, he secretly prepared for a decisive battle,
organized the Muslim dissentients against the Moghals and the Hindu army
marched against Delhi. All the Hindu-Muslim officers at Delhi had served
under him when he was the Chief Minister (Vazir). There, other politicians
and the Hindus in general, offered him no opposition worth the name,
surrendering to his once dreaded influence as a Vazir. His conquest of
Delhi, the chief capital of Moghal empire, caused a great commotion
everywhere.
939. Hemoo was born a staunch Hindu. During the Sultan’s regime, he
rose to political eminence by sheer dint of his merit without the slightest
slur on his Hindu individuality. In the end, assuming responsibility as the
weak Sultan’s Vazir, he began to control the whole imperial administration
and consolidate power into his own hands. And now he had openly hoisted
the standard of Hinduism, boosted up a Hindu imperial power trampling
down the whole of the Muslim Sultanate! Quite naturally, the whole of the
Muslim world was rocked to the bottom with the cry that Islam was
doomed and that kafirs flourished!

940. Immediately after capturing Delhi, he publicly ascended the imperial
     throne as a Hindu emperor with all the adequate pomp and glory and
     assumed the title of Vikramaditya for himself. Then after stabilizing and
     introducing efficient management of the affairs of his state, he started new
     conquests. Formerly as the Sultan’s Vazir, he had won fifteen to sixteen
     battles, crushing down the revolts of the Muslim and other chieftains. As
     such, he had a great self-confidence in his abilities, as regards the efficient
     conduct of war was concerned. At the first stroke, he stormed and seized the
     second great Moghal fort of Agra, which was considered to be impregnable
     and the city around it.
941. At this time, the future emperor Akbar was a mere lad of thirteen or
     fourteen years. His Vazir, Bahiramkhan, was his guardian and the de facto
     head of his administration. On hearing the news of Hemoo, he at once
     resolved to crush down this bold rising of the Hindus. But right from
     Rajputana to the Deccan, numerous Hindu-Muslim states, both big and
     small, had risen in revolt against this newly-formed Moghal empire. Hence,
     the other Muslim sirdars advised Bahiramkhan to put these down first and
     to keep young Akbar at Kabul in safety. But the discreet Bahiramkhan
     firmly asserted that Hemoo’s rising in the name of a Hindu empire had to be
     put down firmly. Accordingly, Bahiramkhan marched on Hemoo at the head
     of a powerful army, and instead of sending young Akbar to Kabul, he took
     him along to the battlefield. The armies of Bahiramkhan and Hemoo met
     near Panipat. Vikramaditya Hemoo’s warriors fought with exceptional
     bravery and skill. It seemed for a time that Hemoo had won the battle, but
     as ill-luck would have it, in the very hour of glory, Vikramaditya Hemoo
     was struck in the eye by a stray arrow from the army of Bahiramkhan and
     he fell from his elephant unconscious! This created a havoc in the Hindu
     ranks of Hemoo, while the Muslim soldiers in Bahiramkhan’s army, being
     quite mercenary were in a way let loose. With a determined attack,
     Bahiramkhan made this confusion worse confounded and vanquishing the
     leaderless Hindu army, captured Hemoo alive. Taking him to young
     emperor Akbar, Bahiramhan requested the latter to behead Hemoo with his
     own royal hands. But young Akbar could not bring himself up to do such a
     cruel deed. So the enraged Bahiramkhan himself unsheathed his sword and
     cut off Hemoo’s head.
942. This martyrdom that Vikramaditya Hemoo courted was as obviously
     (manifestly) done in the cause of Hindu religion, and the greater glory of the

Hindu nation and Hindu welfare as any other. The Hindu nation must always
bow down its head in all reverence to this hero, who unfortunately is not so
remembered amongst the very few so-called martyrs and warriors in the
Hindu world. Well be it so! But even if the millions of these self-deceived
and ungrateful Hindus have forgotten him, the Hindu nation as a whole must
always remember that the undying Hindu aspiration to free itself, which was
kept continually ablaze through a succession of generations and over
centuries together and which ultimately rent to pieces the Muslim imperial
power, planting on its dead remains the glorious banner of an India-wide
Hindu empire, was fed on the now forgotten martyrdom, and the sacrificial
offerings of their lives on the altar of war, of the numerous brave heroes like
Hemoo, who were दिल्लींद्र पदलिप्सव (ambitious of being the lords of
Delhi).
943. Here itself, may we offer our reverential tributes to the glorious
memory of Vikramaditya Hemoo, the great, and proceed futher!
The Valiant Queen Durgawati
944. Bahiramkhan, thereafter, took Akbar straight to Delhi, later they two
together reduced all the rebels up to Gwalior (Gwalher). But they soon fell
out and Akbar assumed supreme authority, whereupon Bahiramkhan
rebelled, but was defeated. Even then, Akbar did not kill him outright, but
sent him away to Makka. Bahiramkhan, however, fell a prey to a revengeful
enemy of his of the earlier days.
945. In A.D. 1564, the independent Rajput King in Gondwana, named Veer
Narayan, was attacked by Akbar. King Veer Narayan was a minor. Yet his
mother, the dowager Qeeen Durgawati, decided not to surrender but to fight
the well-equipped imperial army of Akbar, and offered such a tough
resistance that for a while, the invaders were astounded. She bravely
defended the cause of Hinduism till she was overwhelmed by the vastly
superior numbers of the Muslim emperor. But did she sue for peace and lay
down arms? Did she ask for the imperial clemency as for a powerless
woman? Or, did she send a ‘Rakhi’ to Akbar and abjectly request him to treat
her as a sister and show mercy to her as did some other Rajput ladies, off and
on? No, not at all! Knowing full well from hundreds of such cases how these
Muslim wolves ill-treated and molested the royal Hindu ladies, who fell
captives in their hands, Rani Durgawati staunchly refused to do anything of
the kind. She, on the contrary, offered her body, along with many other ladies
of the court, to the ‘sacred’ fire of the battle. She left strict orders to her

attendant to burn her dead body and not to let the Muslim infidels touch it.
Even after her death, Raja Veer Narayan continued to fight with the Muslims,
but his resistance was put down by the vastly superior Muslim forces and in
A.D. 1562, his small state of Gondwana was annexed to the Moghal empire.
946. Akbar then began to entice the softer ones of the Rajput rulers, who
had been disgusted with incessant warfare with the Muslims over
generations, together with very alluring promises of honourable and
friendly treatment to the Hindus. But on seeing that, even when these docile
Rajput rulers were prone to accept Akbar’s terms, they often hesitated and
fought shy of doing so in the face of the high sense of honour and pride in
their religious and racial purity, which made the belligerent Rana of Chitod
staunchly turn down all overtures of peace from the Moghal Emperor.
Akbar decided to subdue the fort of Chitod first and accordingly, laid siege
to it in A.D. 1567. The Rana of Chitod at that time was Uday Singh, who
had not even a small percentage of the dauntless valour of his celebrated
father, Rana Sang, who had earlier fought with Babar. But the one courtesan
who was at that time wielding real power in Chitod inspired the Rajputs to
extraordinary valour. Even when Uday Singh fled away to the forest, the
great feudatory lords of Chitod like Jaymalla, Patta and others continued to
fight with the Moghals. Later, when Jaymalla and Patta were killed on the
battlefield and defeat was absolutely certain, the Rajput Hindus of Chitod,
instead of becoming dispirited and disheartened, were touched to the quick
and infuriated to the extreme. All the soldiers desperately entered the
battlefield and with the war-cry ‘Har, Har Mahadev’ heaped up mounds of
the massacred Muslim warriors. But ultimately, when the Rajputs
themselves were almost killed in the battle, all the Rajput ladies of Chitod
set ablaze the big fire, which was kept ready for the purpose and leapt
therein from the ramparts of the fort, according to their age-long glorious
tradition, with small children at their breasts and the acclamations in praise
of their religion on their lips. These brave ladies reduced themselves to
ashes but did not allow the hateful Muslim-touch to defile their pure bodies!
This was the third great self-immolation by the ladies of Chitod.
947. It was the same heartless Akbar who caused such a great havoc
amongst the Hindus, but whom the spineless Hindu historians of today call
the most liberal of monarchs; the one, they say, who yearned to bring about
amity between, and unity of, the Hindus and the Muslims; the one, in their
opinion, who treated the Hindus far more honourably than any Muslim

ruler, before or after him; who was according to them a veritable Raja
Ramchandra amongst the Muslims!
948. But let it also be remembered that, as if not content with this blood-
curdling sacrifice of men, women and children of Chitod, Akbar entered the
blood-stained city of Chitod, put to sword every one of the bewailing Hindu
citizens that remained there—and mark well—he made no exception for the
Hindu women. Thirty thousand Hindus lost their lives in this one battle of
Chitod. Eventually, it seems the stones and other inanimate objects of
Chitod appeared to him as deadly enemies of the Muslims as the Hindus
there, and hence this devilish destroyer Akbar went on pulling down the
Hindu temples, prayer halls, palaces, houses—everything that came his
way, and reduced them all to heaps of rubble and ashes. The temple of the
presiding Goddess of Chitod, likewise, was razed to the ground, the idol of
the Goddess and all the courtyard being completely destroyed. The beating
drums, the fifes, the lamps, jewellery and ornaments, door frames and every
sort of valuable or grand articles of Hindu interest were sent away to Agra.
Only after quenching his fiendish fanaticism a little with such an inhuman
destruction of the Hindu capital of Chitod, did this Muslim Emperor Akbar
return to Delhi, calling himself ‘Gazi’ for this virtuous and pious act of his.
949. On the other hand, Uday Singh, who had been wandering in the
forest for four years, unable to avenge the brutal destruction of his kingdom
and the capital city of Chitod, died of grief in A.D. 1572.
Rana Pratap Singh, the jewel among the Hindus
950. Uday Singh’s son, Rana Pratap Singh, immediately ascended the
non-existent, imaginary throne of Chitod! But, as he was offered the truly
great throne in the hearts of all the staunch Rajputs and as he was
considered the very emblem of their invincible courage and valour, this
Rana Pratap Singh shone with more dazzling glory than many enthroned
kings. He turned out to be the one such Rajput Rana, who would never,
under any odds—even at the peril of his life—leave the traditional high
sense of honour of the Rajputs. Instead of seeking the humiliating
friendship with Akbar and the moments of peace and ease that it would
have offered, he preferred to be the direst enemy of the most powerful of
Muslim Emperors, regardless of untold miseries and calamities that such an
enmity devolved on him. He considered it to be the hallmark of true
Hinduism and true Hindu kingship to do so?

951. As Chitod was in the hands of the Muslims, he kept his capital
     moving with him through villages and towns, in those perilous times, and
     gradually rescued a large portion of his lost kingdom. He also formed a
     staunch army of desperate but devoted followers, who held their lives at
     naught. It is a pity that we cannot describe his thrilling exploits and pitched
     battles here, for want of space.
952. In the end, his influence grew so powerful and so widespread, that
     Akbar himself had to send his imperial army to subdue him. Shameful as it
     is, Raja Mansingh of Jaipur, who had surrendered himself to Akbar and the
     Rajput convert Mahabat Khan, committed an unpatriotic act of joining
     Prince Salim's army, marching against Rana Pratap at the Emperor's orders.
     And at this time, it was that the celebrated battle of Haldighat was fought.
     In the heat of fighting, Rana Pratap rode his horse straight at the elephant of
     Prince Salim and that unrivalled horse, Chetak, without the slightest
     hesitation, made straight at the trunk of the Prince's elephant and planted
     his front feet on it. With lightning speed, Rana Pratap's spear whizzed past
     Prince Salim's throat so dreadfully as to stun the latter for a moment. But
     seeing that his dart missed the mark, Rana Pratap retreated with equal speed
     and got mixed up with the army the very next moment, and was not to be
     singled out.
953. Soon he retreated from this undecided battle with thousands of
     daredevils for his faithful followers, who were sworn to his cause and
     captivated by his valour and carried the swift guerrilla warfare throughout
     Mewad, destroying the Muslims and freeing the whole of Mewad except for
     the capital city of Chitod. In the end, Rana Pratap stabilized his moving
     capital at Udepur, which never till the end, fell to Akbar. The latter dropped
     peace-feelers, but Rana Pratap never paid any heed to them. His regime is so
     replete with chivalrous and romantic adventures, deeds of exceptional valour
     done by common folks, as those by the great warriors and the Rana himself,
     that our young generation should delve deep into them and learn them by
     rote as reverentially as they would, the stories from the Ramayan and the
     Mahabharat. Fortunately, the romantic Rasos of Rajput Bhats up to the date
     of the great poet Bhooshan, are still available, which should really be
     appointed in the secondary schools as compulsory textbooks. But alas! in this
     critical historical survey of ours, there is no place for citing any passages
     from them.