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

Hindu world. Naturally, throughout the whole of India, the Hindus too,
opposed him violently. Aurangzeb, particularly, aimed at the top-ranking
Brahmins of Kashmir, and enforced on them the Jizia tax, if they did not opt
for conversion. This caused a great commotion everywhere. At this time,
Guru Teg Bahadur told the Hindus boldly not to pay any such taxes and
preached that they should sacrifice their lives rather than forsake their
religion. When the Hindus began to give such bold replies, Aurangzeb was
aflame with rage. He captured Guru Teg Bahadur and commanded him to
court Islam on pain of death. Guru Teg Bahadur thereupon staunchly refused
to be a Muslim and defied Aurangzeb, who immediately had him beheaded.
This horrible tragedy took place in A.D. 1675. Along with Guru Teg
Bahadur, several of his Hindu disciples also were caught and they all
suffered horrible deaths after all sorts of atrocities and torments, but they
defied the tyrannical Muslim emperor by boldly refusing to be Muslims. The
heads of some of the prominent Hindus were actually cut asunder with a big
saw. Among these martyrs was Bhai Matidas, whose family was lovingly
given the title ‘Bhai’ by the Sikh Gurus and in this very family was born the
latter day Hindu patriot, Bhai Parmanand. The son of this very brave Guru
was the holiest of the holies, the Hindu national hero, Shree Guru Govind
Singh!
The Hindu National Hero—Shree Guru Govind Singh
964. To Shree Guru Govind Singh goes all the credit of militarizing
Sikhism and to create out of that sect, a militant and invincible organization,
which gave a strong impetus to the establishment of a strong and
independent Hindu government in Punjab at the time of Maharaja Ranjit
Singh. He was called Tenth Emperor— दशम बादशाह —because he was
the Tenth Guru from Shree Guru Nanak, not only by the Sikhs but even by
all the Punjabi Hindus. From innumerable daring and thrilling events in his
life, which well illustrate the above remark, only one might suffice here for
want of space for others!
965. As inevitably happens in the case of every big religious organisation,
Guru Nanak’s disciples also came to be divided into many sections and sub-
sections, but they were all living a Hindu way of life. In respect of
marriages and other religious rites and social customs, they were not in any
way separated from the Hindu society. In the ‘Gurugranth’ itself, the
sayings of Hindu saints like Sant Namdev and Kabir were incorporated
along with those of Guru Nanak himself. And from the beginning till this

day, that ‘Adigranth’ has always been read with equal reverence for all
these sayings. But a son of Guru Nanak himself had started a separate
branch of Sikhism.
965A. In course of time, when the Hindus and Sikhs began to be
atrociously persecuted by the Muslims, it was felt that an armed force of the
Sikhs for self-protection was absolutely necessary, and Guru Govind Singh
began to dream of establishing an independent kingdom of the Sikhs. To
that end, he wanted a band of daredevils of inviolable loyalty to their Guru.
966. Guru Govind Singh, therefore, called a big assembly of all the Sikhs.
Such incidents in his life have been described a little later in poetical
compositions, much on the same lines as the colourful descriptions of the
Hindu Puranas. But we shall give here only the historically relevant part of
it.
967. In that big assembly, Guru Govind Singh invited volunteers, who
were prepared even to lay down their lives in the defence of their religion
and willing to spend their whole lives in the army, take it up as their
profession, for, he said, he had to build a standing army of the Sikhs. It was
a very austere vow. Of the many, who thus volunteered, the Guru himself
chose for the first time only the best five who were expected to be as sharp
and as unbending as steel. To imbibe this principle on their minds, the first
religious rite that was performed was the sprinkling on their heads of the
holy water that was churned by a sharp steel sword as the mantras were
chanted. Then it was enjoined upon them that they were always to have a
sword fastened to their waist; they were never to cut the hair on any part of
their body. They were asked ever to gird up their loin, to wear kaccha or
langot—a loin-cloth, and to wear steel rings round their wrists as a mark of
their stern military vow. A comb was also considered to be a must for every
Sikh. Thus hair (केश Kesh), a comb (कंग-कंगवा—Kangha), a loin-cloth
(कच्छ-लंगोट—Kaccha), a steel ring (कड़ा—Kara) and a sword (कृपाण
—Kripan) became the five inseparable marks of every true Sikh, and were
called ‘five kakkas’. The military wing of the Sikhs, specially chosen by the
Guru has since then been called the ‘Khalsa’, which has become an
honourable appellation throughout the whole of India. Khalsa is originally
an Urdu word meaning ‘chosen’!
968. As soon as this Khalsa army reached a desired magnitude, Guru
Govind Singh began to conquer smaller Hindu-Muslim States or to sack

them. Quite naturally, the Moghal Emperor, Aurangzeb, who had most
brutally murdered his father, Teg Bahadur, for not renouncing his religion,
sent a detachment of his army to capture Guru Govind Singh. Because of
the actions that were fought with the Moghal army, the Guru enclosed
himself in the fort of Anandpur, which was immediately invested by the
Moghals. Amongst the soldiers fighting with Guru Govind Singh from the
fort, were two of his sons below the age of eighteen. In order to boost up
the courage of the army, the Guru sent his two sons with other soldiers out
of the fort to fight with the Moghals. While these two sons were being done
to death in this unequal battle, this strange father was crying words of
approbation ‘Wah-wa! Wah-wa!’ At nightfall, the fighting stopped as a
matter of course and the remnant of the Khalsa battalion entered the fort
very stealthily. But of that Khalsa (chosen) soldiers, many had lost hope.
So, the Guru plainly told them all, that those who wanted to save their lives
should leave the Khalsa army and forsake him immediately. He, however,
was determined to fight on from inside or, if neccessary, out of the fort.
Thereupon, from the best chosen (the Khalsa), many Sikh warriors resigned
their membership and deserted Guru Govind Singh. Soon on that dark and
dismal night, Guru Govind Singh bade adieu to those who remained of his
Khalsa army and escaped through the Moghal siege, along with his wife
and two sons, who were under twelve.
969. While after leaving the fort, Guru Govind Singh was thus wandering
through the forest on that fateful night, he lost track of his two tender
children, who unfortunately fell in the enemy hands. Those wicked
monsters gave the young kiddies an ultimatum ‘Forsake Hinduism and
become Muslims, or else we will kill you with all sorts of tortures!’ Prompt
came the reply from the young mouths, thundering dauntlessly—lion’s cubs
as they were—’We are prepared to die for our religion!’ They had refused
to forsake their Hindu religion. Highly enraged at this defiant reply, the
Muslim authorities pronouned their direst sentence. Building a wall round
them to suffocate the two children to death was the horrible punishment
given. Straight stood the two tender children and brick-upon-brick rose to
their very neck, when they were again asked, ‘You kafirs, don’t you forsake
your Hindu religion even now?’ ‘No, no never!’ came the smothered voice!
And even as the two kids were shouting slogans in praise of Hinduism as
loudly as they could in that horrible position, the last bricks were laid, to
bury them for ever.

970. This is truly a glorious incident of martyrdom for the sake of
     Hinduism that has to be honourably listed amongst others in the annals of
     Hindu nation. It is a true historical fact but is to be found only described in
     the poetical form.
971. Kumar Haqiqatrai—At this very time, a Hindu lad, by name Kumar
     Haqiqatrai, happened to draw a picture of the Hindu Goddess of Learning,
     Saraswati, on his slate for worshipping it. But for this very atrocious deed!
     the Muslim officers there sentenced him to be converted to Islam. On his
     refusal to do so, he was threatened with a horrible death. When he defied
     that threat too, he was killed forthwith. The Hindus of the Punjab even
     today celebrate his memory every year as a religious and austicious
     occasion.
972. The End of Guru Govind Singh—After the horrible death of his two
     sons, Guru Govind Singh sent from his exile a conciliatory letter to
     Aurangzeb as a strategic move in politics. The Emperor, too, sent a reply
     and after a certain mutual agreement, Guru Govind Singh was allowed to
     leave the Punjab. Guru Govind Singh thereafter came wandering to
     Maharashtra and settled at Nanded. Here it was that two Pathan disciples of
     his conspired and attacked him while he was soundly sleeping. The wounds
     that he received in that struggle proved fatal and soon he died.
973. Guru Govind Singh had passed his boyhood days, not in Punjab but
     in Patna in Bihar, for reasons of safety. As such, he grew fond of the Bihari
     Hindi language, in which, later on, he became well-versed. His
     autobiography, ‘Vichitra Natak’, is written in the Bihari Hindi, not in the
     ‘Gurumukhi’ Punjabi. He also composed a heroic poem on the Goddess,
     ‘Chandika’. He symbolised the sword as Goddess ‘Chandika’ herself and
     has writen a hymnal song on it. We have already cited some of its warlike
     passages in our other books under the caption ‘Jay Tegam’ (Jay Khadgam).
     As the writings of this tenth Sikh Guru, Guru Govind Singh, are in Hindi,
     and the duties he had enjoined on the Khalsa sect were not so very palatable
     to the traditional devotees of Guru Nanak, they did not find a place in the
     ‘Adigranth’, whereas the sayings of all the former nine Gurus were included
     in it. So the writings of Guru Govind Singh were collected in the so-called
     ‘Dasham Granth’ (दशम ग्रंथ), the tenth book.
974. Another fact that is important from the point of view of the Hindus
     must be mentioned here. Because of the creation of the Khalsa sect, there
     have been two divisions amongst the Sikhs: Sahajdhari and Keshdhari. The

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

Delhi sent a big army to Punjab. Resorting to the guerrilla warfare, Baba
Banda defeated it at various places. But as ill-luck would have it, the Khalsa
Sikhs began to be jealous of the epithet ‘Hindu commander’, which Baba
Banda Bairagi had chosen for himself. Ultimately, that jealousy grew to
such an extent that the united Hindu army of Veer Banda broke into two
factions, and the one consisting of the Khalsa Sikhs deserted him. The
Khalsa Sikh faction was by itself not able to conquer the Muslims.
Naturally, the Moghal army grew stronger and in a desperate action, valiant
Banda Bairagi fell into the Muslim hands with his only son and close
followers. The Muslims were haunted by a false fear that Veer Banda
possessed some magic power, and the higher Muslim officials, too, feared
that even when he was bound hand and foot with strong iron fetters, Veer
Banda Baba would transform himself into a cat and would escape through
the ranks of a powerful army. So, he was sent to Delhi, locked in a strong
cage, like a wild beast, along with many other captive Hindu warriors. What
a horrible scene it was when he was, brought in the presence of the
Emperor! How hellishly inhuman the torture of Veer Banda, his only son
and his hundred or so Hindu followers, and the streams of blood that
flowed! Veer Banda was not beheaded or killed straightway. He was pierced
scores of times with red-hot iron bars and lumps of his flesh were cut out
every time with a view to making him suffer extreme torture before he died
—but there is no scope to describe this harrowing scene here. But every
true and grateful Hindu should rather read it from the books written by the
Sikhs and Muslim writers themselves.
977. The History of the Sikhs Written by me—I am very sad that I cannot
refer the reader to the History of the Sikhs I had written years ago. It is
necessary that the reason be explained here. Round about the year 1909, in
the thick of the revolutionay activities, when I happened to go from
England to France, I stayed for a month or so with Madame Cama. During
that short period, I wrote out in Marathi the thrilling history of the Sikhs,
running to about two hundred pages or so, based on the proven material It
had at my disposal at the time. I had studied almost all the Sikh literature
right from the first book of Sikh literature, named ‘Bhai Balaki
Janamsakhi’—the lifestory of Guru Nanak written by his disciple ‘Bhai
Bala’—to the tenth book—Dasham-granth of the tenth Guru Govind Singh
in the original, not to speak of the Histories of the Sikhs by Cunningham
and other English writers. I had brought the account of the Sikhs up to the

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.

982. However, two or three statements about this period of Punjabi
     History can be made here briefly and it is necessary to do so.
983. 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.
984. 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.

988. 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?
989. 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”

993. 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?
994. 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.
995. 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.
996. 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.
997. 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