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

Consequently, when the Marathas themselves advanced menacingly
towards Sirhind, there was a great commotion caused in the Muslim ranks
even before a regular battle was joined, and they were completely routed in
the initial skirmishes and their commander was caught alive. This news
made Taimurshah, the son of Abdali and his governor of Punjab, and his
commander-in-chief, Jahankhan, leave off their original plan of defending
Lahore and in the face of this forceful and precipitate Maratha counter-
offensive, both of them struck an honourable retreat to Kabul along with all
their army, hardly daring to face the Marathas on the battlefield. Abdali had
strictly urged upon them that they were under no circumstances to let the
vast treasures of millions (crores) of rupees, which was still in their
possession, to fall in the enemy hands. As such, they tried utmost to carry it
safely, retreating in as orderly a manner as was possible. But the Marathas
not only pursued them even beyond Lahore but they played such a havoc in
the Muslim ranks that Traimurshab crossed Attock and fled to his own
province, leaving behind at various places all his elephants, horses, camels,
and all the treasure in cash and jewellery, gold and silver. He had nothing
to carry home of the vast plunder from India, except his own life!
Whatever else belonged to him, was either sacked or destroyed by the
Marathas. Whatever little of his Afghan army escaped only with their lives
to Kabul like their governor, were the only ones that remained alive! All of
the veteran Pathan army of fifteen to twenty thousand strong, which was
kept behind in Delhi and Punjab by Abdali to annihilate the Hindus and the
Hindu religion throughout India, was attacked group by group and
massacred by the Marathas in the battles and skirmishes fought with them.
1065. Thus, by inflicting crushing and humiliating defeats on Emperor
Ahmadshah Abdali and by reconquering from the Afghan empire the
whole vast region from Sindh to Multan and Multan to Sirhind, the
Marathas once again gained the de facto control over the governance and
administration of this extensive province which they had earlier gained by
a paper treaty with the Moghal emperor! But the then Moghal emperor and
his Vazir, Gazi-ud-din, themselves knew very well that in their own
interest, too, it was essential that the Marathas should do this. Hence, the
Emperor himself gave order that Raghunathrao’s formal triumphant entry
into Lahore for the settlement of the affairs there, was to be celebrated
publicly with all pomp and festivities. All the Hindu chieftains of Kashmir,
Dogra nobles, Missals of the Sikhs and the so-called Muslim Empire,

Umraos, ‘Nizams and Nawabs’, who had been so far engaged in riotous
actions and ravaging the country to their own sweet will, were so much
overawed and struck dumb by this extraordinary heroism of the Marathas
in recapturing the whole of Punjab and the adjoining territories, that they
began to join the Maratha General Raghunathrao as subordinate allies. The
Sikhs had been recently gaining control over things in Punjab and they
were infuriated by Abdali’s wanton act of demolishing their at Amritsar
and filling up their holy lake round it with filth, mud, stones and bricks
during his retreat to Kabul for fear of the Marathas. They had, therefore,
become inveterate enemies of Abdali, and mighty leader of one of their
powerful ‘Missals’, namely Alasingh Jat (whom the Maratha
correspondence of the times referes to as ‘Ala Jat’) had joined the Marathas
openly in the battle of Sirhind. Hence, as almost all these leaders and
parties who had been then active in the political movements in Punjab were
favourable to such a grand ovation to be given to Raghunathrao, it was
agreed on all hands that the imperial ceremony felicitating the triumphal
entry into Lahore of Raghunathrao at the head of his army should be
celebrated after the Maratha general’s successful campaign towards Sindh.
The Triumphant March of Raghunathrao Peshwa in Punjab
1066. Taimurshah, who fled beyond the frontier, tried to carry with him
the immense treasure the Muslims had plundered in India, and it was to
seize that treasure that Raghunathrao entered Punjab in hot pursuit of the
Pathan army, which ran helter-skelter. Conquering more than half of Punjab
of Abdali, Raghunathrao drove them off to the frontier. Leaving the rest of
the work of regaining the frontier to the other Maratha companies and
brigades, he returned to Lahore, the Capital of Punjab, in order to
consolidate the Maratha gains and settle the affairs there and lay a firm
foundation of the Maratha power in the newly accquired territory. On the
11th of April, 1758, he made his triumphant entry into Lahore with all the
regalia and his victorious army.
1067. A magnificent ovation was given to him in order to glorify this
victorious entry of his, attended with feasting and dancing. Raghunathrao
sojourned in no less a place than the imperial palace itself. The other
prominent Maratha warlords had also put up in big palaces in Lahore or the
camps in the vicinity of the city. Everywhere, hundreds of well-adorned
elephants, horses, camels and fatted bulls paraded through the streets.
Various big Hindu-Muslim from different places, Emirs, Umraos, the so-

called Nawabs, Nizams, Raos, Kings and courtiers presented themselves in
the magnificent Darbar in the afternoon. Everyone of them, the political as
well as the civil administrators, nay, even the imperial army in Punjab,
vowed allegiance to the Peshwa at Poona and Raghunathrao was honoured
as the representative of that Peshwa. Every one of them tendered his
homage in the form of rich gifts to Raghunathrao. At night, the whole city
was gloriously illumined. Dazzling fireworks were displayed everywhere.
Even the neighbouring cities round about Lahore celebrated that feast of
light and fireworks display.
1068. What was the setting or the location of this triumphant assembly—
this feast of light? It was no other than the recreation grounds of the greatest
of the Moghal Emperors, like Akbar, Jahangir, Shahjahan and others—the
extensive courtyard of the most famous Shalimar gardens of Lahore!! The
Marathas had thus reduced the Muslim imperial power to serfdom!
1069. At the news of this glorious Maratha victory, there was literally a
shower on Raghunathrao of the congratulatory letters written not only by
the numerous Kings and courtiers, Sardars of various ranks and the
learned Shastri-pandits, who were openly or secretly endeavouring beyond
all measure in the cause of Hindu-Padpadshahi throughout the length and
breadth of India, but by the self-less ascetics, also. As has been said in
Paragraph 991, the various writers of these multifarious congratulatory
letters were so much overcome by a sense of pride and jubilation over this
unconceivable Maratha victory, that they could not convey their feeling in
simple prose. These could only be conveyed through some mythological
imagery, a sample of which can be had in this one sent to Raghunathrao on
the 5th of May, 1758, by a Maratha General in Delhi, Antaji Mankeshwar,
who was in the habit of writing nothing but simple political reports and yet
who was one of the higher officers in the Maratha army.
1070. “Received your Excellency’s favour (of 13th April). How can I
express adequately the excessive joy I felt at the news in your
Excellency’s letter about the victory at Lahore, the destruction of the
enemy and the acquistion of the terrirories there? (Your Excellency’s)
fame has spread far and wide in Hindusthan (North India). The high-born
Emirs and Umraos and Governors, all are overawed! It is your Excellency
alone who avenged the wrong of the whole of Hindusthan (North India)!
As such, your Excellency’s success vies with the mountains! Your
Excellency is (destined to be) successful. How can this poor servant of

your Excellency have the ability to dilate upon this topic? The Vazir was
extremely pleased to hear these tidings (and said) “His Excellency is truly
an incarnation of God. How can a human being praise Him sufficiently’?
Your humble servant (i.e. I) has no other safe shelter anywhere except at
your feet. If your Honour is likely to encamp at Lahore, I will come there
with the Emperor and his Vazir. The Vazir and all others, great and small,
fear that in case your Excellency were not to encamp, the Pathans are
likely to return to Lahore in the rainy season. I have just set down here
what the people say. Your Honour’s is the right to decide upon the course
of action to be followed. May your Excellency be kind enough to let this
humble servant know whether the proposal of bringing the Vazir and the
Emperor there is fair or otherwise, and your Excellency’s orders in this
respect are awaited. Vithal Shivdev would escort them there if Your
Honour so pleases. Krishnarao (Kale), too, might come, and put before
Your Honour everything.”—5.5.1758.
The report on the conquest of Punjab sent by Raghunathrao Peshwa
Himself
1071. Now letters-after-letters followed in quick succession from
Shreemant Nanasahib at Poona asking Raghunathrao to return along with
his army to the South before the monsoons set in. But as Punjab had been
very recently conquered, it was absolutely essential that proper system had
to be urgently laid down for the governance and administration of the vast
territory. As such, it was desirable that Raghunathrao should entrench
himself there with all his army for another four months. All the ablest
Maratha leaders and army commanders thought and urged that
Raghunathrao had better not to go to the Daccan along with Malharrao
Holkar. But Raghunathrao Dada and Malharrao Holkar, too, were in their
heart of hearts inclined to go to the South. Now that Nanasahib had ‘called’
him back, Raghunathrao himself sent an authentic report, penned by
himself, to Shreemant Nanasahib about the unprecedented success in
Punjab, and began his return march towards Poona. Many other Maratha
Sardars, including the one of the status of Malharrao Holkar, returned to the
Deccan along with Raghunathrao. Of course, in order to maintain the
Maratha rule unhampered in Punjab the requisite Maratha forces were
stationed at different places by Raghunathrao under some Sardars.
1072. Although it was quite possible to describe the valour of the
Marathas in this campaign in Punjab in the grand style of an epic or heroic

poetry, Raghunathrao, however, it is especially to be noted, put the whole
thing in the report he sent of this campaign to Poona in the most direct
matter-of-fact way, befitting his solider’s profession, without any long-
winded digressions or self-adulation or exaggeration of any sort. Hence, we
should like to cite his very words.
1073. Writes Raghunathrao in his despatch of the 4th May, 1758, to the
Peshwa: “As regards the bandobasta of (resettling the affairs or re-
establishing firm control over) the provinces, the Lahore, Multan, Kashmir
and rest of the territory this side of Attock, I should like to say that a part of
the work is done and rest of it I shall do very shortly. After hotly pursuing
Sultan Taimur and Jahankhan, we have routed and plundered all their army.
Fighting some skirmishes here and there and being beaten, they have fled to
Peshawar beyond Attock. Abdali marched against Iran but the Persian
emperor despoiled his whole army. Abdali then came (back) to Kandahar,
followed by the Irani army in hot pursuit. Jabardestakhan and Mur-r-
rubkhan, the Sardars and Landlords of this province, who had tendered their
loyalties to Abdali because of the latter’s threatening might (or tyrannical
treatment), have also now changed their side and are promising to serve
faithfully and to chastise Abdali. Abdali himself has lost courage. In short,
it does not seem that he can muster strong from that front. He has been,
already, chastised by the Shah of Iran on the other side. It would be proper
if you send reinforcements and establish His Majesty’s control beyond
Attock. His nephew and heir to the throne, who had approached Your
Excellency and whom Your Excellency had sent to us, will be given some
territory this side of Attock to establish himself and then will be appointed
to the Subha of Kabul, Peshawar beyond Attock. The chief of Abdali’s
forces, Abdul Samadkhan, who was in Sirhind, is captive of our state. I
shall send him and some Moghal and Irani forces from this province. They
will manage the affairs there. By virtue of Your Excellency’s greatness and
piety, they will bring pressure on Abdali and punishing him severely, they
will establish our control beyond Attock. Renake Anaji and Rayaji
Sakhadev have been posted in Lahore. Gopal Ganesh (Barve) also is quite
at home in this region. He too will stay. The Emperor of Iran had sent the
letters to me and to Malharrao (Holkar) calling us precipitately to Kandahar
to destroy him (Abdali) and to fix up the frontier at Attock. But we, at least
on our part should like to send Abdul Rahimankhan of Kabul, whom your
Excellency had sent to us, and we shall help him with some armed forces

and other sinews of war. The provinces of Kabul and Kandahar, beyond
Attock, have been a part of Hindusthan from (the times of) Akbar to (that
of) Alamgir; why should we then give these away? For the present, we shall
establish Irani control over the region and send a pleasant reply.
Ambassadors from all the neighbouring powers like Jammu and Kashmir
have come. We shall settle about the territory this side of Attock; further
beyond, it is not yet possible (to do anything of the kind). Efforts (in that
direction) will be made. For the present, I shall do whatever is most urgent.
Whoever stronger person will lead the next expedition will effect a
permanent settlement. The province has a revenue collection of about two
to four crore (twenty to forty million of rupees). But the landlords and
Jamindars are very powerful. We collect only a nominal revenue. It is
difficult to realise even two hundred thousand rupees from a province with
a yield of at least two and a half million. For the present, we are staging a
comeback under Your Excellency’s orders. As such, we do whatever is
possible; we do not stretch matters too far. For the time being, the
governance of the territory has been entrusted to Adina Beg alone. To him
we have given Lahore and Multan on lease. This year, the whole (of the
revenue collection) will be consumed by the occupation army (garrison
army); even fitting out such an occupation army will be difficult; things
would be favourable after two or three years. With compliments to Your
Excellency!!”
1074. THE ONLY DISGRACEFUL PART OF IT IS THAT WHILE
RETURNING TO THE DECCAN, THE MARATHAS DID NOT TAKE
REVENGE ON THE MUSLIMS FOR THEIR RELIGIOUS
PERSECUTION!
1074A. In Chapter 8, on the ‘Perverted Conception of Virtues’, of the
book, it has already been shown in greater detail how the Hindu society (of
the time) was haunted by a false and perverted sense of virtues and as such
how the Hindus did not even slightly avenge the unbearable and unlimited
persecution and the diabolic atrocities perperated by the Muslims on the
Hindu religion. Unlike Spain, Portugal, Bulgaria, Greece and other
(European) nations which saved Christianity from extinction (from their
lands) by ridding completely their homeland of Muslims, the Hindus did
not extirpate the Muslims from India. They refrained from inflicting similar,
not to speak of greater atrocities even on the enemy, like Muslims who
considered religious persecution and diabolic and heinous atrocities

themsleves to be their religious duties! Every drop of blood in the Hindu
veins and arteries was surcharged, as it were, with the false and suicidal and
perverted conception of religious tolerance towards the aliens. The notion
that whatever the nature of atrocities of the aliens on our religion, we
should not, even for resisting them, retaliate against these very aggressive
alien religionists, was the essence of their religious tolerance. And it was
considered by the Hindu to be their religion! It is because of this suicidal
notion of religious tolerance that Hindus, even when they had gained
unparalleled victories over the Muslims on the battlefields and in the
political arena, did not oppose them in the least on the religious front.
Naturally, on this religious front, the Muslims in India were not extirpated,
nor were they subdued. Root them out completely the Hindus never did, as
they had done with the Greeks, the Sakas, the Huns and other ancient
aggressors.
1074B. I should be failing in my duty if I were to proceed without
referring to one more illustration of this incurable disease of the Hindu
mind—of this perverted sense of virtues—which has proved highly
injurious to the Hindu valour and Hindu political victory had reached its
zenith in Punjab.
1075. Just at the time when Raghunathrao had started from Poona with his
army and reached Indore round about 14th February, 1757, the malevolent
Adbali had heaped untold humiliation and outrage on the Hindu religion
and Hindu women. He had sent some of the cruellest of the commanders to
Mathura, Vrindavan, Kurukshetra and other Hindu holy places, in order to
avenge their rescue by the Marathas from the Emperor's clutches. Abdali
had given these Muslim commanders strict order that—
1076. It was their religious duty as true Muslims that they should
devastate every one of the so-called Hindu holy places like Mathura and
massacre as many Hindus there, as was possible and to heap up the
chopped-off heads together. Whoever from amongst them would chop off
the heads of the Hindus as those of Kafirs, were to be rewarded by Abdali at
the rate Rs. 5 per such Hindu head.
1077. How mercilessly those savage Muslims wolves, instigated by
Abdali's order, attacked Mathura and other holy places of Hindus has been
described in Paragraphs 1059 and 1060. Accordingly, the Muslims fell upon
the Hindu religious centres at Mathura and slaughtered the innocent Hindus
there. Gigantic Hindu temples were toppled down one after another. Streams

of blood of the Hindu men and women, children and old people, began to
flow through every house and every street. Not a single young Hindu
woman escaped kidnapping. Not a single cow was spared her life. The
innocent blood of the cows, too, flowed like water. Those Muslim demons
were neither satisfied with nor tired of this brutality. On the country, in order
to adorn these devilish acts of theirs with their diabolic artistic sense, they
travestied the ceremony of the Hindu Rangpanchami, which happened to be
at that time. And how? Big cauldrons and vessels full of Hindu blood newly
shed, were kept at different places at short intervals, and the Muslim
solidiers with large syringes in hand went on drenching the Hindus in every
street and every home in their own blood. The same was the miserable fate
of the next town of Gokul, Vrindavan. But the moment he got the news that
Rughunathrao had left Indore and proceeded with a large army to destroy
him, that self-styled Shahenshah, Abdali, hurried for life to Delhi with all his
army and thence to Lahore and onwards straight to Kabul!
1078. Although the very same Maratha force that had beaten back
Abdali’s army straight beyond the (North West) frontier (of India) were now
returning to the Deccan after glorious victories in Punjab and were visiting
the same holy places of Mathura [wrongly spelt Mattra, CHI (1939) and by
other writers] Gokul, Vrindavan, and while they were performing their
religious rites and having ceremonial baths in the holy rivers, while again
they were listening to the harrowing accounts of the Muslim atrocities on
the Hindus and their religion, perpetrated only a year ago, while still the
Hindu blood spilled profusely by the Muslims on the well-built banks (घाट
ghats) of the Jamuna at Mathura had not yet completely dried away, while
again the ditches filled with the beef of cows (slain by the Muslims) had
been putrefying along the streets, the heads of this Mathura army were not
excited with anger at these Muslim brutalities! Nobody of them was beside
himself with shame and indignation! None of them was infuriated and none
of them vowed revenge of this religious persecution! The victorious general
of the Hindus, the brave Raghunathrao, did not issue any order to his army
to the effect that they should retaliate with the same atrocities on the
Muslims as were indulged in by the latter, that the Muslims as a whole were
to be slaughtered, that just like (the ruined) heaps of the Hindu temples, the
Muslim masjids should be pulled down without any exception, that the
Muslim women should be put to the same indescribable humiliation and
shame as the Hindu women folk were done by the Muslims, that it was their

duty to take such a revenge for the wrongs done to Hindu religion and
Hindu society! Abdali had but done it!!
1079. We have explained the inestimable wrong done to the Hindu society
by this suicidal disease of the perverted conception of virtues so fully in
Chapter 8 of this book, that it is needless to repeat it here again. We hereby
urge upon every reader to read the above-mentioned Chapter 8 over and
again and very carefully.
1080. The most fortunate thing for the Hindus was only this, that the
catastrophe, which threatened to extinguish very flame of life of the whole
Hindu nation, as a consequence of the silly Hindu religious notions (as the
ones described above), was averted by their retaliatory deed of valour and
more especially by those of the Marathas on the political and military
fronts. Although the Marathas are guilty of not taking revenge of the
Muslim vandalism on Mathura-Vrindavan, while on their triumphal march
from Punjab, the glorious victory that they won on the Muslims in Punjab
in this continuous millennial Hindu-Muslim war and the terrible blow that
they gave to the Muslim imperial power, establishing the independence of
the Hindu nation and their own political hegemony in the north
incapacitated the Muslims from completely destroying the Hindus in India,
just as they had completely annihilated the other ancient nations in Asia.
Babylon became Baghdad, but Mathura could not be transformed into
another Mecca! Fighting incessantly and indefatigably for ten long
centuries, Mathura still exists as a holy Hindu place. The traces of Muslim
domination have been wiped out! From the millions of Hindu throats, the
triumphant chants of the divine valour of Shree Krishna still resound the
Ghats of Jamuna and the temples unmitigated!

Not Only Attock—Even Beyond It!
1081. सरदार पदरचे कसे कुणि सिंह जसे कुणि शार्दुल गेंडे।
अरे ज्यानी अटकेंत पाव घटकेंत रोविले झेंडे॥
—प्रभाकर
(Of what caliber were the Sardars under (him)? Some were veritable lions,
others were tigers, whereas some others were rhinoceroses indeed! Why,
within a quarter of a ‘Ghataka’ (a period of 24 minutes), they planted their
flags in Attock!’
1082. As has been told in the previous Chapter, while Raghunathrao was
returning to the Deccan after his unprecedented triumph in Punjab, along
with his numerous Sardars and warriors, the tidings of his victory had
already been reaching Maharashtra from time to time. One day, all the
Maratha forces gathered together at Indore, the next day they were
collecting the Chauth and Sardeshmukhi taxes from all over Rajputana;
later on, they were reported to be rushing into the Antarvedi, punishing the
Rohillas and Pathans for joining hands with Abdali; then conquering Delhi
and performing the obsequies, as it were of the vaunted imperial authority
of Abdali and releasing the Moghal Emperor from his captivity and
esablishing him on the throne of Delhi as the puppet in Maratha hands;
then again immediately invading Punjab, routing Abdali’s Afghan army of
ten thousand strong, which was kept there for the protection of Punjab at
Sirhind. Then Abdali’s son Taimurshah and his general Jahankhan were
reported to have fled from the Marathas without giving any battle, and fled
straight to Kabul leaving Lahore to the tender care of the Marathas, and the
armies of Raghunathrao were said to be mopping up Punjab clean of the
Afghan domination and driving the enemy far beyond Attock. Then came
the news of the triumphant entry of Raghunathrao into Lahore! With such
heartening news and reports pouring in daily of the Maratha victories and
the worsting of the enemies at their hands, the mighty heart of Maharashtra
was filled with justifiable pride. Raghunathrao had already earned for
himself a name fit to be ranked with the greatest in the world in his single
victorious campaign right from Poona straight to the Indus! The whole of
Maharashtra began to call him, willingly or unwillingly, but lovingly

enough Ragho-Bharari, in order to express its wonder and pride about this
unhampered and undeterred spring of his, about this eagle-flight of his,
towards the Himalayas! This informal title of the victorious general,
Raghunathrao, had become immortal!
Soon arrived the news of the Crowning Glory of the Marathas
1083. Raghunathrao, the commander-in-chief of the Maratha force, had
posted some of the Maratha Sardars to punish severely all the Muslim
Emirs, Umraos, gangsters and marauders, fakirs and parasites of every sort,
who were creating anarchical conditions in Punjab and especially towards
the Indus Valley, plundering the peaceful populace there, and establish the
Maratha hold in that territory firmly and to collect the revenue and the
‘chauth’ and ‘Sardeshmukhi’ taxes from the territory. Of those Sardars,
Tukoji Holkar, Sabaji Shinde, Gopalrao Barve with their soliders attacked
the fort of Attock, which was the pride of the Indus valley, and snatched it
away from the Muslim hands in the month of July, 1758. The Muslim green
flag was uprooted and in its place was hoisted in the tumultuous war cries
of ‘Har Har Mahadev!’ of the Marathas, the saffron coloured ‘Jaripatka’ of
Hindus—on the fort of Attock. The Marathas and so the Hindu-horses once
again drank the holy water of the Indus!
1084. On that glorious day, at last, was the ban (Atak—अटक) of a
thousand years enforced by the religious law of the Hindus themselves,
broken by the Hindu arms! Why, the Maratha warriors pursued the Muslims
even beyond Attock upto Kandahar!
1085. It is already explained in Paragraphs 522 to 535 how this town was
named ‘Attock’ and why.
1086. When the news arrived in Maharashtra of the conquest of Attock
and of the hoisting by the Marathas of the Hindu Jaripatka on that fort, the
universal joy felt there knew no bounds. The Marathas had taken revenge of
the wrong done to the Hindus over a thousand years by routing and driving
the Muslims right up to Kabul and Kandahar and wrenching the de facto
sovereignty of the whole of India from the Muslim hands.
And this itself is the fifth Glorious Epoch of Hindu Victories over the
Aggressors
1087. The page in the history of the Hindu Nation, which records this
unique event of the conquest of Attock and the final victory of the Hindu in
the epic millennial Hindu-Muslim war and the establishment of the de facto
sovereignty of the Hindus over the so-called Muslim empire, is really the

Golden Page in Hindu history and that day is truly the Red Letter Day in the
life of Hindu nation!
However
1088. Just as a man on his deathbed, too, breathes a little longer and
sometimes even makes a violent effort to rise in epileptic fits, but dies at
last; or just as the whole body of the enormously long snake, twenty feet or
more in length, gigantic in thickness vying with the broad trunks of the Vat
(Indian fig- Ficus Indica) tree, moving dangerously at large in the forests,
does not lie lifeless all at once in a moment, even if its head has been
smashed completely, but keeps on moving convulsively and even at times
seeks to leap ahead, yet ultimately, the dying body does die at last,
similarly, in spite of the fact that the Marathas had smashed the head of the
Muslim imperial power and left it gasping for its breath on the battlefields
of the Indus valley, the moribund Muslim power did continue to make
feverish efforts to rise again here and there for sometime more; that dying
body did in fact take a long leap like that of the Panipat, but ultimately, it
could not avert its fast approaching death.
1089. And in the end, throughout the whole of India began to flutter the
flag of independent Hindu power! Not alone from the Indus but right from
the bank of the Kabul river, spread throughout the whole of Punjab, up to
the frontiers of Jammu and Kashmir, was established the Hindu-Sikh
empire of Maharaja Ranjit Singh! Further on, from Delhi right up to
Rameshwaram in the rest of India, was established the paramountcy of the
Marathas, and to the north was the independent Hindu State of Nepal!!
Thus, everywhere in India began to rule once again the Hindu political
power: the Muslim power could not recover its fall!
1090. That is why it must be said that on the day on which the Marathas
uprooted and flung away the green flag of the Muslim political dominance
from the fort of Attock and hoisted in its place their own triumphant saffron
coloured Jaripatka, the Hindus gave a really mortal blow to the Muslim
power in India and caused its subsequent death!
1091. Even a historian like Sardesai, who was wont to make
understatements, wrote: ‘All Maharashtra felt electrified with the proud
performance of Raghunathrao and his bands having reached the extreme
frontier of India and bathed their horses in the Indus.’ (New History of
Maharashtra: Vol. II, page 401)

1092. As soon as the reports of the final victories of the Hindus over the
      Muslims in this millennial Hindu-Muslim war reached Maharashtra, the
      Charans, the Bhats, the Gondhalees, who were the chief exponents of the
      poignant national feelings of the people at large, began to surcharge the
      atmosphere of every village in Maharashtra with triumphant joy, by means
      of their heroic poems and ballads, imbued with the most warlike ‘spirit’.
      There was not to be found any self-respecting Maratha who was not
      enthralled and inspired to hear these deeds of his own army. Since it is only
      in the imaginative vein, that a true picture of the romantic mood of the
      Maharashtra of that day can be drawn. I have tried to express it in my poem
      ‘Gomantak’ through the mouth of Maharashtrabhat, a typical representative
      of the Bhats, Charans and Gondhalees! A few couplets from the same poem
      are translated into English from the original in Marathi and cited here for
      the perusal of the reader.
1093. A Panegyric
      By Maharashtrabhat
      Here, O Hindus, hear you all
      Comes the news of our victory in War,
      Wrongs of a thousand years aveng’d
      Down is the victor vanquish’d again’
      Celebrate the day with feastings and dancing
      Yours is the right by martyrdom seal’d
      But mind, th’task is not yet done!
      Only the ramparts so far’re won;
      The rock’s to be clim’d, the fort’s to be storm’d
      The wish’d for summit is safely to be made!
      Dawn’d today is the moment auspicious
      For Hindu-padshahi happy and glorious!
      Still the solemnities aren’t over
      Impending dangers overhead hover.
      Like Starters of Eras have we won this glory
      Like Starters of Eras must we hold it grimly
      Once again o’th banks of the Indus
      Proudly carrying the crest of gold
      Stands the horse of a Hindu warrior
      To quench his thirst of a thousand years!
      Come with the seas, ye, Gangamaiyya,

Waters pure of Caveri come;
Sindhu, Shatadru, Triveni, Jamuna
Goda, Krishna're welcome here!
Holy places'nd pilgrim-resorts
Spread o'ver India, come, you, all.
Haridwar, Kailas, Kashi'nd Puri
Dwarka'nd Mathura come in a hurry!
Hear, O, hear the tidings clear
Victory on th'field is pure, O, dear,
Wreck'd we our vengeance on the foe
Delay'd though 'twas for a thousand years,
And Look! The vaunting victor lies, how low!'
God has indulged Hindu warriors
With their cherished dream of life.
Proudly flutters on Attock today
Again the Hindu Jaripatka.
(Translated from the couplets numbered 1, 112, 116, 117, 118, 127, 128,
129, 130, 131 from the original poem)
❑

6TH GLORIOUS EPOCH
23.
The Sixth Glorious Epoch of Hindu
Victories over the Aggressors
India freed from the British Domination
1094. This Chapter on the Sixth Glorious Epoch of Hindu Victories Over
Aggressors is the last one.
1094A. The scope of this book has been defined in Paragraph 7 of the first
chapter of this book. That delimitation itself suggests that in this chapter on
the Sixth Glorious Epoch of Hindu victories, it is not at all necessary to give
a detailed account of how, while the British had firmly established their
mighty empire on the whole of India, the Hindu nation could make itself
independent and how it has taken a place of pride as an indigenous and
sovereign republic amongst the nations of the world. The only object of this
chapter is just to examine and assess only salient points in this exciting war
of liberation of the Hindu nation from the British, which have been
purposely overlooked by almost all the foreign as well as the independent
historians, notwithstanding the fact that they are highly important from the
point of view of Hindutwa.
1095. But that too, I have done for the most part in my other books, as far
as it was necessary to do so:
1096. (1) It is already mentioned at the end of the last chapter that the
Hindus had completely uprooted the foreign Muslim empire from India and
Hindu States had once again, been established everywhere and the Muslims
did not, in fact, wield any imperial authority over the land of Hindusthan.
But while the Hindu nation was thus inextricably involved in a gigantic
millennial war to root out the Muslim imperial power from India and while
all its energies and time were utilized in that direction, European nations
like the Portuguese, the French, the Dutch and especially, the English had
already commenced their efforts at establishing their rule over India secretly
or even openly. The Marathas, who had assumed the leadership of the
Hindu nation at that time, had simultaneously to face all these European
nations, just when they were carrying on a life and death struggle with the
Muslims! Although they had been mostly successful in the end in arresting

the progress of the Protuguese, the French, the Dutch, the English, however,
shrewdly availabled themselves of the opportunity, they got, when the
Marathas were engaged in the struggle with the Muslim powers, and
gradually but firmly established their foothold in Bengal trampling under
their feet the weaker Muslim Nawabs over there. Thereafter, they pushed on
their aggressive moves and established, though not dejure, yet, de facto
sovereignty over the territory right up to Delhi. Naturally they soon came to
grips with the Marathas, who had to lead the Hindu nation at that time. In
my book, Hindu Padpadshahi (originally written in English and now
translated in Marathi) I have sufficiently discussed, from the standpoint of
the Hindu nation, how and to what extent the Marathas worsted the English
during the First and the Second Anglo-Maratha Wars. The curious readers
should do well to read it.
1097. That discussion will make the following two broad points absolutely
clear. The first is that from the time the English stepped on the Indian soil,
the Muslims never fought with them for national political independence.
With the short exception of those with the Mysore State of Haidar and Tipu,
all the wars, that the English fought for the sovereignty over India had to be
necessarily fought with the Hindus alone. This clearly shows that the
Hindus had practically destroyed the political power of the Muslims and
had snatched the imperial authority. Another equally important point to be
remembered is that the English, too, had maintained the nominal dignity of
the puppet Moghal Emperor for fifty years after they had established their
de facto sovereign power over India in the very same manner as the
Marathas had, as a political expedient of the time, kept on recognizing the
same ‘king of shreds and patches’ as the ‘Emperor of India’.
1098. It again exposes the snobbery and ignorance of the Anglicized
people who ridicule the Marathas for this ‘political expedient’ of theirs, of a
nominal recognition of the Moghal Emperor. For the English, too, found the
same political expedient useful to them. These Anglicized people, however,
do not criticize the English for this same ‘weakness’ of theirs!
The Anglo-Sikh Wars
1099. No sooner did the English destroy the sovereign Maratha power
over India in A.D. 1818 and no sooner did they force the rest of the Maratha
states to accept their overlordship than they had to cross swords with
another newborn Hindu power. That Hindu power was the great kingdom of
Maharaja Ranjit Singh, which rose to prominence after 1818. It was after

the death of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, that the English took the field against
the combined Hindu might of the Sikhs, the Jats and the Dogras spread far
and wide from the river Kabul to the river Shatadru (Sutlej) and to the north
up to Kashmir and Ladakh. In the end, the English were successful and the
English sovereignty was established from Punjab to Kashmir round about
A.D. 1850.
My book on the History of Sikhs—the one that was Destroyed
1100. As I have surveyed the period of Indian History covered by the
Maratha Empire, in my English book Hindu Padpadshahi, smilarly I had
written a discourse on the period following the Maratha epoch in that book
of mine, the History of the Sikhs, written in Marathi. But while I was in the
thick of revolutionary political activities against the English in Paris, round
about 1909-10, the manuscript of my book, ‘The History of the Sikhs’ fell
into the hands of Government of India’s Secret Intelligence Department and
was destroyed before publication. However, in my books “Prushthabhumi”
and this one “Six Glorious Epochs of Hindu Victories Over Aggressors”, I
have discussed from the Hindu standpoint all the important events in the
Sikh history up to 1850—the time when the mighty kingdom of the Sikhs
was virtually destroyed! The curious reader should read it.
The Anglo-Nepalese War
1101. The third great power, with which the English had to fight for the
sovereignty of India, was the then mighty Hindu state of Nepal. Although
the English ultimately won that war, their success was not so great as to
destroy that Nepalese Hindu State completely. Barring the English
paramountcy as regards the external affairs, their internal independence was
unimpaired. Again, this existence of the Nepalese Hindu State was essential
for the continuance of the English sovereignty over India for a long time
afterwards. For, Nepal was a fertile field, which ceaselessly provided
staunch and brave Hindu Gurkha soldiers for the English army. This Hindu
Gurkha army proved itself quite capable of, not only in India, but also in
Europe, successfully facing the even numbered white army of either
European countries. Moreover, in the face of a plausible aggression from
the mighty Empire of Russia, which was not only capable but anxious to
invade the northern frontiers of the British Indian Empire, the English
wished that the warlike state of Nepal should serve as a buffer state in order
that such a Russian aggression might not come too unexpectedly.

1102. Only after defeating the Hindu power of the Marathas, the Sikhs and
      the Nepalese, could the English claim complete sovereignty over India.
1103. The scrambling little East India Company of overseas traders in
      England, which was established round about the rise of Shivaji Maharaj and
      which had begun its activities with two meagre factories at its disposal,
      went on enlarging the sphere of activities and thus acquired the sovereignty
      of the whole of India about 1850! Originally started by about a dozen
      Englishmen of pluck, the obscure trading company thus became, within a
      short period of two centuries or so, the mistress of a mighty empire! During
      the same period rose and fell many royal dynasties vying with one another
      for the sovereignty of India. Many sundry states were founded soon and
      found themselves engaged in internecine warfare and destroyed. But,
      ultimately, it was this East India Company that struggled and fought on and
      ultimately supplanted all those rival powers to become the sole mistress of
      India. How very insignificant a commercial body was this East India
      Company on the day on which it was started by a handful of shareholders!
      But all its yearly reports of its assets and liabilities, of its income and its
      expenditure, right from its first year of inception to the year of its
      dissolution, carrying forward its previous year's balance and new sources of
      income and new items of expenditure every year, till after a hundred and
      fifty or two hundred years it came to include towards its credit side the very
      empire of India, had all been very scrupulously and systematically
      preserved in its secretariat in London. And when in 1858, it was dissolved
      and the British Government itself took over the Empire of India in the name
      of Queen Victoria, it was most systematically and legally wound up like any
      commercial or professional concern paying every shareholder his dues as
      per its last balance-sheet of that year and after paying off all other
      liabilities!
1104. This continuous process of British administration, this neatness and
      precision in its work, its capacity to organize and govern, to run a vast and
      complicated administration, shine all the more gloriously when contrasted
      with the confused way of doing things, prevalent in our country at that time,
      our lack of order, political instability and our complete disregard for well
      organized work! Although it is unjustifiable to show the similarity and
      difference between the British nation and our own, as they at the time were,
      by such a solitary and comparatively insignificant instance as this, it may
      still serve as a pointer—and a very effective pointer at that—to show how

the once petty East India Company could become in the end, the
Honourable Company Sarkar Bahadur, which ran the imperial
administration of India.
1105. Although the total defeat of our Hindu nation at the hands of the
British had always been rankling in our hearts like a deep-rooted and
envenomed arrow, we had never repudiated it or glossed over it, not even
detracted from the victory of the British people over us by scolding and
railing at them under false pretexts. For, we had the courage and ability,
which had never died away to avenge that defeat of our Hindu nation. On
the contrary, we sincerely believed that in this bitter war between the Hindu
and the British nations, it was on the whole natural that the British, who
were at that time superior to us in the art of war and strength, should
succeed over us. We knew that the success or defeat on the battlefields
never obeyed the dictates of the code of justice or injustice.
1106. For this reason, as soon as the British imperial power was
established in India, the innermost heroic spirit in the country took up the
gauntlet to vanquish the British nation on the battlefield itself, by resorting
to some Nrusinhian act of aggressive heroism.
1107. After the British snatched away the imperial authority from its
hands, the defeated Hindu nation lay for some time dazed and pale-faced.
Even the volcano lies dead and cold for sometime after every eruption. But
unless that particular eruption is its last, the terribly explosive substances in
its womb smouldering inwardly become unbearably hot. Similarly, the
Hindu Nation was merely defeated by the British—it was not yet dead. As
such, in its mighty heart, there soon began to seethe and smoulder the
explosive elements of many valiant souls, in order to go full tilt once again
against the victorious English!
(OUTBURST)
The first Great Indian Bombardment Sgainst the British Regime
1108. Hardly a dacade elapsed after the British had conquered the last
Hindu State of Ranjit Singh in Punjab, when there was great outburst of
Hindu-Muslim joint effort to uproot the British imperial power from India.
And there flared up the first conflagration of the War of Independence
against the British in 1857!
1109. The one remarkable aspect of this revolutionary war was that the
Hindus and the Muslims had organized themselves into a joint national

front and waged a nationwide war against the British, forgetting their age-
long enmity of centuries together!
1110. But I have already written some time in 1908-1909, a detailed
history of this revolutionary war in my book of about five hundred pages
named, “Indian War of Independence of 1857”. In it, I have reviewed that
war from the standpoint of the Hindu nation. As such, it is not necessary to
repeat the same here again.
1111. During those two or three years of this war of Independence, the
English suffered such heavy losses that the English casualties far
outnumbered those suffered by them in all wars with the Marathas, the
Sikhs and the Nepalese taken together, for the sovereignty of India. The
brave revolutionists killed so many British warriors and white men! Let
alone the petty English captains, lieutenants, collectors, magistrates and
such like second-grade officers, but such eminent personalities like General
White, General Neill, Sir Henry Lawrence, General Outram, Commander-
in- Chief Anson and others too had to pay the penalty with their lives. The
revolutionaries dispatched most of them on the battlefield! The English too
killed nearly a hundred thousand fighters from amongst the revolutionaries,
as per the statement of Nanasahib Peshwa, the leader of that revolution!
1112. At the end of this revolutionary war, the British terminated “The
Honourable East India Company”, which was to the revolutionaries a
virtual British Government, and which they hated for the same reason. The
British thought that the abolition of The East India Company and its rule
would pacify the Indian revolutionaries inasmuch as their wishes had been
honoured in this respect! So the British Government proclaimed it with all
the fanfare and grandiose display that the administration of India had been
taken over from the East India Company and that the latter had been
dissolved and further, that the British Queen, Victoria, would, thereafter,
take for herself the title, The Empress of India, assuming full sovereign
power over the country. Thus, the clash of arms on the battlefield, by the
Indian revolutionists for about three years had put an end to the hated ‘East
India Company’.
1113. Over and above this, the British issued throughout India a
proclamation in the name of the new Empress of India, Victoria, the Queen
of England, in which, for the sake of the revolutionists and with a view to
pacifying them a bit, it was said that after the issue of that proclamation,
whoever of the ‘mutineers’ would stop fighting openly or covertly and