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Thread: The Memory does not forget...

  1. #1
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    Post The Memory does not forget...

    Hail!!!

    The memory remains, the past must teach ...
    This is a very tragic story ... another element that should bring the followers of Sanatana Dharma to the study of religions and history of the ancient world ...
    This story shows us once again the asuric nature of this abrahamic religion: religious teachings contrary to the Dharma in their sacred texts, and actions contrary to the Dharma in the history ... and now the situation is the same ...

    I hope that all this is read carefully and with great attention ... to not forget and to learn ...
    -History of the Jihad against the Hindus of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh-
    PART 1

    The History of Jihad site is brought to you by a panel of contributors. This site is co-ordinated by Robin MacArthur with Mahomet Mostapha and Naim al Khoury, New Jersey.

    Other contributors to this site include professors and members of the faculty from the Universities of Stanford and Michigan (Ann Arbor), Kansas State University, Ohio State University, and the London School of Economics. We strongly suggest that this site be recommended as additional reading for students of Islamic History.


    We also invite students and professors of this subject to mirror this site on your University or private servers, link it up from your sites, to print it as a non-profit publication and refer it to students, journalists, cinematographers, military personnel, members of both houses of Congress, and Parliamentarians from your countries, members of the judiciary and most importantly to officers of the FBI, CIA, Scotland Yard, MI5, Mossad, FSB (Russian Secret Police) Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE) and to all other stakeholders in the subjects of the Islam and the Jihad.

    Fierce and persistent Hindu resistance to the Islamic Jihad prevented the complete Islamization of India:

    Unlike the complete Islamization of Persia, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Turkey, North Africa, the Islamization of India was never complete. After more than one millennium of Muslim domination from 715 up to 1761, more than 70 percent of the population of India remained Hindu. This was NOT due to any Muslim charity or benevolence, since the Muslims have none of these characteristics.

    The Muslim dominiation in India was as blood-thirsty and insidious as it was in all parts of the globe that were unfortunate to be trampled by the Jihadis. The Hindus suffered initial setbacks due to the innocuous but ill-founded belief amongst them, as amongst all other non-Muslims, that the Muslims too were normal human beings, who would after a victory, settle down to govern the defeated population. But once the nightmare of Muslim domination began, the Hindus grew wiser relatively faster than most of the other unfortunate victims of the Islamic Jihad.

    In the battle for Kubha (Kabul) in 980 C.E., the Muslims defeated the Hindus by using deceit. To ensure the secrecy of their advance, the Muslims had muffled the sounds of their horses by covering the hooves of their horses with felt and cloth. Dressed in black clothes the Muslims almost reached the Hindu camps at 2 A.M. at night as they knew that the Hindus did not fight from Sunset up to Sunrise. After the Hindus retired for the night, the Muslim were busy preparing for a night assault. While the Hindu army was in deep slumber, except for a few scouts, the Muslim army attacked by taking cover of the dark and stormy night. The storm entirely camouflaged the advance of the Muslims as they stealthily crept towards the Hindu camp, after crossing the few hillocks that separated the two camps.
    The entire Hindu army was caught unawares, but they still put up a stiff fight against their treacherous and beastly adversaries. The battle continued till past dawn, but the Hindu army had been overpowered, tricked as it had been to give the advantage of surprise to the Muslims. By late morning the remnants of the Hindu army retreated back to their capital Kubha (Kabul), with the Muslims in hot pursuit. The Muslims soon occupied Kabul and continued to push the Hindus eastwards.
    When fortune favored them, the Hindus returned in almost equal measure, the barbarism of the Muslims and struck fear in Muslim hearts for Hindu warriors like Krishna Deva Raya, Rani Durgavati, Shivaji, and many others…
    the Hindus slaughtered the Muslims on the battlefield, but did not go to the extent of slaughtering Muslim civilians and giving them the choice of Hinduism or death, Hindus did not molest Muslim women en masse, neither did they destroy, en masse, all Mosques, nor did they build Hindus temples over them. Never did the Hindus, after a victory, impose a penal tax like the jaziya on all Muslims and reduce the Muslims to such a state of servitude, that for Muslims dying would be more preferable than living…There is no record of the defeated Muslims saving their skins by either jumping in to the common fire (as the Hindus did in Jauhar) to avoid converting to Hinduism…But otherwise the sordid tale of Muslim savagery was no less brutal from that in other parts of the world overrun by the Islamic Jihadis…

    Very few know that while the Muslims invaded Persia in 634, they invaded Sindh in India on the orders of the Umar (the Muslim Khalifa) in 638, just a gap of four years. But while Persia succumbed in seventeen years by 651, Muslims took seven hundred years to overrun India (today Sindh is a part of a Muslim country called Pakistan that was carved out of Hindu India in 1947). And even after that they could not rule India in peace.
    The Hindu resistance was not just fierce, but it kept increasing in ferocity till with the Marathas, the Hindus overtook the Muslims in their ferocity. It was this lesson which the Hindus learnt from the Muslims and applied against the Muslims, that led to the Hindu (Maratha) victories against the Muslims…The Marathas literally hunted down the Muslims.
    Although the Arab Muslims on the orders of the Caliph Umar, attacked India in 638, they were repeatedly defeated by the Rajas of Makara (Makran) and Sindh. The Arab chroniclers then wrote accounts of the reasons for their defeats at the hands of the Hindus by saying that the Hindus practice Voodoo and Black Magic and so bring Jinns and Shaitan(Satan) to help them in war. Hence the Arabs cannot defeat them, the way the Arabs could easily defeat the Persians and the Byzantines.
    After an unsuccessful campaign of more than eighty years from 638 C.E., the Muslims ultimately captured the Fort of Deval (Debal near modern Karachi) by deceit, by kidnapping the three children of the chief guardsman of the fort of Debal, beheading one and threatening to behead the other two. With this blackmail, they forced him to leave one of the secret trap doors open, after they had feigned retreat. Due to this betrayal, the Muslims could finally sink their claws into India under their leader Mohammed-ibn-Qasim (Mohammed bin Kasim).
    The Hindus never forgot this treachery and eventually learnt from it . In this treacherous attack, the Muslims kidnapped two princesses of the King Dahirsen (Raja Dabir) of Debal. The leader of the Muslim Qasim sent them as captives to the Khilafa (Caliph), as a gift with a message that they were royal virgins, meant to be ravished by his holiness the lecherous Caliph himself. But these princesses outsmarted the Caliph.
    The two princesses tore apart their hymen with their own hands and told the caliph that their modesty had already been violated by Qasim. The Caliph did not believe them, but when he saw for himself the ruptured hymens, he was convinced that Qasim had violated the modesty of the princesses and then sent them over to him. The thought that Qasim had fooled him so enraged the lecherous Caliph that he summoned Qasim to present himself at Baghdad. With Qasim in chains, the Caliph accused him of betrayal. Although Qasim pleaded his innocence, the Caliph, asked for Qasim to be locked in a barrel with nails stuck on the inside and had him rolled down a hill.
    Qasim died a cruel but a well deserved death. And the first generation of Hindus whom this Muslim had tormented and slaughtered, received poetic justice in the death of this accursed Muslim general who vandalized Sindh.
    After the Muslim occupied Sindh, they did not rest quiet, they attacked Punjab, but were repulsed, then they attacked Rajputana, but were repulsed by Kings like Raja Bhoj, and when they attacked Gujarat, they were defeated by the Chalukyas (Solankis) of Anahilwada at the battle of Mount Arbuda (Abu).
    Thus the Muslims could not make any headway into India from their occupation of Sindh in 715, up to 980. It was only in the year 980, that the Muslims could invade India once again. But they had to use another gateway. Instead of attacking Rajasthan, Punjab and Gujarat from Sindh, they attacked the Shahiya kingdom in Upaganastan (Afghanistan – literally the land of allied tribes).



    Last edited by Tyrannos; 10 December 2008 at 10:46 AM.

  2. #2
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    Re: The Memory does not forget...

    Hail!!!

    PART 2

    Arabs fail to conquer India, Turks and Mongols (Mughals) take up the Jihad against India:
    These second Muslim lunge towards India was not led by Arab Muslims, but they were the Persian, Turkish and Mongol converts to Islam. The first Turko-Persian Muslim chieftain to attack the Hindu domains was named Sabuktagin. He ruled from Ghazni and had forced his way up to the domains of Jayapala Shahiya (Hindu-shahis) the Hindu Raja of Kubha (later renamed as Kabul by the city’s Muslims occupiers).
    The Muslims had studied Hindu warfare practices and misused the weakness of the Hindus to their hilt. Sabuktagin’s spies had told him that the Hindus start warfare at Sunrise and end it at sunset.
    The Muslim chieftain decided to use this practice of the Hindus against them. He challenged Jayapala Shahiya to open warfare and decided the place and date of the war. True to his word the Hindu king reached the appointed place one day before the day of the war. This was in the year 980. The Muslims too had assembled at the appointed place and the two adversaries exchanged ambassadors and decided that the hostilities would commence at sunrise the next day. After the Hindus retired for the night, the Muslim were busy preparing for a night assault. While the Hindu army was in deep slumber, except for a few scouts, the Muslim army attacked by taking cover of the dark and stormy night. The storm entirely camouflaged the advance of the Muslims as they stealthily crept towards the Hindu camp, after crossing the few hillocks that separated the two camps.
    The Muslims had muffled the sounds of their advance by covering the hooves of their horses with felt and cloth. Dressed in dark clothes the Muslims almost reached the Hindu camps at 2 A.M. at night. When they were spotted, the Hindu scouts raised a hue and cry to awaken their sleeping troops. But it was too late. Before any significant number of the Hindus could arise to don their armor and be ready to fight the Muslims, a large number of them were done to death while they were half awake and struggling to prepare themselves for war.
    The entire Hindu army was caught unawares, but they still put up a stiff fight against their adversaries. The battle continued till past dawn, but the Hindu army had been overpowered, tricked as it had been to give the advantage of surprise to the Muslims. By late morning the remnants of the Hindu army retreated back to their capital Kubha (Kabul), with the Muslims in hot pursuit. The Muslims soon occupied Kabul and continued to push the Hindus eastwards.
    After the defeat at Kubha, the disgraced Hindu king Raja Jayapala Shahiya egged on by his son Anandpala Shahiya decided to shift his capital to Udabandapura (modern day Und in North West Frontier Province – Paktoonisthan the province of the Pakhta tribe mentioned in the Mahabharata period in ancient Hindu). But Jayapala could not bear the humiliation of defeat and decided to immolate himself rather than live with the shame of having been defeated by the Muslims with treachery. The crown passed to his son Anandpala Shahiya.
    Thus ended the first Hindu-Muslim encounter in the year 980 C.E. two and half centuries after the Arabs had occupied Sindh in 715 C.E. after their first attacks on India that had started in 638 C.E. After this too it was only in 1192 that the Muslims could capture Delhi and in 1326 that they could reach South India. So more than three centuries of constant and treacherous Muslim attacks were needed to enable the Muslims to make a dent into India and only after nearly seven centuries of Muslim aggression could the Jihadis tentatively and temporarily overrun India. This stands in sharp contract to the swift capture and conversion of Persia, Syria, Egypt, North Africa, and Spain all of which fell to the truculent Muslim armies in less than eighty years from 635 C.E. up to 711 C.E.

    The Muslims seized on their victory over the Hindu army and overran the capital Kubha (which was renamed Kabul by the aggressors) they destroyed the Hindu temples there and force converted the Hindu population that stayed behind, to Islam. After the defeat of Jayapala Shahiya, his son Anandpala Shahiya, moved his capital from Kubha (present day Kabul) to Udbhandapura (present day Und where Jayapala committed Jauhar) and finally to Luvkushpura (present day Lahore).
    He gathered all allies he could from Northern India and opposed the invading Muslims, now led by Sabuktagin’s son Mahmud of Ghazni. The armies met on the banks of the Ravi near Lahore. In the initial skirmishes, the Muslims were worsted by the Hindus who led the attacks using armor-clad elephants, and were determined to liberate their Motherland…
    In the initial defeats of the Muslims, the Hindus had pushed the Muslims up to the foothills of the Paariyatra Parvat (Hindu Kush mountains).
    After these defeats, the Muslim realized that the armor-clad Elephants would be their nemesis and put paid any further invasions of India.
    As the Muslims came from Afghanistan, they had no access to elephants, so they decided to use subterfuge which was instinctive for the Muslims practiced as it was from the days of the Treaty of Hudaibiya by their prophet Mohammed. The Muslims sent an envoy to Anandpala, saying that they are suing for peace, their conditions were that they should be allowed safe passage out of the country. As a gesture of goodwill they wanted to come over to the Hindu camp and have a common meal with the Hindus, to seal the peace treaty. Against the advice of his allies, the innocuous and unsuspecting Anandpala agreed to meet the Muslims...
    The Muslims came for the luncheon arranged at the banks of the Ravi river where the Hindu army had encamped. While intermingling with the soldiers, the Muslims moved about in the stables of the Hindu camp and expressed surprise at how the Hindus fed their mighty elephants. With the Hindus playing the role of the gracious hosts, indulged their “guests” with every query they asked. After all the Muslims were their guests and the Hindus had a quaint belief that “A guest is like God” (Athithi Devoh Bhava), but little did these unsuspecting Hindus realize that these Muslims guests were Satan incarnate! While the unsuspecting Hindus showed them around the elephant stables, the Muslims secretly fed the elephants poppy seeds (opium) mixed with fruits.
    The poppy seeds being raw did not have immediate effect and everything seemed normal. The dastardly deed being done, the Muslim contingent left the Hindu camp and returned to their own camp. The Hindus self-satisfied that the war was over and the peace had now been sealed with a common luncheon began preparations to dismantle their camp.
    To their utter amazement, in the next few hours, the Muslim cavalry surrounded the Hindu camp in a pincer move and began a fierce attack with shrieks of Allahuakbar. The confused Hindus belatedly, realized that they had been double-crossed by the Muslims. But manfully they fastened the howdas (seats for the riders of the elephants like saddles for horsemen) to their elephants and charged at the besieging Muslims in a disorderly manner. The Hindus were in for a shock when their elephants refused to obey their mahouts (elephant riders) orders and started running amok and away from the battled. The opium fed deceptively by the Muslims had begun to have its effect. With Anandpala also on one of the elephants which had started running helter-skelter, the confusion grew in the remaining Hindu troops.
    The Muslims cunningly spread the word that Anandpala was retreating, as he knew that a new and strengthened Muslim army had joined the existing Muslims forces. The rumor gained credence, as the Hindus saw that Anandpala’s elephant had gone a considerable distance away from the battle. There isolated from his main army, Anandpala was pursued by the Muslims who had kept him under watch.
    They surrounded him, cut down the leather strips that held his howdah on the elephant, and when the howdah fell on the ground, they decapitated the unfortunate Anandpala, beheaded him, stuck his head on a spike and paraded it before the Hindu army which was already in confusion. This grisly sight further demoralized the remaining Hindu troops who had initially lost heart when they saw their leader in “retreat”. Now with his head on a spike, a sight which they had never seen in battles before totally unnerved them, and the Hindu retreat turned into a rout, with many of the Hindus massacred on the battlefield.
    The rest was easy, for the Muslims to tear down the remaining Hindu troops and turn what was on the way to becoming a Hindu victory into a Muslim one, with the use of subterfuge and betrayal…
    This should have been a lesson about the Muslim mind for the Hindus. But it was not to be as, we shall see such foul tricks were repeated over and over again by the Muslims in the coming centuries in their duel of death with the Hindus…

  3. #3
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    Re: The Memory does not forget...

    Hail!!!

    PART3
    After snatching victory through subterfuge at Lahore, the Muslims began to penetrate deeper into the country. Anandpala attained veergati (martyrdom) through the deceit of the Muslims, as had his father Jayapala. Now the teenaged grandson of Jayapala Shaiya, Tirlochanpala Shahiya took the reins of the death struggle against the Muslims in to his hands. He was then just a teenager at seventeen years of age when the ascended the once glorious throne of the Shahiyas.
    The Shahiya empire which had once stretched from the rivers Yamuna to the Kubha (Kabul), was now a shadow of its former glory. The first move Tirlochanpala did was to shift the capital from Lahore to Kangra in today’s Himachal Pradesh. Kangra was in a relatively fortified position, from where he tried to reorganize the defense of his vastly reduced domains.
    The Shahiya empire which stretched from Herat to Hardwar, was now pushed to one fifth its size and its western border which was once at Herat during the reign of Jayapala Shahiya was now pushed about a thousand miles east at Kalka in the Shivalik Hills which were the foothills of the Himalayas. The Shahiya domains had now shrunk and did not occupy a position to block the further advance of the Muslims into the Gangetc plains - the Indian heartland. But he followed the valiant example of his father and grandfather and allied himself with the kings of Kashyapmeru (Kashmir) and Tibet, to eject the Muslims from Punjab and Upaganasthan (Afghanistan).
    Sabuktagin’s son Mahmud Ghazni, wanted to nip this effort in the bud. He again made use of the patented Muslim mechanism of subterfuge. He sent a group of his soldiers dressed up as Hindu mendicants to meet Tirlochanpala. These mendicants went to Kangra and sent in a message that they come from Kubha (Kabul) and bring a message to their king whose ancestors originally ruled Kabul. With this trick, they gained entry into Tirlochanpala’s headquarters at the fortress of Kangra.
    Once in his presence, the mendicants surrounded the unsuspecting young prince and sliced his neck and made off with his severed head, leaving a note beside his headless body that Islam will finally overcome anyone who decided to block the path of allah’s soldiers…A few days later a Muslim army arrived at the Kangra valley, stormed the fort of Kangra, and sacked it to srip it off the opulent riches that it held from the once vast Shahiya empire. This happened in the year 1020 C.E. The downfall of the Shahiya empire was so complete within forty years spanning a struggle over three generations that a few centuries later people even doubted if the Shahiyas (Hindu-Shahis) ever existed. Thus the memory of a dynasty that had held guard at the North West frontier of India since the days of the Kushanas in the 3rd century C.E. disappeared into the sands of time. The only reminder today are the ruins of the fortress of Kangra around which the gold and silver coins artfully minted by the Shahiyas are still to be found…
    The surviving remnants of the once formidable Shahiya army, became leaderless and demoralized. They migrated deep into the Himalayas and settled down as goat-herds known today as Gaddis. These Gaddis follow this profession to this day and they still inhabit the Himalayas coming down to the Shivalik foothills and the plains of Punjab in the winter to graze their cattle. Thus with Tirlochapala’s death, the last scion of the Hindu dynasty that ruled Afghanistan and Punjab passed away…

    The defeat of the Shahiyas opened the Indian heartland to these invaders and Mahmud of Ghazni, repeatedly attacked India. His raids for plundering and destroying Hindu shrines at Purushapura (Peshawar), Luvkushpura (Lahore), Mulasthana (Multan), Somnath, Palitana, Staneshwara (Thanesar), Mathura, Kannauj, Khajuraho regularly every year are still recollected with dread. His aim initially was limited to collecting a large booty every time as also take many Hindu captives who were sold into slavery in the bazaars of Baghdad and other Muslim cities. His raid on the famous Hindu shrine of Somnath located at Prabhash Patan in Gujarat is seared in Hindu memory till today.
    The many Hindu captives that he took from India were transported on foot across the Western ranges of the Himalayas. Many Hindu captives could not face up to the merciless treatment of their cruel captors, and died in large numbers along the way. These deaths of the Hindus is remembered in the name which the Muslim gave to the Western Himalayas as “Hindu Kush”, which means the Killer of Hindus (Kush means ‘to kill’ in Persian). The ancient Hindu name of these mountains in the Sanskrit language was Paariyatra Parvat, also written as Pāriyatra Parvat.
    The Hindus register one spectacular victory over the Muslims in 1033 at Baharaich in today’s Uttar Pradesh. The invader was Mahumd Ghazni’s son, Masud Ghazni, who following his father’s footsteps invaded India with a large army. The difference now was that he did not intend limiting himself to looting as his father had done, but planned a permanent occupation of the entire country.
    With this aim in mind, he penetrated deep in to the Ganges valley and established his camp at Baharaich in today’s eastern Uttar Pradesh. From there he sent word to the surrounding Hindu kings to surrender and embrace Islam!
    As was their practice, before the beginning of hostilities, the Hindu kings also sent a messenger to Masud that this land being theirs, his troops should peacefully vacate it (as was done once again unsuccessfully by the Government of India before the inception of the 1999 Kargil war when Pakistan occupied Indian territory at Kargil Drass and Mushkoh sectors in Kashmir). But Masud sent a reply that all land belonged to Khuda (the Persianized version of Allah) and he could settle wherever he pleased. And that it was his holy duty to convert to Islam all those who did not recognize his Khuda and accept Islam.
    Consequently, Masud's huge army was besieged by the even greater Hindu army and no side gave the other any quarter. The Hindus, for once as an exception had learnt their lesson about Muslim treachery, after being victimized for four hundred years from 638 onwards. At the battle of Baharaich, gradually the Hindus began to decimate the Muslim army and as the hostilities progressed, Masud saw the unsuccessful end of his expedition. This bitter and bloody war was fought in the month of June 1033.
    In this ferocious and bloodied war, no side took any prisoners and it ended only with the slaughter of the entire invading Muslim army along with many martyrs from the defending Hindu army.
    What was exceptional during this war was that the folly of pardoning a defeated enemy, that was displayed by Prithviraj Chauhan 160 years later in 1191, was not to be seen. The Hindus seemed to have followed the tradition of their ancient king Ramchandra of Ayodhya when he defeated and killed Ravana and his entire army at the battle of Lanka.
    The battle of Baharaich ended on 14th June 1033. At the gory end, the entire invading army along with their commander lay dead. Not one enemy soldier was allowed to return. There still exists today near Baharaich the grave of the commander of the invader - Prince Ghazi Mian Masud. There he is hailed today by the local Muslims as a Ghazi and a Peer (a Muslim who is raised sainthood by being a killer of non-Muslims). And every year till this day an Urs (Muslim religious assemblage) is held in his memory. What is forgotten is the valiance of the Hindu soldiers who lost their lives in this major victory against the first Jihadi invasion in to the Indian heartland. Ironically and foolishly, some local Hindus too visit the invader’s grave to ask for personal boons…

    After this decisive and ruthless Hindu victory, peace prevailed in the country for a century and a half; till the next (and now, unfortunately a successful) wave of Muslim invasions started under the leadership of Mohammed Ghori.
    This interlude of one hundred and fifty years from 1033 up to 1187, had made the Hindus forget the treacherous nature of the Muslims. The Ghaznivid kingdom of West Punjab (established by Mahmud Ghazni on the former territory of the Shahiya kingdom), had made peace with its Hindu neighbors and the Hindus were under a delusion that the Muslims were like any other invader who would settle down in India and be absorbed into Hindu society, as had happened earlier with the Greeks, Huns, Kushans, etc.
    The policy of the Ghaznivid occupiers of West Punjab to issue coins in Sanskrit and use the Sanskrit version of Muslim names as Mahamada for Mohammed, fuelled this wrong impression about the true nature of the Muslims in the minds of the innocuous Hindus.

  4. #4
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    Re: The Memory does not forget...

    Hail!!!

    PART 4
    The next Muslim onslaught came in the year 1187, when the Muslim chieftain of a place named Ghor in Afghanistan, overthrew the Ghaznavid ruler in Ghazni. These Gauris (pronounced by the Muslims as Ghauri, Ghori and rendered in English as Ghurid) were originally Hindu cowherds and were subjects of the Shahiyas, who had been converted by force to Islam, by the Ghaznavids, who overthrew the Shahiya power in Afghanistan in 980 C.E.
    Now in the 1187 After a lapse of 200 years, these ex-Hindus who had been forced to embrace Islam, had become cruel and merciless like any other Muslims and not a trace of their Hindu ancestry was evident in their mindset, except for the name Gauri (derived from Gau which means cow in Sanskrit). Their name “Gauri” traced their humble origins as Hindu cowherds. From their name Gauri, the place from where they hail, derived its Islamized name Ghaur or Ghor. Though Muslims, the Gauris got poetic justice, by annihilating the kingdom of their former tormentors, the Ghaznavids. But ironically these former Hindu cowherds, the Gauris had now become the new ruthless tormentors of their former compatriots - the Hindus.
    After overcoming the Ghaznivid governor of Punjab, Mohammed Ghori found his way into India proper blocked by three powerful Hindu kingdoms – the Solankis (Chalukyas) of Anahilwada in Gujarat, the Chahmanas (Chouhans) of Delhi, Ajmer and Sambhar; and the Rathods (Gahadwals) of Kannauj (Uttar Pradesh).
    Mohammed allied himself with the Muslim governor of Sindh and in 1187, unleashed the full fury of his aggression on Gujarat. But to his misfortune, the Hindu Solankis (Chalukyas) of Anahilwada, defeated him utterly at the battle on the plains below Mount Arbuda (Abu) and forced him to retreat across the Thar desert.
    Thus the Solankis of Gujarat once again lit the bright flame of Hindu valor in Gujarat in repelling a Muslim attack. The next time this flame in Gujarat was to be lit while resisting a Muslim barbarity was in March 2002, when the Hindus of Gujarat, retaliated massively against the Muslims who had roasted alive 58 Hindu pilgrims in a Railroad coach near Godhra Railroad Terminal when they were returning from a pilgrimage to a Hindu holy town Ayodhya.
    It was at Ayodhya where Babar another Muslim invader had demolished a major Hindu temple dedicated to Rama…The dynasty founded by Babar literally took their mindset after his name and should aptly be called “Babarians” as they demolished temples (as was done by Aurangzeb at Varanasi, Ayodhya, Mathura and many other places), they also slaughtered soldiers who had surrendered (as was done by Akbar at Chittod where he slaughtered thirty thousand Rajput soldiers who had surrendered to him good faith.)
    Returning to the 12th century when Mohammed Ghori was defeated by the Solankis and had to retreat from the western edge of the Thar, he tried invading India from another route. But on the other side of the Thar lay the domains of the Maharaja of Sambhar (Shaka-ambara) Prithviraj Chauhan, who was known for his bravery and chivalry.
    Mohammed having tasted defeat at Hindu hands once, decided to make use of subterfuge. He studied Hindu warfare, as had been done by Sabuktgin two hundred years before him. Thus, fully prepared to invade India, he advanced through West Punjab and laid siege to the fortress of Bhatinda in East Punjab, that lay on the borders of Prithvitraja’s domains. Soon, he had to face the wrath of the Rajputs, and at Tarain (also known as Taraori) in today’s Haryana, the two armies clashed furiously.
    In face of the repeated onslaughts of the Rajput cavalry, the Muslims broke ranks and fled leaving their king Mohammed Ghori a prisoner in Prithviraja’s hands. Their defeat by the Solankis of Anahilwada had given the Muslims a foretaste of Hindu valor. But in that retreat they had to leave behind many of the best steeds in their cavalry which fell in to the hands of the pursuing Solanki army.
    To prevent this from happening again this time, the Muslims resorted to a trick. Once the fortunes of the battle turned against them at Tarain, and their king Mohammed Ghori himself was captured by the Rajputs, the Muslims broke into retreat, with the Rajputs in hot pursuit, the fleeing Muslim general Kutub-ud-din Aibak let loose a large herd of cows chained to each other to block the path of the pursing Hindu army. Thus with their path blocked by bovines, whom the Hindus looked upon as a deity, it was impossible for the Hindus to cut down the cows blocking their path, and the Muslim army shrewdly made its escape, reducing its losses and preventing many Muslim soldiers from being taken as captives by the victorious Hindus.
    When the captured Mohammed Ghori was brought before Prithviraja as a captive bound in chains, he pretended to be repentant, while internally he was seething with rage at being humiliated for having been captured by a Kafir king. This rage proved itself a few years later when their (Prithviraj’s and Ghori’s) roles were reversed.
    But for now as a prisoner in chains before Prithviraja, Mohammed Ghori begged for mercy and promised that he would never lift his eyes toward India.
    This foolishly melted the innocuous Prithviraja and he ordered that Mohammed’s chains be removed. In his feigned gratitude Mohamed told Prithviraja that he was like a “brother”. This statement floored Prithviraja even further. Going against the advice of his friend Chand Vardai, his generals Hammira, and the brave warrior twins Aalaa and Uddhal, he ordered Mohammed to be released and as a token of his generosity, he also gifted his captive with five hundred horses and twenty elephants, and honorably released him!
    Once freed, the vengeful Mohammed who was seething with rage and thirsting for revenge made his way back to Ghori and carefully planned his next attack on Prithviraj!
    On reaching Ghor, Mohammed reneged on his sham promise to Prithviraj and promptly murdered the Rajput escorts and envoys that Privithraja had sent to accompany Mohammed to Ghor. Displaying utter contempt for noble behavior, Ghori sent their severed heads as a token of his “goodwill” to the astonished Prithviraj. Mohammed Ghori also immediately started preparing for another assault on India. Going by the experiences of his two defeats at the hands of the Solankis and Chauhans, the wily but twice beaten Mohammed decided to go by subterfuge, the patented mentality of the Muslims that has given them victory over more powerful, but less scheming and treacherous adversaries.
    Mohammed’s spies told him that whenever the Hindus battled each other, the armies fought from sunrise up to sunset. There was no warfare before Sunrise and after sunset (in the hours of darkness).
    In the following year, Mohammed broke his deceptive promise to Prithviraja and attacked India once again. The two armies again gathered at the same battlefield of Tarain (Taraori) near the ancient town of Thanesar (Sthaneshwara). Thanesar had been the winter capital of Harsha Vardhana during 620 - 644, the last major Hindu king who ruled over most of Northern India at the beginning of the Muslim onslaught.
    Now after assaults of over five hundred years, the Muslims had breached the outer defenses of India in the north and west, and started making their second forays in to the Indian heartland – the first forays under Mohammed Ghazni having been unsuccessful in establishing permenant Muslim bases beyond the Punjab. In 1191, the Rajput army under Prithviraj had camped near a river so as to do their morning ablutions before the war could be joined on the next morning, as was decided by the two commanders. But violating convention, the Muslim army attacked at 3 A.M. before dawn, as had two centuries earlier the Muslim army led by Sabuktgin in the year 980 (a fact which the Hindus had foolishly forgotten).
    When the Muslims unexpectedly broke into the Hindu camp, Prithviraj’s soldiers had begun their morning ablutions and some were still asleep, and so were totally unprepared for the assault. But they did their best to group their forces and resist the Muslims. The Muslims had the advantage of surprise which they had gained by deceit.
    The uneven battle continued till noon, by when the Muslims had slaughtered many of the Rajputs. But the Rajputs did not yield and in turn, slaughtered many of their treacherous Muslim enemy too and gradually gained the upper hand. By midday, it looked like the second battle of Tarain would also go the way the first had gone. Mohammed saw victory slipping from his hands once again.
    So he resorted to another patented Muslim subterfuge of single combat – called Mard-o-Mard in Farsi (Persian). This was a technique which Muslims had used quite cunningly against the Zoroastrian Persians, some six centuries earlier when the barbaric Muslim hordes first burst out of Arabia and attacked Iran.
    In order to humiliate Prithviraj, Mohammed sent word that he would call off the battle, if Prithviraja came and fought his champion Qutub-ud-din Aibak in single combat. To save the lives of his soldiers, and to conclude the war quickly Prithviraja agreed. The rule in single combat was that when one combatant is either pinned down or killed, the army to which he belongs concedes defeat retreats. No other combatant is allowed to participate in this combat, hence the name - single combat.
    But with the insidious Muslims, this rule did not hold. So at the battle of Tarain, when the two met and Prithviraja’s sword felt heavy on Qutub who risked losing his life, Qutub resorted to a feint and by whirling below his saddle he cut off one of the feet of Prithviraja’s horse, before Prithviraj could realize what he was up to. As the horse lost balance, Prithviraja tripped and fell off his wounded horse.
    This was a foul move, and it would have been fair, had after this, Qutub, also dismounted and fought Prithviraja on foot. Instead at a pre-arranged signal from Qutub, a band of truculent Muslim soldiers, who had till then stood aside in the grab of horse-tenders, jumped on Prithviraja, pinned him down, pressed on his face a dose of hashish (that grew abundantly in the poppy farms of Afghanistan as they do till this day). They bound the drugged Prithviraja in chains and galloped away with him as a prisoner into their ranks, before the Rajputs could realize and react to this unexpected act of treachery.
    The Muslims immediately carried away the captive and drugged Prithviraj and hoisted him on one of the elephants that Prithviraj had gifted to Mohammed Ghori when he had released Ghori. The Muslim spread a rumor in the Rajput camp that Prithviraj was dead and that they were holding aloft his dead body to show the Rajputs the futility of fighting further.
    When the Rajputs saw that they their Maharaj (King) was evidently dead with his corpse in the hands of the enemy, they lost nerve and through enraged, fell back against Pithoragarh, their fortified capital at Mehrauli near Delhi. The Muslims retreated with the captured Prithviraj to Afghanistan.
    When Prithviraj was presented in chains before Mohammed Ghori, he reminded Mohammed how Ghori was himself presented before Prithviraja in chains and how Prithviraja had honorably released him. On hearing this Mohammed and his courtiers laughed derisively at Prithviraja…
    When Prithviraja glared back at Mohammed and his courtiers, Mohammed ordered him to lower his eyes as he was now a captive. When Prithviraja told him that a Rajput’s eyes are lowered only after death, Mohammed in a fit of rage ordered that Prithviraja’s eyes be pierced with red hot irons. He kept the blinded Pritiviraja in solitary confinement and had him occasionally hauled to his court for being made fun of as the “Lion of Delhi”.
    During this period of humiliating captivity, Prithviraja was joined by his friend and biographer Chandra Vardai (Chand Bardai) who joined his master in prison, after offering himself as a prisoner to Mohammed. It was in prison, that Chandra Vardai told Prithviraja of a plan to avenge his betrayal and humiliation. Before an annual event of Buskhazi (a kind of wild sport in which the Muslims indulged) was to be organized, Chandra Vardai told Mohammed, that Prithviraja would like to show his skill in archery, but he would accept orders only from a king who had defeated him. And as Mohammed was the only king who had done that, Mohammed Ghori himself would have to order Prithviraj to shoot!
    Mohammed’s ego being rubbed the right way, he readily agreed. On the said day Prithviraja was brought to the assemblage. And when Mohammed gave the order for Prithviraja to shoot, Chandra Vardai in the following poetic stanza “Char bans, chaubis gaj, angul asta pramaan, Ete pai Sultan hai, Ab mat chuko Chouhan." (Ten measures ahead of you and twenty four feet away, is seated the Sultan, do not miss him now, Chouhan). On hearing these words Prithviraja whirled in the direction of Mohammed and shot three arrows one after the other and wounded Mohammed fatally. Thus Prithviraja had his justice, although due to his folly in pardoning the ghoulish fiend Mohammed, he lost his kingdom and India lost its sovereignty to the Muslims.

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    PART 5

    The Hindu counterattack against Islam does not have any fixed date. From the very first battles of the Rajas of Makara (Makran) and Sindh in 638, till the final elimination of Muslim rule by the Marathas, Jats, Rajputs, Gurkhas and Sikhs in the 18th and early 19th centuries, this constant Hindu-Muslim war did not stop. So we can only define the counterattack as that period when the Hindus started turning the tactics of their Muslim tormentors on the tormentors themselves. The first Hindu king to do that was the King of Orissa - Narasimhadeva.
    After the easy victories over North India from Punjab, through Bengal, the Muslims turned to attack Orissa. Here the Muslims met their match. The people of Orissa were hardy fighters. (In ancient and medieval times, Orissa was also called Kalinga or Utkal – from Uttam Kala which means ‘Excellent Art’ that reflects the artistic tradition of sculpture of that region).
    Now in the 13th century, when Tugan Khan attacked Orissa, the then ruling king of Orissa, Narsimhadeva, decided to use subterfuge against the Muslims. He sent word to the invaders that he wanted to surrender without a fight, as had Lakshmansena, the ruler of neighboring Bengal.
    Tugan had easily conquered Bengal a few years before attacking Orissa. He found Bengal to be easy meat as the king of Bengal instead of fighting, fled from the advancing Muslim armies and Begal fell without a fight. Having tasted blood in Bengal, Tugan thought that the conquest of Orissa would also be a cakewalk.
    Tugan boasted that he had put the fear of death in the heart of the Hindus and could overrun the entire country in a single campaign. But Narasimhadeva had other ideas. He decided to use the Muslims’ patent tool subterfuge against the enemy. He sent word to Tugan that Orissa was ready to surrender to the Muslims without a fight, as had its neighbor Bengal. Tugan accepted Narasimhadeva’s surrender proposal and asked for the surrender of the major city of Puri that was an important Hindu Pilgrim center (Narasimhadeva had his capital elsewhere at Jajanagara). Tugan’s other conditions included handing over all weapons to the Muslim army, the embracing of Islam by the entire population in the central square in front of the Jagannath Temple or agreeing to pay Jazia and to convert the Jagnnath temple at Puri into a Mosque as an acknowledgement of submission.
    To the delight of the Muslims, all these terms were accepted and the Muslims advanced into the city, blissfully unaware that the shrewd Hindu king had laid a trap for them. On the orders of Narasimhadeva, the bustling city had been completely evacuated of its pilgrims, the aged and children; and professional soldiers from all over the kingdom had occupied every nook and cranny of the city, hidden away inside the closely built houses across the narrow winding lanes.
    Once the Muslim army was inside the city, it had to disperse itself into the maze of narrow lanes and bylanes with which they were not familiar and where they had to dismount from their horses and advance single file.
    Unaware of the danger lurking they advanced cautiously and slowly towards the central square where the surrender ceremony was to take place.
    When the Muslim army was so dispersed, at a prearranged signal from one of lookouts from the temple spires, the temple bells started ringing, and this was the signal for the Hindus to pounce on the Muslims. The pitched battle lasted one whole day and went into the night pierced by the cries of wounded and dying Muslim and Hindu soldiers. While the Hindus took many losses, the entire Muslim army was caught like as in a mousetrap, and annihilated. Very few Muslims could escape this trap.
    This bold and unorthodox idea succeeded, and it caught the Muslims totally off-guard as it had never been used till then, by any Hindu king, as it went against the Hindu rules of warfare based on fair-play and fighting a noble war.
    But precisely because of it being totally unexpected, the Muslims had to suffer a bloody nose and the Hindus emerged victorious. Consequently Orissa was to remain a Hindu bastion for many centuries and this accounts for the very low percentage of Muslims in Orrisa even today, unlike Bengal, where the eastern part (known today as Bangladesh) has been totally Islamized, and the Western half of Bengal is undergoing the process of Islamization especially in the district of Murshidabad and the metropolis of Kolkata which abound in slums infested by local Muslims and those infiltrating from Eastern Bengal (Bangladesh).
    The victorious King of Orissa, Narasimhadeva erected a victory pillar designed as a war chariot. This temple was dedicated to Surya the Sun god, at a location near the temple town of Puri. He named this place Konark which means “Essence of the Corners” While the structure commemorates the victory in the battle against the Muslims, the name Konark commemorates the science of astronomy of which the King was an avid student.
    Although some Hindus, such as the Marathas of Pune, displayed this shrewdness against the Muslims; in most others such as the kings of Vijaynagar and the Rajputs continued to wage a noble war with the ignoble Muslims and lost out. It was for the shrewdness of the Marathas led by their astute king Shivaji, that the Muslims could never entirely subjugate the Southern half of India (Dakkan or Deccan from Dakshin which means south in Sanskrit) as they did with North India.
    But relatively speaking, it was also the Hindus of Vijayanagar in Karnataka who gave a tougher time to the Muslims as compared to the Rajput Hindus, and held back the tide of Muslim aggression at the Krishna river. And it was the Maratha Hindus who finally threw off the Muslim yoke and marched northwards to liberate North India. The Marathas marched in to Delhi in 1720, and then onwards in to Punjab and beyond up to Attock in Paktoonisthan in 1756. The Sikhs carried the Saffron flag further ahead in to Afghanistan and again made Kabul in to an Indian province in 1823 – a province that had been lost to the Hindus in 980, when its last Hindu king Jay Pal had been treacherously defeated by the Muslim raider Subuktigin.

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    Re: The Memory does not forget...

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    PART 6

    Vijaynagar, was the first Hindu kingdom which gave up the Hindu practice of not molesting non-combatants. Thus they started paying the Muslims with the same token. Whenever the armies of Vijaynagar overran any Bahamani town or village they torched it. With this they put the fear of death into Muslim minds and soon, the Adilshahi and Nizamshahi sultans sued for a treaty with Vijaynagar that would proscribe the killing of civilians by either side.
    From then on this treaty was adhered to by both the Hindus and Muslims, till Vijaynagar was finally defeated at the battle of Talikotai and dramatically and savagely destroyed by the Muslims immediately after the battle! But with the final defeat of the Hindus at Talikotai, the Muslims repudiated this treaty, as their founder Mohammed-ibn-abdallah had repudiated the treaty of Hudaibiya, and so after the battle of Talikotai the truculent Muslims indulged in a gory slaughter of all the Hindu inhabitants of Vijaynagar, they murdered everyone they could lay their hands on. Not a single person was allowed to live in that beleaguered city. The city itself was reduced to rubble, after six months of ceaseless pillage and wanton destruction…
    While the Hindu kings of Orissa and of Vijaynagar, successfully defended themselves and arrested the Muslim aggression, it was the Marathas under their shrewd and visionary leader Chattrapati Shivaji Maharaj who not only liberated their province of Maharashtra from Muslim domination, but took the flame of independence from Muslim domination all across Central, Northern India and to parts of Southern and Eastern India.
    Shivaji epitomized this successful Hindu counter-attack on Islam where he outdid the Muslims in their games of deceit, treachery, subterfuge, all gift-wrapped with the technique of guerilla warfare that gave the Muslims sleepless night and nightmares to the Muslim king Aurangzeb, who thought that he had begun too see the demise of Muslim power in India.

    In the early 14th century (1312) Gujarat was overrun by the Muslim kings of who had a century earlier occupied Delhi. As was customary, the Muslims slaughtered countless Hindu victims after every victory. They also carried off many beautiful women and handsome young man as captives, to be used as sex slaves. One such handsome child was Khusro Khan. This was not his original name when he was carried off as a prisoner at the age of eleven. Even at that tender age, he had chiseled features and was fair complexioned. He belonged to the Makwana sub-caste of North Gujarat.
    As was the custom, all captives were forcibly converted to Islam and brought up as slaves. After nearly fifteen years in captivity Khusro Khan forgot what his original name was. He only faintly recollected that he had a different childhood which he shared with the other captives from Gujarat.
    His stunning features and fair complexion evoked the perverted lust of his captor Sultan Allaudin Khilji’s perverted son, Qutbuddin Mubarak Khalji. He like his more notorious father Alauddin Khalji, were in love with their young male slaves. Qutbuddin Mubarak had a particular fondness for his slave Khusro Khan and as a teenager, Khusro was sexually abused by Qutbuddin Mubarak for eight years.
    Khusro seethed for revenge against this barbarity that robbed him of his childhood and early youth.
    In 1320, Qutbuddin murdered his ageing father Allaudin and crowned himself emperor. By then Khushro had acquired a position of influence over Qutbuddin. Khusro had also used this influence to gather other captives like him and had arm them to make up Qutbuddin’s bodyguard. Khusro often wanted to put a sword through the Sultan and kill him while he was doing the immoral act of publicly kissing him. All through his teens, Khusro was forced to publicly offer his body to the Sultan like a prostitute. He did this apparent cheer, but within himself he was seething with rage and had been choking up with a desire for revenge at the way the Sultan forced himself upon him and took advantage of him.
    During the struggle for power in 1320 when Qutbuddin murdered his ageing father, Khusro got his chance. Qutbuddin had put his trust in his partner in perverted sex, Khusro and put him in charge of guarding his royal quarters. Qutbuddin Mubarak excluded all his father’s men from important duties in the palace and the army.
    Taking advantage of his position and the general resentment for Qutbuddin, Khusro murdered Qutbuddin Mubarak Khilji, and crowned himself king and assumed the title Khusro Khan. And what was a shock to the whole of India, especially to the Muslims occupying Delhi was that Khusro declared himself to be a Hindu again!! When he ascended the throne, Khusro Khan was only nineteen years of age. The Muslim nobility was shell-shocked, but with the strong contigent of Gujarati converts around Khusro Khan, they were momentarily stunned into inaction. However, they began plotting the overthrow of Khusro Khan – who in their eyes was a Murtad who had abjured Islam.
    Eventually, after a year, a Muslim General Ghazi Malik (who later took on the title Giyasuddin Tughlak) murdered Khusro and re-established the rule of Muslims in Delhi. After a brief interlude of Hindu rule, Ghazi Malik founded the Tughluq dynasty…



    On 24th January 1556 CE the Mughal ruler Humayun slipped while climbing down the steps of his library and fell to his death. The heir to the Mughal throne, 13 year old Akbar was then campaigning in Punjab with his chief minister Bairam Khan. On February 14, 1556, in a garden at Kalanaur, Akbar was enthroned as emperor. The other rivals for the throne of Delhi were the three Afgan princes of Sher Shah. However the main threat to Akbar's future came not from the Afgan princes but from a Hindu anmed Hemu. Hemu was the Hindu chief minister of Afgan prince Adil Shah and he led a surprise attack on Delhi in October 1556.
    The Mughal forces under its governor Tardi Beg Khan panicked and went into a sudden ignominious flight. This was Hemu's twenty second consecutive victory in successive battles. After the capture of Delhi, Hemu set up himself as an independent ruler under the Hindu title of 'Raja Vikramaditya'. At this juncture against the advice of most nobles, Akbar and Bairam Khan took a courageous decision, to press forward against Hemu's undoubtedly superior forces. On November 5, 1556 the Mughul forces met the Hemu’s army at Panipat.
    In this second battle of Panipat, the Mughals were saved by a lucky accident after a hard fight which looked more than likely to go against them. Hemu who was leading the battle from atop an elephant, veered too close to the enemy ranks, and a archer from the Mughal army used this opportunity to attack him. An arrow hit Hemu in the eye and although it did not kill him it had pierced the cerebral cavity enough to make him unconscious.
    In any battle of this period the death of the leader meant an end of the fight, and the sight of Hemu slumped in the howdah of his famous elephant Hawai was enough to make his army turn tail. Akbar’s General, Shah Quli Khan captured the Hawai elephant with its prize occupant, and took it directly to Akbar.
    Hemu was brought unconscious before Akbar and Bairam. Bairam advised Akbar to perform the holy duty of slaying the infidel and earn the Islamic holy title of 'Ghazi'. Among much self-congratulation Akbar then severed the head of unconscious Hemu with his saber. Some historians claim that Akbar did not kill Hemu himself, but just touched the infidel's head with his sword and his associates finished the gory 'holy' work. However the latter version seems inconsistent with the events that followed. After the battle Hemu's head was sent to Kabul as a sign of victory to the ladies of Humayun's harem, and Hemu's torso was sent to Delhi for exposure on a gibbet.
    Iskandar Khan chased the Hemu's fleeing army and captured 1500 elephants and a large contingent. There was a bloody slaughter of those who were captured…Akbar had a victory pillar built with the severed heads of his fallen Hindu enemies…
    Hemu's wife escaped from Delhi with the treasure and although Pir Mohammad Khan's troops chased her caravan they could not lay their hands on her or the tresure. Hemu's aged father was captured and on refusing to accept Islam, was executed. This is the 'glorious' history of Akbar's victory at the battle of Panipat.
    Later on Akbar displayed his “chivalry” once again when he ordered the cold blooded slaughter of thirty thousand Rajput soldiers who had surrendered to him after the battle of Chittod.

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    PART 7

    The Muslims had made many attempts from the time of Mohammed Bin Tughlak to swallow Assam. But the Ahom kings of Assam stoutly and shrewdly defeated each Muslim incursion in to Assam. Finally the Mughals during the reign of Aurangzeb attacked Assam with a huge force. The shrewd Assamese king laid a trap for the Muslim army at a place named Sariaghat on the Bramhaputra river.
    The Battle of Saraighat was fought in 1671 between the Mughals (led by the renegade Rajput Hindu traitor Kachwaha king Raja Ramsingh I), and the Ahoms (led by Lachit Borphukan, the Ahom governor of Guwahati) on the Brahmaputra river at Saraighat near Guwahati. Although considered to be the weaker force, the Ahom army defeated the Mughal by using a combination of guerrilla tactics, psychological warfare and military intelligence.
    Lachit Barphukan captured the Mughal post in north Guwahati and, later, their fort in south Guwahati. The present day Kamrup Deputy Commissioner's bungalow is now situated on this site. The greatest threat to Lachit's army were the many Mughal cannons. In another secret mission executed the night before battle the cannons were disabled by Bagh Hazarika, a subordinate of Lachit's, During the night, Hazarika poured water into the cannons' barrels, soaking their gunpowder. With the Mughal cannons disabled, the Ahoms bombarded the Guwahati fort with their cannons. After a heavy cannonade and then a determined charge, the Mughals were defeated and the fort captured. After this the Mughals abandoned Guwahati.
    Now Lachit Barphukan anticipated a larger retaliatory attack by the Mughals and he started arranging defenses, obstacles and garhs (earthen walls) around Guwahati, relying upon the hillocks around Guwahati and the Brahmaputra River as natural barriers against an invading army…
    The Mughals struck back in March 1679. The Mughal commander-in-chief of the advancing Mughal army had at his disposal 30,000 infantry, 15,000 archers, 18,000 Turkish cavalry, 5,000 gunners, more than 1000 cannons and a large flotilla of boats. Portuguese and other European sailors were employed to man the fleet. These forces moved up the Brahmaputra from Dhaka to Guwahati. Lachit's spies kept him informed of the progress of the Muslim advance. The Mughals laid siege to Guwahati that lasted for more than a year.
    Lachit fought from within the barriers knowing that his small cavalry would not stand against the Mughal cavalry on open ground. His guerrilla attacks against the Mughal caused them to suffer many casualties. Although the Mughals made many efforts, including one attempt to bribe Lachit with power position and money, as they had done successfully with some Rajputs, but with Lachit the Mughals failed to tempt him to betray his country. Every attempt to bribe him was replied with scorn. In spite of repeated desperate attempts they failed to defeat Lachit and capture Guwahati.
    But now the Ahom king, however, became impatient and ordered Lachit to attack the Mughals on open ground. Lachit reluctantly obeyed this command, and attacked the Mughal army in Allaboi. After some initial success, in which the Ahoms captured the local Mughal Commander, Mir Nawab, the Ahoms drew the full force of Mughal cavalry.
    The Ahom army was decimated by the Mughal cavalry on the open plain losing some 10,000 troops. Lachit had taken the precaution of digging a line of defense at the rear of his advancing columns, to which they could fall back to if forced to do so. In doing so, he managed to save the remainder of his forces and retreat into his prepared defenses.
    The Mughal could not penetrate these defenses and ultimately launched a massive naval assault on the river at Saraighat. They had large boats, some carrying as many as sixteen cannons. The Ahom soldiers were demoralised after their losses at Allaboi and their commander-in-chief, Lachit Borphukan, was seriously ill. At the sight of the massive Mughal fleet, they began to lose their will to fight, and some units commenced retreat.
    Lachit had been observing this development from his deathbed. Despite having a high fever, he had himself carried to a boat and, along with seven other boats, advanced headlong against the Mughal fleet. His bold advance inspired his retreating army to rally behind him. A desperate battle ensued on the Brahmaputra. The Ahoms in their small boats outmaneuvered the larger, more sluggish Mughal boats, and the river became littered with clashing boats and drowning soldiers.
    The Mughals were decisively defeated and they were finally forced to retreat from Guwahati, and also from other Ahom territory, up to Manas River. Thus ended the Battle of Saraighat, giving Lachit Barphukan the legendary fame in Assam.

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    Re: The Memory does not forget...

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    PART 8

    Less is known of the Muslim attack on Nepal and Tibet. Flushed with his easy successes in India, Mohammad bin Tughlak, the mad Muslim ruler of Delhi decided to conquer the Hindu kingdom of Nepal and the Buddhist domains of Tibet and convert the Gurkhas and Tibetians to Islam. Till then the Gurkhas had remained out of the path of the Muslim aggression.
    But in 1402, Mohammed bin Tughlak launched the first Muslim attack into the Himalayas. The Nepalese King knew the fate of the Hindu rajas of the plains and refused to meet the Muslim army at the border of his kingdom in the Nepalese Terai (plains).
    The shrewd Nepalese king withdrew his army into the snowy fastness of the Himalayas and joined forced with the king of Tibet who had sent down his reinforcements, as Tughlak had made clear his aim was to overrun Tibet after the conquest of Nepal.
    The Muslim army marched through deserted Nepalese villages and burnt out fields towards the snowy upper reaches of the Himalayas where not a blade of grass grew. The huge Muslim host was now fatigued but marched on, on the orders of Mohammed bin Tughlak, whose aim was to capture Kastha-Madapam (Kathmandu) and Lhasha.
    As the Muslim army went deeper into the Himalayas apart from the biting cold and the harsh terrain, they also had to march in small units through different valleys. The much smaller joint Nepalese Tibetean forces lay in wait for the Muslim army at a narrow pass beyond Pokhra. In the snow clad barren valley the battle was joined and the hardened Gurkhas mercilessly cut down the wearied Muslim troops in the harsh snowy and barren terrain. The Muslim army was slaughtered to a man, and only a few stragglers returned to the plains to tell the story of this ignominious defeat.
    After this massacre, no Muslim ruler was foolhardy enough to attack Nepal. And so Nepal remained a Hindu kingdom along with Assam and Orissa, all through the seven hundred years of Muslim domination over Northern India. It is this ruthless victory that preserved the Hindu character of Nepal.
    Had the Muslims overrun Nepal, they would have forcibly converted the Gurkhas to Islam and today we would have seen Muslim Gurkhas wielding their Khukhris (knives) to terrorize the remaining Hindus in Nepal to convert to Islam and indulge in terror attacks against India. The temples of Pashupatinath, Bhaktapur, Patan and Hanuman Dhokha would have been converted into mosques as have been those at Kashi, Ayodhya, Mathura and innumerable other places. But mercifully because of the foresight of the Nepalese kings into the fatal nature of the Muslim threat and the slaughter of the Muslims aggressors, Nepal today has remained a Hindu majority region.
    With the defeat of Mohammed Shah, the Moghul Emperor, in 1740 by Nadir Shah, the Mughal power steadily declined and its place was usurped by the Rohillas who were led by an ambitious and ruthless chieftain named Najib Khan. Najib's ambition was to supplant the Moghal Emperor and crown himself as the ruler of India by capturing Delhi.
    The growing power of the Marathas in their northward expansion, stood between Najib and his ambition. To overcome the Marathas, in 1755, Najib invited Ahmed Shah Abdali from Afghanistan to help him in defeating the Marathas and crown himself the ruler of India. In this, he was thwarted by the Marathas who decisively defeated the Rohillas and Afghans near Delhi in 1756. The defeat was so decisive that Najib Khan surrendered to the Marathas and became their prisoner. The Maratha forces were led by Shrimant Raghunath Rao and Malhar Rao Holkar.
    After defeating the Afghan-Rohilla forces, the Marathas pursued the Afghans into the Punjab upto the Khyber pass. The last frontier of the Marathas was at Attock on the Afghan border. Thus after nearly 800 after the last Punjabi King Tirlochan Pal Shahi had been defeated by Mahmud of Ghazi in 1020 C.E. did that part of India come under Indian rule in 1756 due to the liberation of Punjab by the Marathas.
    Meanwhile with machinations and trickery, Najib Khan won over Malhar Rao Holkar and secured his release. On his release Najib started to undermine the Marathas once again and treacherously killed Dattaji Shinde (eldest brother of Mahadji Shinde) . Najib continued to battle the Shindes in 1757-58 and with his newly found confidence again invited Ahmed Shah Abdali to invade India.
    Abdali's second invasion was launched in 1759. When Abdali launched his second invasion in 1759 the Marathas who after their successes in 1756 had been hibernating in Maharastra and Central India again woke up and in alliance with the Jat King Suraj Mal of Bharatpur formed an alliance. This alliance led by Shrimant Sadshiv Rao Bhau and Shrimant Vishwas Rao (the Peshwa Shrimant Balaji Baji Rao's son) won spectacular victories and captured Delhi and Kunjapura (where the Afghan treasury and armoury was located).
    Here the alliance developed cracks due to the Maratha insistence on pursing a head on confrontation with Abdali, instead of following the Jat advice to wage Guerilla warfare against Abdali, destroy Abdali's rear, and deny him sustenance, and supplies from the Muslim Rohillas. Suraj Mal advised the Marathas to put their women, courtiers, retainers, in a fort in Bharatpur, and fight `light'. But Bhau egged on by the Maratha womenfolk who wanted to do sight seeing of Kurukshetra (site of the famous Mahabharat war) , foolishly refused this advice.
    But the refusal of Sadashiv Rao Bhau to accept Suraj Mal's sagacious advice ultimately split the alliance and Suraj Mal withdrew from the alliance. The Marathas consequently marched upto Panipat, but instead of continuing their attacks to completely defeat the partly defeated Abdali and Najib Khan, they stayed put at Panipat, blocking the way of the Afghans back to Afghanistan. Seeing their way back to their homeland blocked, the Afghans now became restless. They in turn, decided to block the way of the Marathas back into the Deccan.
    This stand-off continued for one whole year from the 14th of January 1760 up to the 14th of January 1761. This led to the fall in the morale of the stranded Marathas and ultimatley led to their defeat at Panipat. The Marathi term "Sankrant Kosalali" meaing "Sankranth has befallen us" comes from this event. During this stand-off the Afghans cut-off all supplies to the huge Maratha army. The Afghans with Najib Khan meanwhile also recaptured Delhi and Kunjpura. On the decisive day of 14th January 1761 (Makar Sankranti), the Marathas decided to break-through the Afghan blockade and re-enter Deccan. The disastrous battle saw about one hundred thousand Maratha troops being slaughtered in a matter of eight hours. But the Afghans too suffered heavy losses and decided enough was enough and went back to Afghanistan never to return to India.
    But in spite of the rupture in the Jat-Maratha alliance, 25,000 Jats from the Sarv Khap, did support and fight against the Muslims alongside the Marathas at Panipat. Many of them had to pay the ultimate price and attained Veergati along with many of their Maratha clansmen.
    And after the disastrous Battle of Panipat many retreating Maratha soldiers, some badly wounded, were given refuge in Bharatpur and were also given a couple seers of atta and 1 rupee each to allow them to continue their journey to Gwalior. The Peshwa noble's women folk were given hospitality in the Bharatpur fort. As befitting their rank, Surjmal provided provisions and armed escorts for them to make their onwards journey in safety.
    Abdali never returned to India after this stormy campaign, but his decscendants did make unsuccessful attempts to do so. The invasion of Abdali's grandson (Sher Shah) was one such attempt.

  9. #9
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    Re: The Memory does not forget...

    Hail!!!

    PART 9
    This is the story of Shivaji Maharaj


    Now we move to the South where the Marathas were the first who crossed the Muslim invader Malik Kafur's path, when he invaded Central India in 1314 C.E. They were then led by the last scion of the Yadava dynasty - Ramdev Rai Yadava who ruled from Devagiri (today's Daulatabad, near Sambhajinagar aka Aurangbad). In their first clash with the Muslims, the Marathas lost to the invaders and accepted the status of being vassals and mercenaries of their Muslim masters.
    Shivaji's mother, Jijabai was a direct descendant of the erstwhile Yadav royal family of Devagiri. She seems to have nursed deep within her mind the idea of recovering independence from Muslim rule which her Yadav forebears had lost in the year 1318. Shivaji grew up with these ideas . His childhood stories are those of playing games in which he and his friends attacked and captured forts held by the enemy. When Shivaji was seventeen, he decided to transform what were till then simply games to a reality. He and his friends encouraged by Jijabai and his Guru Dadoji Kondeo; decided to take a formal oath to free the country from the shackles of Muslim domination. This was done in the year 1645 in a dark cavern housing a small temple to the Hindu God Shiva (locally called Raireshwar). Here Shivaji and his select band of teenaged Maratha friends slit their thumbs and poured the blood oozing from it on the Shiva-linga. By this act they declared a blood-feud against Mughal domination . This was the beginning of a long and arduous Maratha-Mughal struggle that went on for the next century and a half to culminate in the defeat of the Mughals and their replacement by the Marathas as the dominant power in India when the British came into the scene.
    When Shivaji started his military career by capturing the fortress of Torana, it sent shockwaves in the Adilshshi court at Bijapur. Here was a local Hindu chieftain, daring to challenge the might of a Muslim ruler. The retribution was swift and Adil Shah sent in his most fearsome general named Afzal Khan to bring back Shivaji dead or alive to Bijapur. Afzal Khan who was reputed to be more than six feet tall and of a real massive built, set on his mission and in order to lure Shivaji down into the plains, he destroyed the Hindu temples at Tuljapur, Pandharpur and Shikhar Shenganapur.
    This ploy failed to work and Shivaji stuck to his Hill fastness in the Sahyadris. Shivaji even sent a letter to Afzal Khan praising the legendary strength of Afzal Khan's powerful arms and his reputed fearlessness. Shivaji addressed him as his uncle and said that he was afraid to come down to meet Afzal Khan. Shivaji asked him to come up into the hills to meet him and on condition that Afzal Khan came with not more than few select soldiers. The proud Khan felt that the Dekkhan-Ka-Chuha (Rat of the Deccan as the Muslims scornfully addressed Shivaji) had really chickened out.
    Before inviting Afzal Khan up to the fort in the densely forested ranges, Shivaji had gone down to the plains in the guise of a fruit vendor with a basket of fruits on his head. This ploy was done so that Shivaji could have a good look at Afzal Khan’s face when the Khan traveled on horseback. No other person could have an excuse to look up to the Khan’s eyes. But a fruit vendor would have to look up to ask if the Khan wanted fruits. This way Shivaji made sure he knew who was the real Khan, as he knew that for meeting enemies, the Muslims sent imposters whenever they sensed that they would be betrayed at the meeting. But this way Shivaji ensured that he knew that it was the Khan himself who had come to meet him and not an imposter in his place.
    This action of Shivaji clearly indicated that he had made plans for slaying Khan when the two met at the Fort. Afzal Khan agreed to go up the hills at Pratapgad Fort to meet his nemesis. When the meeting took place, Shivaji had come in full armor, that was hidden beneath his thick satin robes, while Afzal had no such protection. When they came face to face Afzal Khan embraced Shivaji and with his formidable enemy (Afzal Khan was about six feet tall while Shivaji was less than five feet) in his embrace, Shivaji suddenly slipped his the 'Wagh Nakh' into the Khan’s abdomen. The 'Wagh Nakh' (literally tiger’s claws) are a sharp weapon resembling tiger claws that could be hidden in the grip of one's fist. In addition, he had the Bichhwa – a curved dagger hidden in the pocket of his waistcoat with which he repeatedly stabbed the unprepared Khan.
    After Shivaji had wounded him, the Khan then tried to attack Shivaji in self-defence by using his own dagger, and tried to stab Shivaji. But Afzal's dagger could not plunge into Shivaji Maharaj due to the protective armor which Shivaji was wearing, Afzal tried to throttle him. But the wily Maratha was more than prepared for this as he had come down not only with full armor that was hidden by his thick satin robes, but all his palanquin bearers were hardened Maratha warriors who had been armed to the teeth with their weapons hidden in their clothes and turbans.
    When Syed Banda, also a burly Muslim was about to strike Shivaji with his sword, Shivaji's bodyguard Jiva Mahalya struck off Banda's upraised arm in the air itself. After this commotion, the bleeding Khan tried to make good his escape and rushed into his palanquin. As the palanquin bearers set off with the fleeing Khan, Santaji Kawji, another of Shivaji's select warriors cut-off the feet of the bearers and Khans' palanquin, with its load of Afzal fell to the ground. Santaji Kawji, then finished off the task of sending Khan to his final resting place. Khan's army which was waiting in the valley was ruthlessly massacred by the Marathas who were hiding behind every crevice and bush in the densely wooded jungles around the Pratapgad fort. At the place where this encounter took place on 10th November 1659 between Shivaji Maharaj and the Khan, there stands today a Kabar (grave) erected by Shivaji for the departed Khan's soul to rest in peace.
    The next Muslim Khan to come down 'literally' before Shivaji was Shaista Khan. On hearing Shivaji's depredations, Aurangzeb was furious and wanted to desperately crush this infidel upstart. He sent his uncle maternal Shaista Khan with a large and powerful army to checkmate Shivaji.
    Shaista Khan came into Maharashtra and started devastating towns, villages fields, temples, forts and everything that came in his path.
    To provoke Shivaji, Shaista Khan established his camp in Shivaji's home in Pune called Lal-Mahal. And to top it up, he put up his Harem in Shivaji's Devghar (prayer room). He bided his time for many months and one on fine day (night), he with a select band of Maratha Samurais, sneaked into Pune and into the Lal-Mahal. He tracked down the sleeping Khan to his bed. The Khan sensing that his time was up tried jumping out of the window. At that point Shivaji cut off the Khan's fingers with which he was holding on to the window sill.
    When the Khan's wife's pleading before Shivaji to spare her husband's life as she considered Shivaji to be her brother. And so killing her husband would mean making her a widow, Shivaji spared the Khan's life. This was a mistake for which Shivaji was to pay dearly later. Shivaji made good his escape from the Khan's lair, but not before the treacherous Khan ordered his troops to give chase and try to capture the fleeing Shivaji. Here too Shivaji had tied burning torches to the horns of a herd of cows and bulls and with bells jangling making a ruckus like swords clashing. So instead of pursuing Shivaji who escaped into the night, the Muslim army went in the direction of this cows and bulls which they though to be the Maratha army that Shivaji had brought out. But when they reached the cows and bulls, they were flustered when they realized the trick played on them by the shrewd Hindu. The Khan then, decided that enough was enough and returned to Delhi - without his fingers. This happened in April 1663.
    The Hindu counterattack had now begun in earnest. The Marathas after Shivaji managed to reach Delhi in 1720 and by 1756, they had occupied the whole of Punjab to reach the border of Afghanistan. But after Shivaji, there were very few Maratha leaders who realized the depth of the Muslim threat. There were some like Mahadji Scindia, but they were very few. The later Marathas under their Prime Ministers called Peshwa, opened negotiations with the Mughal (Muslim) King at Delhi and fought battles on his behalf against other Muslims like Nadir the King of Persia and Ahmed Khan Abdali, the ruler of Afghanistan. This was a disastrous policy as the Maratha Hindus became a tool in the hands of the Muslims and suffered many defeats, the most disastrous one being at Panipat in 1761 at the hand of the Afghan invader Ahmed Khan Abdali.
    The sword used by Shivaji Maharaj was presented by Goddess Bhawani:

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