07 May 2008

The Strength of Hindus

"The Islamic conquest of India shows that Hindus were weak and cowardly."

This is how most people (even patriotic Indians) see our history. But look at the facts:
644 AD – Arabs first attacked Sindh
712 AD – bin Qasim conquered Sindh
1023 AD – Ghaznavi conquered Punjab
1192 AD – Ghauri conquered North India
That is, from 644 AD to 1192 AD, it took Islam more than 500 years to conquer our country.

Compare this with Islam's other conquests. The Arabs started pouring out of their peninsula after the Prophet died in 632 AD. By the end of the Umayyad Caliphate in 750 AD, they had conquered all of West Asia, North Africa and Spain. That is, the Islamic juggernaut flattened every land from the Pyrenees to the Indus in just about 100 years. But we were able to hold off this juggernaut for more than 500 years. Not a small achievement.

There is an untold story here. It is the story of the heroic resistance of India's northwest provinces (Sindh, Punjab, Rajputana). It is the story of the true character of Hindus – one of strength, valour and sacrifice. This story has been left out of our textbooks. It must be written in letters of gold. Every Indian must know it.

PS: I owe this insight to Dr Ravindra, the RSS's Saha Bauddhik Pramukh in North Karnataka.

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