M K Gandhi And The Gandhian Legacy

11-26-2005, 12:13 PM

QUOTE(Kaushal @ Nov 26 2005, 05:13 AM)benami, apropos , the use of violence, I have altered my post and added the word unconditionally as a qualifier to the use of violence, meaning violence in the form of military action should be the part of the tool box of any nation or people. But its efficacy is diluted if one uses it indiscriminately. Human life is precious and i agree with General Patton that we allow the other guy to give up his life for his cause rather than give up your own. IOW finesse the situation in a non violent manner before resorting to violence. sri Krishna tries every trick in the book to avoid violent conflict in this case fratricidal) before he instructs Arjuna that the time has come to fight. so also there is a time to fight but likeÂ Field Marshall Sam ManeckshawÂ in 1971 we pick the time , the venue and the circumstances and not be forced into a reactionary cycle of violence
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hi,

that human life is precious is not something that occured to gandhi when he send indians to die in lybia, italy and burma did it??? or when he supported the poms in the boor war??

by any yardstick, this man was a halfwit. but for ww2, most colonies would still not be independent.

and what makes you think that netaji did not use it effectively???
he went about things clinically. he tried a combination of physical and psychological warfare (starting the radio broadcast declaring india's own independent govt and letting indians knoiw that there was an alternative)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3684288.stm

tell me... who do only bengalis, punjabis and marathis in india know how to stand up and fight???

11-26-2005, 01:56 PM

QUOTEtell me... who do only bengalis, punjabis and marathis in india know how to stand up and fight

Lets not get parochial about this Most of Punjab got converted to Islam in the frst wave of conversions.well that is their prerogative but that does not indicate a fighting spirit to me. In fact long after most of the North was conquered in 1200 CE by the slave turks like Qutb ud din Aibak the Vijayanagar Kingdom lasted till 1565, even though they were constantly attacked by the Bahmani sultans so one cannot generalize that the rest of India was not fighting.As for bengal, i have great respect for the bengali renaissance but lately they have been a sorry bunch with communists ruling the roost for the last 25 years.

For the rest i am not in major disagreement with you in case you havent noticed.As for gandhi, let us move on.

11-26-2005, 02:58 PM

QUOTE(Kaushal @ Nov 26 2005, 01:56 PM)<div class='quotetop'>QUOTEtell me... who do only bengalis, punjabis and marathis in india know how to stand up and fight

Lets not get parochial about this Most of Punjab got converted to Islam in the frst wave of conversions.well that is their prerogative but that does not indicate a fighting spirit to me. In fact long after most of the North was conquered in 1200 CE by the slave turks like Qutb ud din Aibak the Vijayanagar Kingdom lasted till 1565, even though they were constantly attacked by the Bahmani sultans so one cannot generalize that the rest of India was not fighting.As for bengal, i have great respect for the bengali renaissance but lately they have been a sorry bunch with communists ruling the roost for the last 25 years.

For the rest i am not in major disagreement with you in case you havent noticed.As for gandhi, let us move on.
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agree that they have produced precious little in the last 25 years.

the refugees of bangladesh screwed them. remember every indian state is a potential communist state. if all the bpl (below poverty line) types of X state entered Y state as refugees, then one only need play a "commie-card" and he will get elected. thats what happened in bengal. the history of poverty goes back a bit further though - cos bengal was the foothold of the poms. of every 3 rupees they looted, one came from bengal. they bore the brunt of the colonial exploitation, economic and otherwise.
http://www.atributetohinduism.com/European...20the%20British

i am not being parochial - just stating a fact. marathis and punjabis have a history of fighting the camel jockeys whilest bengalis were the first to get a dose of western education (which pulled them out of camel jockey darkness). besides bengalis think with their hearts.

i am not trying to be parochial. but i remain convinced. only these 3 people in india have the zeal, guts, balls, spine to "cross the rubicon" if you knwo what i mean, and not just go on march pasts like gandhi or come up with "humey dekhna hai.." type useless lectures (a.la. rajiv gandhi)

Bharatvarsh · 11-26-2005, 10:31 PM

QUOTEwho do only bengalis, punjabis and marathis in india know how to stand up and fight??? 
lol Punjab was under Muslim domination for most of the time until the time of Veer Banda and later only after Maharaja Ranjit Singh's rise was Muslim power broken in the North West, as for Bengal the less said the better, in terms of offering resistance to the Muslims it was the worst state (but they were ahead in fighting the British), before Marathas rose, for over 200 years the Vijayanagara kingdom held back Muslims and it was a totally militarised kingdom which always maintained a standing army and at its height had a million foot soldiers, then there was Assam which was never even conquered by Muslims in its entire history and defeated every invasion by Muslims. As for fighting the British only parts of South India were under the British, just because chacha Nehru and Indian gov't was obsessed with the Hindi belt does not mean there was no resistance in the South, Vanchi Iyer shot dead a British officer but he is almost unknown (I don't know in what way he is lesser than Madan Lal Dhingra or Udham Singh), here is more info:

QUOTEVanchi Iyer, a martyr of the freedom movement, who shot then Tirunelveli district collector Ash at point-blank range when his train halted at the nearby Maniyachi junction, en route to Madras. The railway station has since been named as Vanchi-Manyachi.

http://www.bjp.org/leader/sjry18.html

Next how many Indians know about battle of Colachel, here is some info:

QUOTEA dramatic and virtually unknown past, in an area of bucolic calm surrounded by spectacular hills: that is Colachel, a name that should be better known to us. For this is where, in 1741, an extraordinary event took place -- the Battle of Colachel. For the first, and perhaps the only time in Indian history, an Indian kingdom defeated a European naval force.

The ruler of Travancore, Marthanda Varma, routed an invading Dutch fleet; the Dutch commander, Delannoy, joined the Travancore army and served for decades; the Dutch never recovered from this debacle and were never again a colonial threat to India.

It was a remarkable achievement for a small princely state; yet not one of my Indian friends has ever heard of the Battle of Colachel. This, in my opinion, is another example of our sadly skewed education -- we have adopted wholesale a Macaulayite curriculum that was designed to drum into Indians the notion that we were inherently inferior, mere powerless pawns in a European-dominated world.

We study events where Indians were crushed, massacred, trounced, humiliated: Plassey, Panipat, Tarain, Chittor, the failed First War of Independence, Jallianwallah Bagh. We study about every invader, from Alexander the Macedonian onwards, who came over the Himalayan passes and laid waste to the land. We study the disastrous history of the Indo-Gangetic Plain.

We never hear of the far more lustrous history of the Peninsula -- not of Rajendra Chola's maritime Southeast Asian empire, nor the wealth and power of fabled Vijayanagar, nor the chivalrous chaver suicide squads in the Zamorin's kingdom at Kozhikode, nor even about perhaps the greatest of Indian philosophers, the Buddhist Nagarjuna. This is a serious lacuna --and yet we wonder why we as a nation suffer from an inferiority complex?

Colachel is on the route from Thiruvananthapuram to Kanyakumari, which has some dramatic shifts of scenery. You drive down the ill-named National Highway 47, in reality an overcrowded two-lane road with no centre divider, no more than a city street with a continuous population along its entire length.

A typical interior Kerala landscape surrounds you -- tropical abundance, coconut palms, rice fields, plenty of greenery, banyan, jackfruit, tamarind and mango trees, and houses within a stone's throw of the road. Then you cross into Tamil Nadu's Kanyakumari district, and you pass my personal landmark, a century-old aqueduct.

Suddenly, without warning, the landscape opens up -- you come upon an immense flood-plain, with paddy fields, lotus-filled pools, a small river, and occasional clumps of banana trees stretching all the way to the horizon. Except, that is, where the hills are -- the very last redoubts of the Western Ghats, as the land yields grudgingly to the oceans at the Cape: A series of jagged and menacing peaks towering over you.

One especially well-shaped, conical mount resembles, in its symmetry, the Grand Tetons of Wyoming; but otherwise, the forbidding, brooding peaks of granite remind you of rogue elephants. Nestled incongruously amongst these hills is Mahendragiri, where the Indian Space Research Organisation's rocket testing facility is located.

Close by is Colachel with its Round Fort. It has a strategic and commanding view of the Arabian Sea; on a clear day you can see as far south as Land's End, the promontory at Kanyakumari. It was here, with the tactical genius of Marthanda Varma's prime minister, Ramayyan Dalava, that the Dutch fleet was vanquished. I imagine infantrymen with ancient blunderbusses repelling invaders; and a battery of archaic cannon making mincemeat of the attacking ships. It was here that the Dutchman, Delannoy, later trained Travancore soldiers in the arts of musketry and artillery.

Delannoy lies entombed at an inland fort, Udayagiri, a few miles away from Colachel. At his tomb, there is an inscription: Stand, Traveller, and behold! For here lies Captain Delannoy, who served Maharaja Marthanda Varma and Travancore faithfully for three decades

This foreigner, this feringhee, served our country well, two hundred years ago. How little we know of the reasons this man agreed to serve an enemy prince. It could hardly have been coercion -- not if he stayed on for the rest of his life. It must have been a genuine respect for, and perhaps admiration and even affection for this land and this prince.

It behooves us to understand that even at the height of the European colonisation spree, there were Indians capable of resisting and winning. Most of us know that in 1905, the Japanese under Admiral Tojo trounced the Russians in the Yellow Sea. This is considered the first example of an Asian power defeating a European power in a naval engagement. Yet here we have little Travancore defeating the Dutch two-and-a-half centuries ago; the same Dutch who went on to conquer and dominate the entire Indonesian archipelago.

http://www.rediff.com/news/jan/14raj.htm

So read up before you make comments, as for Ambedkar lifting up low castes (another big p-sec joke this is), read Arun Shourie's "Worshipping false God's", he didn't even do much when compared to people like Sri Narayan Guru (I doubt you know who he is).

11-26-2005, 11:25 PM

QUOTE(Viren @ Nov 26 2005, 12:13 AM)<div class='quotetop'>QUOTEPlease try to know a little bit more on Ambedkar, his fights with Gandhi, his support of british attemts to break hind society and his general collusion with the British to further his own personal and political goals. Arun Shourie's eminent historians will be a good start, I suggest
Perhaps you are referring to 'Worshipping false Gods' by Shourie?
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You know before going to bed last night i thought i had mistakenly written the wrong book name, yes it is "Worshipping False Gods".

11-26-2005, 11:43 PM

Let us sing praise to all who fought against the invaders of all kinds. True, Sind and Punjab (Multan) were one of the first areas to come under the Islamist yoke but our ancesters there did not make it easy for them. Remember Persia was captured under 30 years, Arabia in about the same time. The turks did no better and spain was down soon. It was only in India that the invaders had to fight pitched battles again and again. It was a slow crawl to Delhi and it took them over 500 years to cross the Yamuna. If our history is to be accurately projected, we never made it easy for them and fight we certainly did. But we did not do many things well and hence the eventual down fall. I am also convinced that had not the British arrived on the scene the Hindu kingdoms were well on their way to domination, yet again.

11-27-2005, 03:08 AM

QUOTE(Bharatvarsh @ Nov 26 2005, 10:31 PM)<div class='quotetop'>QUOTEwho do only bengalis, punjabis and marathis in india know how to stand up and fight??? 
as for Bengal the less said the better, in terms of offering resistance to the Muslims it was the worst state (but they were ahead in fighting the British),
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yes. bengal was never a frontier state like say rajasthan and didnt have a clue when the turks arrived. the same can be said of the way vijaynager crumbled at hampi.

but bengalis were streets ahead of everyone else when it came to fighting the brits.

assam/ahom was a frontier state and thus have a 17-0 score line against the muslims, a feat even the rajputs and marathas cant match.

and for whatever they may have done against the dutch, south india did precious little against the poms. one guy who shot someone is the exception that proves the law.

the most perplexing thing is the lack of rajput resistance to th poms, and sometimes even colaboration (eg. scindhia in 1857). maybe fighting the camel jockeys sapped them a bit much.

but i will maintain that the beginning of the problem was the lack of unity amongst the various kings against the camel jockey onslaught.

why wasnt a bismark born in india ???

and i also maintain that the final nail in the coffin of indian misery was the hijacking of the congress party and indian resistance by gandhi and his ahimsha crap. (not to mention that the nehru gandhi dynasty that sprung from all that chaos continues to ail india economically, socially, religiously, culturally, financially and in every way possible).

why doesnt the bjp bury the gandhi family for good. maybe they should expose what the nehruvians did to netaji.

if we had a bloody freedom - and it would have cost a LOT less lives than the "peaceful" freedom we had without comming to know the price of freedom, then india would have been streets ahead of china by today.

Bharatvarsh · 11-27-2005, 07:25 AM

QUOTEbut i will maintain that the beginning of the problem was the lack of unity amongst the various kings against the camel jockey onslaught. 
This is a false reason propagated, the following is taken from the book "Heroic Hindu Resistance to Muslim Invaders" by Sita Ram Goel:

QUOTEMISTAKEN ANALYSIS

Coming to serious and scholarly explanations of Hindu defeats, Dr. Misra deals, first of all, with âthe defects of the political system of the Hindu statesâ and observes that disunity among the Hindu states was not a very material cause of these defeats. âNo doubt the Hindu states were for ever engaged in internecine conflicts among themselves but such quarrels were a common feature of the Middle Ages everywhere and more so in Central Asia. If such almost intermittent struggle among the Muslims of Central Asia did not prevent them from expanding their rule over other lands, it is useless to blame Indian rulersâ internecine struggle for their ultimate collapse.â3 It may be added that in spite of their disunity, not a single Indian state ever sided with the invader, nor failed to put up a resolute resistance in its own turn.

Also, Dr. Misra does not agree with the thesis that Indians at that time lacked ânational consciousness, love of country and pride of freedomâ.Â He writes: âThat Indians were fully alive to the dangers of foreign invasion and their love of the country was equally matched by desire to fight for it, is a reality that can be substantiated. Each wave of Muslim invasion created a profound stir among the Indian states and they often pooled their resources to meet the aggressor.â4 He cites evidence of at least four confederacies formed by Hindu states during this period. The evidence is not a Hindu concoction but has been culled from the accounts of medieval Muslim historians.
Â

REAL CAUSES OF HINDU DEFEATS

Finally, Dr. Misra lays his probing finger on the real factors which contributed to Hindu defeats during this period. The very first factor, according to him, was the lack of a forward policy vis-a-vis the Muslim invaders. In his own words, âWhat the Rajputs really lacked was a spirit of aggression so conspicuous among the Muslims, and a will to force the war in the enemyâs dominions and thus destroy the base of his power.â5

Secondly, a forward policy could not be pursued in the absence of a âstrong central government for even the whole of northern India which could think and act for the whole countryâ. As a result, âThe Rajput rulers found it difficult to look beyond the territorial limits of their own kingdoms and their regional interests pushed the national issues into the background.â6 Compared to a strong central authority, the various confederacies organised by the Rajputs proved to be patch-works which came apart either under the impact of military defeat, or as soon as the immediate purpose of stopping the enemy had been served.

Thirdly, the military organisation of the Rajputs was inferior as compared to that of the Muslims. The Rajputs depended mainly on feudal levies assembled on the spur of the moment. âThese feudal levies with no unity of training and organisation, coming together at the last moment, fighting under the leadership of and for their individual leaders, could not be expected to beat back an enemy united in purpose and organisation and acting as on coordinate unit.â A medieval Muslim historian quoted by Dr. Misra said so in so many words: âA commander with a heterogeneous army consisting of soldiers - a hundred from here and a hundred from there - cannot achieve anything. An army with so varied and so many component elements has never been able to achieve anything great.â7

Fourthly, âThe cavalry and mounted archers of the invading armies gave them a decisive superiority over the home forces. The Indian rulers too maintained cavalry units. But the Arabic and Turkoman horses were much better adapted to warfareâ¦ The second strong point of the Turkish military machine was its mounted archery. Their deadly arrows easily covered a range of eighty to hundred pacesâ¦ Reference to archery among the Indian armies after the age of the epics is conspicuous by its absence.â8

Lastly, âthe strategy and tactics employed by the invaders on the battlefield proved decisive in their favour. Indians failed to keep pace with the developments of military strategy taking place in Central Asia before the advent of Islam. The Arabs and Turks perfected themâ¦ Besides, the traditional Rajput chivalry looked upon the battle as a ritual or a tournament for displaying their fighting skill and swordsmanship under well-recognised rules of sport. Did not Manu, the ancient law-giver proclaim â âA battle was ideally a gigantic tournament with many rules: a warrior fighting from a chariot might not strike one on foot; an enemy in flight, wounded or asking a quarter, might not be slain; the lives of enemy soldiers who had lost their weapons were to be respected; poisoned weapons were not to be used; homage and not annexation was the rightful fruit of victory.â The Arabs and the Turks, on the other hand, knew no rules and waged a grim and ruthless struggle to destroy their enemies. Feints and sudden attacks, manoeuvering under the cover of darkness and pretending defeat and flights, keeping a large reserve to be used only at critical moments - all these took the Indians by surprise and crippled their fighting capacity. The Indians never tried to take advantage of their enemyâs weakness and perhaps considered it unchivalrous to do so. Such magnanimity on the part of Indian kingsâ¦ was a sure invitation to disaster against a ruthless foe who recognised no moral or ideological scruples in the pursuit of victory.â
http://voiceofdharma.com/books/hhrmi/ch5.htm

Bharatvarsh · 11-27-2005, 07:40 AM

QUOTEyes. bengal was never a frontier state like say rajasthan and didnt have a clue when the turks arrived. the same can be said of the way vijaynager crumbled at hampi.

The difference is that Vijayanagara crumbled after over 200 years of resistance to the various Bhamani Sultans where as Muslims just walked over Bengal most of the time.

QUOTEassam/ahom was a frontier state and thus have a 17-0 score line against the muslims, a feat even the rajputs and marathas cant match.

Yes it is a frontier state but so was Bengal, yet Assam was never conquered.

QUOTEand for whatever they may have done against the dutch, south india did precious little against the poms. one guy who shot someone is the exception that proves the law.

It's not my fault that you don't know history, firstly more than 50% of the South wasn't under British rule, it was under the Nizam and other kingdoms, nextly there were numerous freedom fighters from South India but they are unknown outside their respective states so don't blame us because the Indian gov't is stupid enough to not teach a true pan indian history, one of the freedom fighters was Alluri Sita Ram Raju from Andhra Pradesh who led the tribal rebellion against British and who was later executed by them, he is famous in Andhra but is unknown outside Andhra and let us say Vanchi Iyer is an exception, even then why is he not known very much? and why is the battle of Colachel virtually unknown?

11-27-2005, 07:54 AM

QUOTE(Bharatvarsh @ Nov 27 2005, 07:40 AM)<div class='quotetop'>QUOTEyes. bengal was never a frontier state like say rajasthan and didnt have a clue when the turks arrived. the same can be said of the way vijaynager crumbled at hampi.

The difference is that Vijayanagara crumbled after over 200 years of resistance to the various Bhamani Sultans where as Muslims just walked over Bengal most of the time.

QUOTEassam/ahom was a frontier state and thus have a 17-0 score line against the muslims, a feat even the rajputs and marathas cant match.

Yes it is a frontier state but so was Bengal, yet Assam was never conquered.

QUOTEand for whatever they may have done against the dutch, south india did precious little against the poms. one guy who shot someone is the exception that proves the law.

It's not my fault that you don't know history, firstly more than 50% of the South wasn't under British rule, it was under the Nizam and other kingdoms, nextly there were numerous freedom fighters from South India but they are unknown outside their respective states so don't blame us because the Indian gov't is stupid enough to not teach a true pan indian history, one of the freedom fighters was Alluri Sita Ram Raju from Andhra Pradesh who led the tribal rebellion against British and who was later executed by them, he is famous in Andhra but is unknown outside Andhra and let us say Vanchi Iyer is an exception, even then why is he not known very much? and why is the battle of Colachel virtually unknown?
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the carnage at hampi was probably the worst "crumbling" witnessed in india.

and bengal wasnt a frontier state.
assam was.

the mountains of garo khashi and lushai (now in the 7 sister states) were the natural eastern boundaries of bengal.

well i have been to the cellular jail in andaman and have seen exactly who died for india's freedom and who didnt.

addition:

one reason why the southern resistance against the non-english europeans (dutch etc) is not well known is that the main oppressor/coloniser of india were the poms.

Bharatvarsh · 11-27-2005, 08:07 AM

QUOTEthe carnage at hampi was probably the worst "crumbling" witnessed in india.
Atleast we offered resistance for 200 years before we crumbled unlike one of todays commie ruled states which just let Muslims walk over without any significant resistance.

QUOTEand bengal wasnt a frontier state.
assam was.
Ok my mistake, so it wasn't frontier state but then there were other many other states which offered stiff resistance to Muslims (one of them being Orissa) and Bengal wasn't one of them

QUOTEwell i have been to the cellular jail in andaman and have seen exactly who died for india's freedom and who didnt. 
Good, we also know who fought the Muslims and who didn't.

11-27-2005, 08:09 AM

QUOTE(Bharatvarsh @ Nov 27 2005, 07:25 AM)<div class='quotetop'>QUOTEbut i will maintain that the beginning of the problem was the lack of unity amongst the various kings against the camel jockey onslaught. 
This is a false reason propagated, the following is taken from the book "Heroic Hindu Resistance to Muslim Invaders" by Sita Ram Goel:

QUOTEMISTAKEN ANALYSIS

Coming to serious and scholarly explanations of Hindu defeats, Dr. Misra deals, first of all, with âthe defects of the political system of the Hindu statesâ and observes that disunity among the Hindu states was not a very material cause of these defeats. âNo doubt the Hindu states were for ever engaged in internecine conflicts among themselves but such quarrels were a common feature of the Middle Ages everywhere and more so in Central Asia. If such almost intermittent struggle among the Muslims of Central Asia did not prevent them from expanding their rule over other lands, it is useless to blame Indian rulersâ internecine struggle for their ultimate collapse.â3 It may be added that in spite of their disunity, not a single Indian state ever sided with the invader, nor failed to put up a resolute resistance in its own turn.

Also, Dr. Misra does not agree with the thesis that Indians at that time lacked ânational consciousness, love of country and pride of freedomâ.Â He writes: âThat Indians were fully alive to the dangers of foreign invasion and their love of the country was equally matched by desire to fight for it, is a reality that can be substantiated. Each wave of Muslim invasion created a profound stir among the Indian states and they often pooled their resources to meet the aggressor.â4 He cites evidence of at least four confederacies formed by Hindu states during this period. The evidence is not a Hindu concoction but has been culled from the accounts of medieval Muslim historians.
Â

REAL CAUSES OF HINDU DEFEATS

Finally, Dr. Misra lays his probing finger on the real factors which contributed to Hindu defeats during this period. The very first factor, according to him, was the lack of a forward policy vis-a-vis the Muslim invaders. In his own words, âWhat the Rajputs really lacked was a spirit of aggression so conspicuous among the Muslims, and a will to force the war in the enemyâs dominions and thus destroy the base of his power.â5

Secondly, a forward policy could not be pursued in the absence of a âstrong central government for even the whole of northern India which could think and act for the whole countryâ. As a result, âThe Rajput rulers found it difficult to look beyond the territorial limits of their own kingdoms and their regional interests pushed the national issues into the background.â6 Compared to a strong central authority, the various confederacies organised by the Rajputs proved to be patch-works which came apart either under the impact of military defeat, or as soon as the immediate purpose of stopping the enemy had been served.

Thirdly, the military organisation of the Rajputs was inferior as compared to that of the Muslims. The Rajputs depended mainly on feudal levies assembled on the spur of the moment. âThese feudal levies with no unity of training and organisation, coming together at the last moment, fighting under the leadership of and for their individual leaders, could not be expected to beat back an enemy united in purpose and organisation and acting as on coordinate unit.â A medieval Muslim historian quoted by Dr. Misra said so in so many words: âA commander with a heterogeneous army consisting of soldiers - a hundred from here and a hundred from there - cannot achieve anything. An army with so varied and so many component elements has never been able to achieve anything great.â7

Fourthly, âThe cavalry and mounted archers of the invading armies gave them a decisive superiority over the home forces. The Indian rulers too maintained cavalry units. But the Arabic and Turkoman horses were much better adapted to warfareâ¦ The second strong point of the Turkish military machine was its mounted archery. Their deadly arrows easily covered a range of eighty to hundred pacesâ¦ Reference to archery among the Indian armies after the age of the epics is conspicuous by its absence.â8

Lastly, âthe strategy and tactics employed by the invaders on the battlefield proved decisive in their favour. Indians failed to keep pace with the developments of military strategy taking place in Central Asia before the advent of Islam. The Arabs and Turks perfected themâ¦ Besides, the traditional Rajput chivalry looked upon the battle as a ritual or a tournament for displaying their fighting skill and swordsmanship under well-recognised rules of sport. Did not Manu, the ancient law-giver proclaim â âA battle was ideally a gigantic tournament with many rules: a warrior fighting from a chariot might not strike one on foot; an enemy in flight, wounded or asking a quarter, might not be slain; the lives of enemy soldiers who had lost their weapons were to be respected; poisoned weapons were not to be used; homage and not annexation was the rightful fruit of victory.â The Arabs and the Turks, on the other hand, knew no rules and waged a grim and ruthless struggle to destroy their enemies. Feints and sudden attacks, manoeuvering under the cover of darkness and pretending defeat and flights, keeping a large reserve to be used only at critical moments - all these took the Indians by surprise and crippled their fighting capacity. The Indians never tried to take advantage of their enemyâs weakness and perhaps considered it unchivalrous to do so. Such magnanimity on the part of Indian kingsâ¦ was a sure invitation to disaster against a ruthless foe who recognised no moral or ideological scruples in the pursuit of victory.â
http://voiceofdharma.com/books/hhrmi/ch5.htm
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well i am not going to try and argue with what sita ram goel had to say.

even if rajputs and other indians princely states did unite, it was clearly not enough.
i wish the marathas and others had teamed up with the rajputs instead of taking the camel jockeys on, serially one after the other. wish we could have produced a chanakya or even a bismark during the days when sind fell.

i do see sita ram goel's point about the lack of expansionist designs costing us dear and also ensuring that we never came to know whether our fighting techniques were up to date or lagging.

11-27-2005, 08:18 AM

QUOTE(Bharatvarsh @ Nov 27 2005, 08:07 AM)<div class='quotetop'>QUOTEthe carnage at hampi was probably the worst "crumbling" witnessed in india.
Atleast we offered resistance for 200 years before we crumbled unlike one of todays commie ruled states which just let Muslims walk over without any significant resistance.

QUOTEand bengal wasnt a frontier state.
assam was.
Ok my mistake, so it wasn't frontier state but then there were other many other states which offered stiff resistance to Muslims (one of them being Orissa) and Bengal wasn't one of them

QUOTEwell i have been to the cellular jail in andaman and have seen exactly who died for india's freedom and who didnt. 
Good, we also know who fought the Muslims and who didn't.
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see, dont try to get into a slinging match just cos the refugees problem caused the commies to take over power.

you didnt have half your state/province amputed, nor did all the bpl types of a neighbouring region pour into yours.

yes orissa offered resistance... timing has a lot to do.... they had a powerful leader at the time the camel jockey's came.

when bengal fell to the muslims, it was the most prosperous state in india. prosperity breeds military complacence.

as for who fought the muslims, the lions share of that is due to the rajputs and the marathas. someone here had pointed out that the 700 years of hammering that the hindi-heartland got from the muslims, was the reason they lacked the guts to join the armed revolt that the likes of netaji and sarvarkar postulated. i have travelled more than most people, across all parts of india.. and i agree.

aside of hampi/vijaynagar, and maybe on the western coast (under purtuguese), you never came under much stick and thus dont feel the pinch.

if you know anything about iran, the peoples of iran wasnt oppressed much under the muslims (unlike indians) cos iran fell quickly to the muslims. people in bengal were not really OPRESSED by muslims, and so there was little resent. under the brits they bore the brunt and they thus led the resistance.

just learn to accept facts and carry your cross. you wouldn't understand.

tell why why do andhraites still consider that tipusultan as some hero ???

Bharatvarsh · 11-27-2005, 08:38 AM

QUOTEsee, dont try to get into a slinging match just cos the refugees problem caused the commies to take over power.

you didnt have half your state/province amputed, nor did all the bpl types of a neighbouring region pour into yours.
But Punjabis did and yet they made their state into one of the most prosperous states and they also solved the Muslim problem in East Punjab in 47 itself so stop giving excuses.

QUOTEas for who fought the muslims, the lions share of that is due to the rajputs and the marathas.
Where was this heroic Rajput resistance with the exception of the resistance offered by the House of Mewar, infact most of the other Rajput states were collaborating with Muslims and fighting fellow Hindus (Mansingh fighting Rana Pratap and Jai Singh fighting Shivaji), it was the Marathas who bore the brunt of it.

QUOTEaside of hampi/vijaynagar, and maybe on the western coast (under purtuguese), you never came under much stick and thus dont feel the pinch.
Atleast we did contribute our part when we were attacked unlike some states and for the record it was Keladi Chenamma of Karnataka who gave shelter to Rajaram (Shivaji's son) when all the other kings refused to do so and defeated Aurangzebs invasion later as a consequence of his wrath.

QUOTEpeople in bengal were not really OPRESSED by muslims, and so there was little resent. under the brits they bore the brunt and they thus led the resistance.
Cooking up excuses are we, this really is a something no one knows, it seems that Muslims had a special affinity for Bengalis to not persecute them while persecuting all others (atleast in your perculiar history they did, is that why Chaitanya had to run to Orissa from Bengal?).

QUOTEtell why why do andhraites still consider that tipusultan as some hero ???
lol for a man who speaks so authoratatively about other states I expect some elementary knowledge, Tipu Sultan is from what is today known as Karnataka and did not invade Andhra, he did invade Kerala and massacred Hindus there and no one considers him a hero just because Doordharshan tries to whitewash history and turns him into a patriot and it does not mean that it is the opinion of common people so you better read some real history before you speak like an expert (I am still laughing at your comments about Ambedkar being the saviour of low castes when infact he was a British lackey who was constantly reminding the British of Mahar Loyalty to them and did practically next to nothing for the uplift of low castes).

11-27-2005, 08:44 AM

ok boss you win. <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/dry.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='dry.gif' />

all we have is excuses... and if punjab has recovered so well why the polyandry and infanticide and eloped marriages with dalits.

but yes they are doing better. refugees didn't pour in by the millions and plunge them into you kjnow what. also punjabis have more enterprenal spirit than any other people i know in india (meanwhile bengalis dont have any).

dont see how that proves you never had to part with even a square inch of your land while we lost out on the most fertile piece of land on the planet (as per UNDP report).

but anyways... you win, you are the boss, and yes you are right... rajputs didnt fight the muslims, vijaynagar did for 200 years.

11-27-2005, 08:50 AM

QUOTE(Bharatvarsh @ Nov 27 2005, 08:38 AM)<div class='quotetop'>QUOTEpeople in bengal were not really OPRESSED by muslims, and so there was little resent. under the brits they bore the brunt and they thus led the resistance.
Cooking up excuses are we, this really is a something no one knows, it seems that Muslims had a special affinity for Bengalis to not persecute them while persecuting all others (atleast in your perculiar history they did, is that why Chaitanya had to run to Orissa from Bengal?).
</div>

if you could make head or tail out of the iran example, i meant that those who fell without an initial war, were never opressed later.

bengal had the highest population of muslims before bengal was divided unequally (with 2/3rd of it going to the camel jockeys)....

the history of bengal proves that it was never a stronghold of ksatriyas (not being a frontier state).... but being very prosperous (at the time the muslims came) it had a lot of farmers, artisans, traders etc and a brahmin stronghold in gour (from where all the gaur-swaraswat brahmins emigrated southwestwards). the former (the non brahmins) converted to islam without much of a protest and that was that. no opression went on, like in the hindi heart land. also bengal doesnt have much of "holy" places like say a varanasi or an ujjain... so the savage attacks that north-northwest india got from the cameljockeys was spared to bengal.

11-27-2005, 08:52 AM

QUOTE(Bharatvarsh @ Nov 27 2005, 08:38 AM)<div class='quotetop'>QUOTEtell why why do andhraites still consider that tipusultan as some hero ???
lol for a man who speaks so authoratatively about other states I expect some elementary knowledge, Tipu Sultan is from what is today known as Karnataka and did not invade Andhra, he did invade Kerala and massacred Hindus there and no one considers him a hero just because Doordharshan tries to whitewash history and turns him into a patriot and it does not mean that it is the opinion of common people so you better read some real history before you speak like an expert (I am still laughing at your comments about Ambedkar being the saviour of low castes when infact he was a British lackey who was constantly reminding the British of Mahar Loyalty to them and did practically next to nothing for the uplift of low castes).
[right][snapback]42072[/snapback][/right]
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ask an andhraite about tipu sultan and haider ali and see what they have to say.

also ask a dalit about ambedkar and see what they have to say.

Bharatvarsh · 11-27-2005, 09:09 AM

By the way does the following prove that there was not much persecution of Hindus in Bengal as you claim:

QUOTEChaitanya-maÃ±gala, a biography of the great Vaishnava saint of medieval India, presents the plight of Hindus in Navadvipa on the eve of the saintâs birth in 1484 AD. The author, Jayananda, writes: âThe king seizes the Brahmanas, pollutes their caste and even takes their lives. If a conch-shell is heard to blow in any house, its owner is made to forfeit his wealth, caste and even life. The king plunders the houses of those who wear sacred threads on the shoulder and put scared marks on the forehead, and then binds them. He breaks the temples and uproots tulsi plantsâ¦ The bathing in Ganga is prohibited and hundreds of scared asvattha and jack trees have been cut down.â

Vijaya Gupta wrote a poem in praise of Husain Shah of Bengal (1493-1519 AD). The two qazi brothers, Hasan and Husain, are typical Islamic characters in this poem. They had issued orders that any one who had a tulsi leaf on his head was to be brought to them bound hand and foot. He was then beaten up. The peons employed by the qazis tore away the sacred threads of the Brahmans and spat saliva in their mouths. One day a mullah drew the attention of these qazis to some Hindu boys who were worshipping Goddess Manasa and singing hymns to her. The qazis went wild, and shouted: âWhat! the harÃ£mzÃ£dah Hindus make so bold as to perform Hindu rituals in our village! The culprit boys should be seized and made outcastes by being forced to eat Muslim food.â The mother of these qazis was a Hindu lady who had been forcibly married to their father. She tried to stop them. But they demolished the house of those Hindu boys, smashed the sacred pots, and threw away the pÃ»jÃ£ materials. The boys had to run away to save their lives.
http://voiceofdharma.com/books/siii/ch10.htm

QUOTEAbout the conversions in Bengal three statements, one each from Wolseley Haig, Dr. Wise and Duarte Barbosa, should suffice to assess the situation. Haig writes that âit is evident, from the numerical superiority in Eastern Bengal of the Muslimsâ¦ that at some period an immense wave of proselytization must have swept over the country and it is most probable that the period was the period of Jalaluddin Muhammad (converted son of Hindu Raja Ganesh) during whose reign of seventeen years (1414-1431)â¦ hosts of Hindus are said to have been forcibly converted to Islamâ.81 With regard to these conversions, Dr. Wise writes that âthe only condition he offered were the Koran or deathâ¦ many Hindus fled to Kamrup and the jungles of Assam, but it is nevertheless probable that more Muhammadans were added to Islam during these seventeen years (1414-31) than in the next three hundred yearsâ.82 And Barbosa writes that âIt is obviously an advantage in the sixteenth century Bengal to be a Moor, in as much as the Hindus daily become Moors to gain the favour of their rulersâ.83 The militant Mashaikh also found in Bengal a soil fertile for conversion, and worked hard to raise Muslim numbers.84

http://voiceofdharma.com/books/tlmr/ch6.htm

QUOTEThe practice of converting men into eunuchs was very common in Bengal. âIn Hindustan,â writes Jahangir, âespecially in the province of Sylhet, which is a dependency of Bengal, it was the custom for the people of those parts to make eunuchs of some of their sons and give them to the governor in place of revenue (mal-wajibi)â¦ This custom by degrees has been adopted in other provinces and every year some children are thus ruined and cut off from procreation. This practice has become common.â43 Bengal in the time of Jahangir was a very large province. Large tracts of Northern Hills, the Sarkar of Orissa and large parts of Bihar were in4dluded in it.44 If the practice of making eunuchs had become common outside Bengal also, then it seems it had spread almost all over the empire. Jahangir issued farmans abolishing the practice and hoped for the best. But a system in which revenue was collected in the form of eunuchs, could not be changed through a few orders. Said Khan Chaghtai, a noble of Jahangir possessed 1,200 eunuchs.45 Besides, eunuchs formed a profitable commercial commodity and, as we shall see in the chapter on Slave Trade, the price of a eunuch in the market was three times that of an ordinary slave. Therefore, some areas, notably Bengal, were regular providers of eunuchs for the Muslim upper classes in Delhi, Isfahan and Samarkand.46

http://voiceofdharma.com/books/mssmi/ch9.htm

QUOTEBengal

Sind and Punjab lay on the route of Muslim invaders.Â They bore the brunt of so many Muslim invasions for a thousand years from 712 to 1761.Â In these provinces as well as North West Frontier Province and Baluchistan Muslim immigration too was considerable.Â Therefore, the extensive growth of Muslim population in this region is understandable.Â But Bengal, especially eastern Bengal, calls for a special study, for Bengal did not lie on the route of the Muslim invaders.Â Nor did it form a base of operations for further conquests into India as were Punjab and Sind.Â But Bengal was another region where the rise of Muslim population was rapid, and probably in the medieval period itself eastern Bengal especially began to have a majority of Muslim population.Â An explanation for this phenomenon has posed a problem before scholars and demographers.Â However, as we shall see presently, the overall picture of Islamization in Bengal is quite clear: only in details it is a little blurred.

The main reason for large-scale conversions in Bengal, as indeed elsewhere, lies in the proselytizing endeavour of its Muslim rulers and (this is peculiar to Bengal) Sufi Mashaikh. Muslim invasions from northern India had started from the early years of the thirteenth century.Â Bakhtiyar Khalji had invaded Nadia (1203) and Balban had marched (c. 1279-80) as far as Sonargaon in eastern Bengal.Â The Tughlaqs continued to assert their authority over Bengal and led many expeditions into it.Â During such campaigns some usual conversions would have taken place.Â But large number of Muslims were made under the independent Muslim rulers of Bengal. âIt is evident, from the numerical superiority in Eastern Bengal of the Muslimsâ¦ that at some period an immense wave of proselytization must have swept over the country and it is most probable that that period was the period of Jalaluddin Muhammad (converted son of Hindu Raja Ganesh) during whose reign of seventeen years (1414-1431)â¦ hosts of Hindus are said to have been forcibly converted to Islam.â57 About these Dr. Wise writes that âthe only condition he offered were the Koran or deathâ¦ many Hindus fled to Kamrup and the jungles of Assam, but it is nevertheless probable that more Muhammadans were added to Islam during these seventeen years (1414-31) than in the next three hundred.â58

Employment prospects also helped in the rise of Muslim population, for says Barbosa: âIt is obviously an advantage in the sixteenth century Bengal to be a Moor, in as much as the Hindus daily become Moors to gain the favour of their rulers.â59

Moreover, âthe enthusiastic soldiers, who, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, spread the faith of Islam among the timid race of Bengal, made forcible conversions by the sword, and, penetrating the dense forests of the Eastern frontier, planted the crescent in the villages of Sylhet.Â Tradition still preserves the names of Adam Shahid, Shah Halal Mujarrad, and Karmfarma Sahib, as three of the most successful of these enthusiasts.â60Â The story of conversions under independent Muslim kings of Bengal (1338-1576) is not very clear as written records about them are few, but stray references clearly show that âat some times and in some places, the Hindus were subjected to persecution.â61Â Tradition credits the renowned Shah Jalal of Sylhet making large-scale conversions.Â In Mardaran thana in Arambagh sub-division of Hoogly, where the Muhammadan population predominates over the Hindu, there is a tradition that Muhammad Ismail Shah Ghazi defeated the local Hindu Raja and forcibly converted the people to Islam.62

Hand in hand with the proselytizing efforts of the rulers was the work of Sufis and Maulvis.Â From the time of Muhammad bin Tughlaq to that of Akbar, Bengal had attracted rebels, refugees, Sufi Mashaikh, disgruntled nobles and adventurers from northern India.Â The militant type of Mashaikh found in Bengal a soil fertile for conversion, and worked hard to raise Muslim numbers.Â Professor K.R. Qanungo has noted that the conversion of Bengal was mainly the work of Barah-Auliyas.63Â Professor Abdul Karim has also referred to militant Sufi proselytization.64Â But Dr. I.H. Qureshi is the most explicit in this regard.Â He writes: âThe fourteenth century was a period of expansion of Muslim authority in Bengal and the adjoining territories.Â A significant part was played in this process by the warrior saints who were eager to take up the cause of any persecuted community.Â This often resulted (in clash) with the native authority, followed, almost invariably, by annexationâ¦â65Â This also shows how elastic were the methods adopted by the Sufis.Â They acted mostly as peaceful missionaries, but if they saw that the espousal of some just cause required military action, they were not averse to fighting.Â âThe Sufisâ¦ did not adopt the Ismaili technique of gradual conversionâ¦ They established their khanqahs and shrines at places which had already had a reputation for sanctity before Islam.Â Thus some of the traditional i.e. (Hindu) gatherings were transformed into new festivals. (i.e. Muslim).Â As a result of these efforts, Bengal in course of time became a Muslim landâ¦â66Â In brief, the Sufi Mashaikh converted people by both violent and non-violent means, occupied their places of worship and turned them into khanqahs and mosques to make Eastern Bengal specially a Muslim land.

Stories of forcible conversions in Bengal are narrated by Muhammadan medieval historians themselves with great gusto and we need not dilate upon them.67Â From early times âeach seat of Government, and each military station was more or less a centre of missionary agitationâ.Â We find another agency from across the seas working towards the same end.Â Arab merchants carried on an extensive and lucrative trade at Chittagong and disseminated their religious ideas among its inhabitants.Â When Barbosa visited Bengal at the beginning of the sixteenth century, he found the inhabitants of the interior Gentiles, subject to the king of Bengal who was a Moor, while the sea ports were inhabited by both Moors and Gentiles.Â He also met with many foreigners - Arabs Persians, Abyssinians and Indians (probably Gujaratis). Caesar Frederick and Vincent Le Blanc, who were in Bengal in 1570, also inform us that the island of Sandip was then inhabited by Moors.68Â In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries Chittagong surely was one of the centres from which unceasing propagandism was carried on.Â When it is realised how Muslim merchants from India played a major role in the conversion of Mallaca and then the other parts of South-East Asia to Islam,69 an appreciation of their proselytizing endeavour and achievements in Gujarat, Malabar and Bengal can be easily made.Â Thus foreign Muslims were there too in large numbers in Bengal.Â They migrated on several occasions and for various reasons.Â Some came in the wake of conquest, others as traders and businessmen.70Â Ruknuddin Barbak Shah (1460-74) was probably the first ruler who maintained a large number of Abyssinians as protectors of his throne.Â He recruited 8,000 Habshis and gave them key positions in his government.Â Aside from the Abyssinian eunuchs at the court, it was common for other eunuchs to act as harem guards.71Â In addition to the Abyssinians, Bengal played host to other foreigners, especially merchants from Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and other parts of India.Â Many stayed on in Bengal because of its fertility, riches and cheap food.72 âLittle is reported by European writers about the Hindu population of Bengal beyond remarks to the effect that their children are sometimes sold to be eunuchs, that many of them become converts to the Muslim faith, and that they constitute the majority of the population outside the port cities.â73Â While European accounts of Gaur talk of a mixed population of Muslims, Hindus and foreigners (Moors), the Manasa Vijaya of Vipradasa (composed 1495) mentions large population of Muslims in Satgaon.Â It says, âThe Muslim population of Saptagrama is innumerable; they belong to the Mughals, Pathans and Mokadims, Saiyyads, Mullas and Qazisâ¦â74Â Obviously Bengal cities had a good number of Muslims in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.

The methods of conversion employed in Bengal were the same as seen elsewhere in medieval India.Â But what made Bengal different from many other parts of India as non-resistant and vulnerable to conversions was its peculiar political, religious, and social condition.Â Politically, Bengal could not withstand Muslim attacks from the very beginning as is clear from the shocking non-resistance of Lakshman Sen to Bakhtiyar Khaljiâs invasion. Perhaps the kingdom was already thoroughly infiltrated by Muslim adventures from the west and traders from the north.Â Its Muslim governors and rulers, due to its geographical location and the unsatisfactory medieval means of communication, mostly remained independent of Delhi, provoking, nevertheless, occasional attacks from the Delhi Sultans. Such emergencies brought the local rulers and the people closer to each other.Â Besides, âthroughout the period from the 13th to the 18th century, the northern, eastern and south-eastern frontiers of the Muslim ruled area of East Bengal remained in fluid condition and the boundaries swung to and fro with tides of fresh conquestsâ¦â75 (and conversions).

Thus the People of Bengal accepted their Muslim rulers as one of themselves, and the rulers on their part adopted and patronised the peopleâs language and literature, art and culture.76Â Translations of many important Hindu works were done at the orders of Muslim rulers,77 and âas a result of this interaction of Hinduism and Islam curious syncretic cults and practices arose, (there) grew the worship of a common God, adored by Hindus and Muslims alike, namely, Satya Pir.Â The Emperor Hussain Shah of Gauda is supposed to be the originator of this cultâ¦â78 Adherents of such cults provided potential converts to Islam.Â Muslim rulers were keen on increasing Muslim numbers.Â They could provide jobs and other economic incentives to conversions and, as has been pointed out earlier, Barbosa was struck by the fact that in Bengal âeveryday Gentiles turn Moors to obtain favour of the King and Governorsâ.Â Others converted as the only means of escaping punishment for crimes.Â Besides, wherever Muhammadan rule existed slavery was developed, and âslavery was accepted by the Hindus as a refuge for their troubles. Delhi court obtained not only its slaves (in thousands, as for example under Firoz Tughlaq) but also eunuchs from the villages of Eastern Bengal (a wide-spread practice which the Mughal Emperor Jahangir tried to stop).Â The incursions of Assamese Maghs, the famines, pestilences and civil warsâ¦ drove them in sheer desperation to sell their children as Musalman slavesâ.79

To such compulsions obviously the very poor and socially backward people would have succumbed.Â For the rich other methods were brought into operation.Â The Census of India Report of 1901 says that âthe tyrannical Murshid Kuli Khan enforced a law that any Amal, or Zamindar, failing to pay the revenue that was dueâ¦ should, with his wife and children, be compelled to become Muhammadansâ, but the practice was much older as vouched by the Banshasmriti.80Â Conversions, such as that of the Raja of Samudragarh, had a chain reaction.Â The converted Rajas and Zamindars used to compel others in their lands to become Musalmans for fear of losing their support, nay even for making them their active Muslim supporters.Â In this regard we have seen the achievements of Sultan Jalaluddin, himself a convert form Hinduism.Â Kala Pahar, the dreaded iconoclast, and Murshid Quli Khan were Brahman converts.Â So was Pir Ali or Muhammad Tahir, a Brahman apostate, who âlike all renegadesâ¦ probably proved a worse persecutor of his original faith than others who were Muhammadans by birth.â The Census report of 1901 continues to say: âThe present Raja of Parsouni in Darbhanga is descended form Raja Pudil Singh, who rebelled against the Emperor and became a Muhammadan by way of expiation.Â The family of Asad Khan of Baranthan in Chittagong, has descended from Syam Rai Chowdhari who was fain to become a Musalmanâ¦ The Diwan families of Pargana Sarail in Tippera, and of Haibatnagar and Jangalbari in Mymensingh, the Pathans of Majhauli in Darbhanghaâ, all sprang from old Hindu houses.Â They, their propagation, and their progeny added to Muslim numbers.

The religious condition of Bengal too made people vulnerable to Muslim proselytization.Â The Pala rulers of Bengal were Buddhists and Buddhism, in spite of the damage caused to it by Bakhtiyar Khalji, remained prevalent in the land until at least the fourteenth century.Â The Senas were Hindus.Â They patronised Brahmins and Sanskrit.Â They were destroyed by Bakhtiyar, but not Hinduism.81 However, a sort of rivalry between Buddhism and Hinduism,82 and zeal of Muslim âSaintsâ combined to create a situation for peopleâs exposure to conversion.

The social structure of Bengal too was not coalesced. It was an amalgamation of Hindus, non-Hindus, and foreigners.Â The invaders and immigrants from the side of Assam, Tibet and Burma were not Hindus.Â Abdul Majid Khan even goes on to say: âIn fact India or the land of the Hindus ended in Bengal west of the Bhagirathi.â83 The statement is not quite true, but in the Bengal Census Report of 1872 Beverley has explained in great detail the difficulty of settling who are and who are not Hindus.84 The dark, short and broadnosed people of Bengal are called pre-Dravidian by anthropologists.Â Tibeto-Chinese or Mongoloids also came into Bengal and have become part and parcel of the people.Â It is not known when the Bodo section of the Tibeto-Burman branch of these people (Bodo, Mech, Koch, Kachari, Rabha, Garo, Tipra) came to Assam and East Bengal, but are found spread all over North and East Bengal.

In brief in eastern Bengal, Chandals and Pods and in northern Rajbansis and Koches predominated; the proportion of orthodox Hindus was very small.Â Pods, Chandals and Koches all have traces of Buddhist influence.Â Among Koches traces of Buddhist influence still survived when Ralph Fitch visited the country in the sixteenth century.85Â Muslim religion must have crumbled the defences of Chandals, Koches, Pods and other tribes and low classes on whom there was little Hindu influence.Â Thus it were the peculiar political, religious, but more especially social conditions of Bengal that exposed its people much more to Muslim proselytization.Â Had the common, poor, unsophisticated sections of the backward classes been left to themselves, they might have remained contented with their local forms of devotion and folk culture.Â But Muslim rulers, soldiers and Sufi Mashaikh left the high and the low hardly any choice in the matter.Â The lower classes of course were more vulnerable.Â However, the picture of proselytization in Bengal is not very clear and the problem is still open to study.

But there can be no doubt as to the local origin of most of the Muhammadans in Bengal, especially in North and East.Â Dewan Fazle Rabbi, however, has tried to prove that Bengal Muslims are mainly of foreign extraction.Â Nothing can be farther from the truth, but before we critically assess his ill-founded thesis, we shall sift the evidence about the local origin of Bengal Muslims which in itself would refute their extra-Indian nativity.Â Brian Hodgson writes about the voluntary conversion of Koch tribe of North Bengal,86 Dr. Wise about the tribes about Dacca, and Buchanan Hamilton about other tribes, but they all agree that Bengal Muslims are descendants of local inhabitants.87Â And the appellations and professions of the low class indigenous people did not change with their conversion, as will be clearly seen in the following Table.

http://voiceofdharma.com/books/imwat/ch3.htm

Bharatvarsh · 11-27-2005, 09:13 AM

QUOTEask an andhraite about tipu sultan and haider ali and see what they have to say.
Tippu was not even from Andhra, seems like you have no point so keep rambling.

QUOTEalso ask a dalit about ambedkar and see what they have to say. 
Why don't you enlighten us?, when Shourie wrote the book there were all these protests but in private the non Mahar's admitted that what Shourie said was true, Ambedkar couldn't even win any election since Harijans never even voted for him, just because you read p-sec history and internalise their every myth does not mean it beomes true history.

11-27-2005, 09:20 AM

QUOTE(Bharatvarsh @ Nov 27 2005, 09:09 AM)By the way does the following prove that there was not much persecution of Hindus in Bengal as you claim:



are you virgin to the english language???

what i tried to say was that there was not much initial resistance to muslims from bengal, and then the non brahmin population converted without much fuss and hence there was never much persecution (just like iran) and thus no simmering opposition to muslims later (ie. after they took bengal over) either, unlike north and north west india where there was lots of initial opposition, lots of reluctance abongst brahmins and non brahmins alike to convert, and thus a continuous series of anti muslim efforts.

notice bihar never fought the muslims much... they didnt have a powerful person leading them back then.

anyways ty for vindicating me.... that there was not much opression of bengal under muslims (due to willful conversions to such an extent that bengal had the max camel jockey population at the time of independence)... and hence not much protest.

the poms oppressed and bled bengal dry and bengal had a choice to die or fight.
http://www.atributetohinduism.com/European...0of%20the%20Raj

about the only people who fought muslims and poms in equal measure are the marathas.

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