MY MOTHERLAND ... 29
What a crime Allauddin Khilji, Muhammad Bin Tughlaq, Bahadur Shah, Babur, Akbar and Aurangzeb -- to name but a few -- committed in creating the circumstance for the jauhar (self-immolation in fire) of our Rajput women ! The fire spread even to the Deccan as Tughlaq's forces laid siege. Our Hindu princesses and maids entered the fire to save themselves from Mohammedan defiling of their forms, to prevent enforced conversion and induction into the harems of these tyrants who knew not the refinements of Hindu culture and the civic propieties that ought to attend every victory over the enemy. Theirs was a cultural sanction to conquer the males in war and possess the females as their rightful slaves. But our valorous Rajput women thwarted their designs oftener than not and preferred being swallowed by the very fire which stood witness to their purity in marriage, in every ceremony of the dharma that held them and in their final act of supreme self-sacrifice.
And, yet, it was a terrible loss of stree shakti, the great feminine power brewing in our motherland, the fertile wombs for the generation of continuing kshatriya valour. It was such a loss that gradually resistance broke down to Mohammedan rule and Hindu India succumbed to the barbaric force of the Arabs, the Turks, the Mongols, the Afghans, the Mughals and their proselytising religion. It was then that the Sikhs arose amidst atrocities to their Gurus and, followed by the rising Maratha power, struck the death-blow to the Mohammedans to end their dominance in India.
But woe unto India's fortunes ! The Europeans were now getting entrenched in our country, having shed their prior pretence of commerce, and were fast becoming the new political masters of our debilitated motherland.
Written by Sugata Bose
What a crime Allauddin Khilji, Muhammad Bin Tughlaq, Bahadur Shah, Babur, Akbar and Aurangzeb -- to name but a few -- committed in creating the circumstance for the jauhar (self-immolation in fire) of our Rajput women ! The fire spread even to the Deccan as Tughlaq's forces laid siege. Our Hindu princesses and maids entered the fire to save themselves from Mohammedan defiling of their forms, to prevent enforced conversion and induction into the harems of these tyrants who knew not the refinements of Hindu culture and the civic propieties that ought to attend every victory over the enemy. Theirs was a cultural sanction to conquer the males in war and possess the females as their rightful slaves. But our valorous Rajput women thwarted their designs oftener than not and preferred being swallowed by the very fire which stood witness to their purity in marriage, in every ceremony of the dharma that held them and in their final act of supreme self-sacrifice.
And, yet, it was a terrible loss of stree shakti, the great feminine power brewing in our motherland, the fertile wombs for the generation of continuing kshatriya valour. It was such a loss that gradually resistance broke down to Mohammedan rule and Hindu India succumbed to the barbaric force of the Arabs, the Turks, the Mongols, the Afghans, the Mughals and their proselytising religion. It was then that the Sikhs arose amidst atrocities to their Gurus and, followed by the rising Maratha power, struck the death-blow to the Mohammedans to end their dominance in India.
But woe unto India's fortunes ! The Europeans were now getting entrenched in our country, having shed their prior pretence of commerce, and were fast becoming the new political masters of our debilitated motherland.
Written by Sugata Bose
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