Muslim Slave System in Medieval India c10.14

c10.14

One has to travel through the country like Hugh and Colleen Gantzer to meet such types, almost everywhere. Today the SC/ST and OBC (Other Backward Classes) all count to fifty percent or thereabout of the population of India. This staggeringly high figure has been reached because of historical forces operating in the medieval times primarily. Muslim rule spread all over the country. Resistance to it by the Hindus also remained widespread. Jungles abounded throughout the vast land from Gujarat to Bengal and Kashmir to Kanyakumari, and flight into them was the safest safeguard. That is how SC/ST people are found in every state in large numbers. During the medieval period, in the years and centuries of oppression, they lived almost like wild beasts in improvised huts in forest villages, segregated and isolated, suffering and struggling. But by settling in the forests, these freedom fighters of medieval India were enabled to preserve their religion and their culture. Their martial arts, preserved in their *Akharas*, are even now practised in different forms in many states.