The Sultanate of Delhi, 711–1526 A.D. c27.s2: Our bid for freedom

c27.s2.1

Over-running the country was one thing and its effective conquest quite another. It did not mean that the Turks succeeded in capturing easily what they had over-run. The real and effective resistance of our people began only when the Turks attempted to occupy the country and rule over it. Perhaps our people laboured under the mistaken notion that the invader was not concerned with territorial sovereignty and would content himself with mere plunder. But when they saw that his lieutenants were establishing military garrisons and occupying the country, they adopted concerted measures to oppose. The struggle between the Hindushahi kings of the Panjab and their Arab and Turkish neighbours is the story of a remarkable resistance which was put up for centuries. The province of the Panjab could be conquered by the invaders only after over 350 years’ (636—1026 A.D.) effort. The Chauhans of Sambhar and Ajmer revolted four times within the brief period of half a decade in order to drive away Muhammad of Ghur’s officers. The fort of Ranthambhor could not remain in effective Muslim possession even after 150 years’ fighting. The entire Rajasthan could not really be conquered and occupied during this period. One reads in the pages of the *Tabaqat-i-Nasiri* that annual expeditions had to be undertaken to the fertile regions of the Ganga and Yamuna Doab by the Sultans, from Qutub-ud-din Aibak down to Balban, and yet it could not be thoroughly subdued. The process of annual conquest of this region, as of several others, had to be repeated throughout the Sultanate period, and the revenue of the Doab could not be collected except at the point of the bayonet. In fact, the Hindus continued their struggle against their Turko-Afghan rulers throughout the period of the Sultanate of Delhi. When one compares the fate of other Asian and European countries, which so tamely submitted to the Arab and Turkish aggression, one cannot but have admiration for our ancestors who fought for long and fought hard against the enemy who had so quickly established his supremacy, political, military and religious, over many countries of the three continents of the world.