History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c33.s6.28

v3.c33.s6.28

I. The weakness of the religious feeling of the Hindus had a great deal to do with their defeat in the Panjab. The dominant binding sentiment on either side was not national but religious, as has already been stated. But while the religious zeal of the Mahomedans was stubborn and overpowering, the religious sentiment of the Hindus was weak and almost apathetic. It was to be expected that the zeal of the Moslem and the greed of the robber would be equally met by the fervour of the Hindu and the indignation of the robbed. Not only were temples plundered and idols rifled of their jewels but hundreds and thousands of Hindus were forcibly converted. It is, therefore, natural to expect that the Hindus would have fought with all the exasperation and the courage of the defiled and the despoiled. And equally matched as they were in number and civilization, perhaps even superior, they should not have accepted defeat. But the zeal of the Hindus has always been mild for various reasons. For one, he is usually tolerant. It is a common experience that while a Mahomedan's exasperation is most acute at the least insult offered to the Koran or to the great Prophet, a Hindu quietly listens to any abuse of the Veda or of Rāma and Kṛiṣhṇa. A Hindu is again by habit inaggressive. The Hindu religion has always preached Ahinsā and the Hindu is accustomed to pacific modes of life. Thirdly, the Hindus had wrong notions about their idols; and probably still have. As stated before, images have no miraculous powers and when the idols themselves were found to be powerless, it would be superstitiously thought useless for man to resist where even the deity has thought fit to submit. But it must be remembered that an image after all is an emblem and if the emblem is insulted it is not the metal or the stone that is insulted nor the deity which it represents, for it is above all insult. It is they who are really insulted, who believe in that emblem. When the face of the statue of Queen Victoria was tarred in Bombay, it was not the marble that was insulted nor the good Queen Victoria but it was the British nation which was, and which was intended to be, insulted which had set up the statue. But by a wrong philosophy or rather by superstition the Hindus thought the deities powerless against Mahmud who was bound to succeed as it was destined that the Sanātana Dharma was to suffer in the Kali age. Such reasoning naturally acted upon the minds of the Hindus more forcibly when accidents actually happened which worked against them and they did not fight with that resentment and exasperation which should have animated those whose temples had been desecrated and whose houses had been dishonoured.