History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c39.10

v3.c39.10

This baneful effect of a rigid caste system, wherein the number of those who fight for the independence of the community becomes limited, was seen by the ancient law-givers and they attempted to remedy it by laying it down that though ordinarily it is the duty of the Kshatriyas to take up arms, it was yet the duty of all the three higher varṇas to take up arms when religion was threatened and religion or Dharma, according to the Hindu notion, included politics and imposition of the yoke of a foreign people and religion was certainly a danger to religion. But where the people are, for generations, bred up in professions which are docile and in a spirit of submission, it is impossible to expect them to suddenly become fighters. Indeed, as stated before, when Shihabuddin conquered Kanauj, the rais and land-holders came forward and tendered submission. Moreover it must be noted that the population of Northern India is predominantly Dravidian, unlike the Panjab. It is even now so, the total number of Kshatriyas in U. P. is remarkably small. While, therefore, Shihabuddin Ghori could raise an army from the whole of the overflowing population of the Panjab, of Afghanistan and of Turkestan, the Rajputs could not raise large armies in India nor would the people offer resistance as a whole to foreign yoke. It may be noted that in western countries at the present day, the whole population of a country becomes the recruiting ground for an army fighting for the nation's existence. Germany in the recent war could place in the field nearly 70 lakhs of soldiers and so could France and England. And the national sentiment is so strong in the west that the whole country takes the greatest interest in the national struggle. The condition of Northern India at this time was exactly the opposite. The Kshatriya population alone was the recruiting ground; it is indeed true that some Brahmins and Vaiśyas did fight even at that time, but these exceptions prove the rule viz. that the Brahmins and the Vaiśyas then, as now, were as a rule unwilling and even unfitted to take up arms. The case was different during the days of the Guptas and the Vardhanas, of Dahir and Lalliya. Secondly, the people as a whole took no interest in the national struggle and without demur offered their submission to the foreign yoke, especially because, as we shall presently show, the Mahomedan rulers did not adopt any coercive measures for the spread of their religion.