History of Mediaeval Hindu India (being a History of India from 600 to 1200 A.D.) v3.c39.11

v3.c39.11

Many of the remnants of the chivalrous, independence-loving Rajputs retired to the deserts and hills of Rajputana, or the ravines of the Chambal and the Jumna and other retired tracts and there and preserved their independence, thus leaving Northern India in general and the Madhya-deśa in particular, all the more helpless. Northern India, therefore, fell prostrate never to rise, because there was no national resitastnce. This will explain how while in Europe even small nations have successfully resisted attempts to enslave them, in India large countries like the Kanauj kingdom fell finally before the Mahomedans. These countries or kingdoms were large enough even singly to oppose successfully any Mahomedan conqueror. But the reality is that there was no national resistance and the resistance offered by the Rajputs was unavailing owing to their being outnumbered by reason of rigidity of caste. It is not a mere matter of accident that Sobieski the greatest leader of the Poles was able to finally stop the onward rush of the Turks at Vienna. The Poles were more heroic than the Greeks, no doubt, but the Poles fought as a nation and hence succeeded. In Northern India unfortunately, both Prithvīrāj and Jaichand were defeated; but if the people had resisted as a whole, Northern India could not have been finally subdued by the Mahomedans.