S.K. Balasubramanian in The Bharatiya Pragna, December, 1999
We are told that India was under Islamic rule and influence for nearly 1000 years and that Islam came to Sindh in 705 AD. The first invasion in 705 was no more than an incursion since it lasted for not more than five years. The Arab Muslims were driven back as fast as they came. The assertion of an "Islamic period in Indian history" came about because the British thought of Delhi as India. While there is no denying that Delhi and its hinterlands, Punjab and the Gangetic Plain, were prime jewels in India's crown, India was far bigger than Delhi. Islamic rule in Delhi could not be construed as an Islamic shroud over India.
From about 705 AD there had been Islamic (Arab, Afghan or Persian) incursions into Hindusthan ... The only period when a major part of India was under an Islamic regime was from Akbar to Aurangzeb - a period of 155 years (1550- 1705)
From 1100 AD to 1840 (sic) there were six successful attacks on India from the west, an average of one attack in 100 years - Ghazni, Ghori, Khilji, Babar, Nadir Shah and Ahmed Shah. The first three were Afghans. The fourth one was a Mongol of Turkmen origin. The fifth was Persian and the sixth Afghan ... Because of the destructive nature of some of these attacks their memory is still raw. Statistically speaking, this country had repelled attacks for one hundred years before losing once. This is not as great a military debacle as historians would like us to believe ...
Ghazni's intent was to loot. He looted Somnath and went back. In fact, all Afghan incursions, except Khilji, were for loot and rapine. The destruction was quite large. Civilized and prosperous societies elsewhere also had found similar tribal incursions difficult to contain. The cost of maintaining a standing army imposed a heavy burden and there was always the fear of the army becoming too powerful. For the attacking tribes the loss was only in manpower which could be recouped in another 10-12 years for the next round of attacks. Their lands, being unproductive, had no attraction for the civilized peoples to engage in "hot pursuit" or "fight to the finish"
Ghori was beaten several times before he could win. He succeeded at last because of division in the Hindu ranks and not due to the Muslim military superiority ...
The next successful incursion which endured for some time was the invasion by Babar ... His son Humayun was driven out but returned some time later. All these Muslim reverses are painted as having been at the hands of Muslims or an intra-Muslim affair. The Hindu role in these has to be examined ... The majority is treated as if they were no more than dumb animal-like spectators.
Akbar could not be called a full Islamicist. Jehangir was a playboy. It was Aurangzeb who showed Islamic zeal and perpetrated harsh cruelties. It was but natural that ...alienated the majority of Hindus. Muslim power in India could not prevail after that.
.... Muslims formed about 35% in pre-Independence India and coincidentally the Buddhist percentage in India was not far different ... I conclude that the Buddhists were the predominant converts to Islam ..
If the. Buddhist Muslim equation is not accepted, we have to explain: Where did the Buddhists go? By the time the British came to India, Buddhism had completely disappeared ... They certainly did not revert to Hinduism. The absorption into the hierarchical caste system would have been difficult ..
Professor Aziz Ahmad On Iconoclasm by Muslim State in India
"Iconoclasm was considered by some Muslim sultans and their generals as a pious performance ancillary to the greater and more strenuous virtue of jehad; it also served as a proof for the self-satisfaction of the invaders that the wars they were waging were not for self-glorification or for acquisition of plunders or the carving out of an empire, but had religious justification.
"Iconoclasm was a pseudo-religious wartime sport that survived in Muslim India until the end of the 17th century (till the time of Aurangzeb). The saintly Iletmish otherwise quite tolerant to the Hindus sacked the temples of Bhilsa and Ujjain after his siege of those cities. Idol-breaking occurred frequently during Jalal al-din Khilji's expedition against Jhaban and Ala-al-din's vast conquest in the Deccan and Gujarat.
Peacetime (when Muslim supremacy was established by such vandalism) instances are rare. Among these exceptions which prove the rule are the cases of iconoclasm by Sikandar Butshikan (idol-breaker) of Kashmir and Sikandar Lodi (whom Babar defeated in 1520). The latter (Lodi) is reported to have converted Hindu temples at Muttra (Mathura) into caravan-serais and to have given away broken pieces of idols to butchers-to serve as meat-weights ... The theoretical policy of the Muslim state in India was to withhold the permission of new temples and to discourage the repair of old ones. This appears to have been aimed at a gradual and tactful elimination of idol worship. But judging from the extremely large number of temples that have survived from medieval India the policy seems to have been seldom enforced." (Pp. 87-88). (Source: The Organiser, 26 December, 1999)
