Dear Nayar
Apart from victory or defeat, killing and bloodshed, the two battles of Tarain illustrate a contrast between the Judaic and the Hindu ethos. Muhammed Ghauri was clear about his aim of expanding his empire. He failed in the first battle to overcome the biggest obstacle in his way, the coalition led by Prithviraj Chauhan. He succeeded in his second attempt and made sure that Chauhan would not raise his head again by executing him. His aim was achieved with the establishment of his sultanate in Delhi where he nominated Qutubuddin Aibak as the Sultan.Qutub Minar as well as the Quwwatul Islam mosque are monuments of the Hindu defeat and Muslim victory.

Chauhan, on the other hand, did not kill Ghauri after the first battle at Tarain and thus failed to make sure that this particular invader would not trouble him again. Instead, he concerned himself with the chivalrous code of a warrior whereby a killing is a murder. In his concern for means, Prithviraj evidently overlooked the objective which was to secure the defence of his land. To him, ends did not justify the means. For Ghauri ends were overridingly more important.

The Hindu universe includes all living beings whereas in the Judaic tradition the world is divided into Jew and gentile, into Christian and heathen, into momin and kafir. This division makes the practice of ruthlessness far easier when the enemy does not belong to the faith. By comparison, the Hindu tends to vacillate.

The Hindu believes in the permanence of soul and his death merely signifies the shedding of his clothes in order to be born again to occupy a new body. This faith in the transmigration of soul induces a patience for real life which appears endless. Life is anant as has been succinctly summed up in our ancient texts. To the Jew, Christian or Muslim, there is only one life to live. The end is signified by death.Thereafter begins the wait for the doomsday or qayamat when one's performance on earth would determine whether the person goes to heaven or hell. There was therefore, an inducement to serve God and serve Him decisively for the record of a good life on earth.

The belief certainly made the person from the Judaic world not only decisive but, when required, ruthless. The Hindu subconscious induced him to be patient whereby he could afford the luxury of means being as important as ends. This was not a syndrome confined to Prithviraj Chanhan but his predecessors as well as the rulers who followed him also held the same beliefs. How deep must be the conviction that eight centuries later Mahatma Gandhi insisted that means should be such that they sanctify the end.

This is not a place for collective psycho analysis. The intention is only to explain the enormity of the trauma the Hindu psyche sufferred due to the impact of Islam. The unending series of defeats that the Hindus suffered is only one consequence of such a trauma. The more important consequence was the loss of creativity. During the medieval centuries there was little new that the Hindu contributed to his civilization. Whatever new that happened, like the building of mosques and mausoleums, was the work of the Muslims.

This is in contrast to what happened in the west where, for instance, eight crusades were fought between the years 1070 and 1270 A.D. The Muslims conquered and ruled Spain for centuries. Yet when the Moors were expelled and the Christians returned to dominance, there was no vestige of trauma. The Muslims had also laid siege toVienna whereby they threatened western Europe. Nevertheless, these intrusions did not cow down the Christian civilization. The epic of Jewish persecution is well known. There are no more than eight million Jews left in this world. Yet, their civilisational vigour has not diminished. These two experiences go to show that when there is an intra-Judaic clash, its effects are not  longer lasting than physical. This is in sharp contrast to the effect on not only the Hindu body but also its soul and mind. The result is a deep sense of hopelessness, a demoralization not very different from that experienced by a slave who cannot hope to be a master. Yet, a slave also has an ego. How to satisfy this ego?

One easy way to satisfy the ego is to keep the other slaves suppressed and the expect one self to be a superior slave. A popular joke about Indian crabs which do not need a lid on their packing, that Indian crabs do not allow one another to crawl upwards  sufficiently to get out of the packing. They pull one another down continually. That there are people in our country whose busiest preoccupation is to pull others down rather than trying to move up themselves. To curse one's own country and community is another way of gratifying a slave's frustrated ego. One has only to read the media to see how much some Indians denigrate their country.

A few Hindus have gone to extraordinary lengths to indulge in such acts of masochism. Leading leftist historians have written that Aurangzeb might have committed a few mistakes and damaged temples but, overall, he was a fair ruler, whereas Aurangzeb himself was candid enough about his motive. According to court records, he issued instructions in his own hand that he would like all the temples in India to be destroyed because, as a good Muslim, he considered these places of worship pagan and their destruction a meritorious acts

One wonders what would have happened to the Hindu ethos had the British not arrived in India? There is no doubt that starting from the East India Company right down to the Independence in 1947, the Indian economy was exploited in order to enrich Britain. Nevertheless, the advent of the British certainly helped to bring about a balance between the Muslims and the Hindus, rather like a good referee enforces fair play between two football teams; one playing a rough and tough game while the other is docile if not also panicky. The evidence is that the Indian Renaissance began with Raja Ram Mohan Roy, quite some decades after the British had taken control over Bengal, and continues to this day.