6_Glorious_Epochs_of_Indian_History

180 SIX GLORIOUS EPOCHS OF INDIAN HISTORY
Their womanhood became their shield quite sufficient to
protect them.
453. Still worse was the ridiculous idea, which the
Hindus of those times entertained, that it was a sin to
convert a Muslim woman to Hinduism. They foolishly
thought that to have any sort of relations with a Muslim
woman meant their own conversion to Islam". Naturally,
even in the midst of a Hindu community and the Hindu
State they were secure against any attempt by the Hindus
at abducting them or their forcible conversion to Hinduism.
Exceptions however were very rare.
454. Under these circumstances, the Muslim feminine
class [fair (?) sex] was left seraphically free from any chastise­
ment or penalty for their share of the crimes perpetrated
against the Hindu woman-world, and their work of enticing
a,nd ensnaring the Hindu women and forcing them to
accept Islam went on for hundreds of years unhampered and
unimpeded.
BUT IF
465. Suppose, if from the earliest Muslim invasion of
India, the Hindus also, whenever they were victors on the
battlefields, had decided to pay the Muslim' fair sex in the
same coin or punished them in some other waja, i.e., by con­
version even with force, and then absorbed them in their fold,
then ? Then with this horrible apprehension at their heart
they would have desisted from their evil designs against any
Hindu lady. If they had taken such a fright in the first two
or three centuries, millions and millions of luckless Hindu
ladies would have been saved all their indignities, loss of
their own religion, rapes, ravages and other unimaginable
persecutions. Our woman-world would not have suffered
such a tremendous numerical loss, which means their future
progeny would not have been lost permanently to Hinduism
and the Muslim population could not have thrived so
audaciously. Without any increase in their womenfolk the
Muslim population would have dwindled into a negligible