From the 8th to the 16th century, a long, grinding contest played out across the subcontinent between Hindu kingdoms and successive waves of Islamic armies. Raja Dahir of Sind fell to Muhammad bin Qasim. Lalitaditya Muktapida of Kashmir pushed the invaders back. The Hindu Shahis bled defending the northwest passes against Ghaznavid conquerors. Mularaja of Gujarat met Muhammad Ghori in battle. These names rarely appear in school textbooks or university syllabi, and the resistance they mounted has been treated as if it never happened.
Chandni Sengupta draws on Persian chronicles and archival sources that post-independence historiography largely set aside, reconstructing campaigns and leaders from both sides of the conflict with care for what the primary sources actually say. The book moves chronologically through eight centuries of resistance, covering figures as well known as Prithviraj Chauhan alongside dozens of rulers whose names have been entirely forgotten. It includes the gallant women who chose battle or death over capitulation.
This is not a work of grievance but of retrieval — an effort to bring back into the historical record the full weight of what was fought for, and lost, and sometimes won, across those eight centuries.
ABOUT THE BOOK:- Numerous valiant challengers, monumental battles, memorable victories, and bloody defeats-the story of the braveheart fighters of medieval Bhārat (8th to 16th centuries) who defeated, wounded, and pushed back Islamic invaders-has remained largely untold. From Raja Dahir of Sind who battled the pillaging Mohammad bin Qasim to Lalitaditya Muktapida, the Alexander of India, who rose to prominence in Kashmir and kept the Islamic invaders at bay; from the Hindu Shahis who resisted the Ghaznavid conquerors to their last breath, to Mularaja of Gujarat who gave bloody battle to Muhammad Ghori, neither have school history books considered the valour and resistance of the Hindu kings worthy enough of mention, nor has the history taught in the classrooms in colleges and universities in India given a second thought to these countless forgotten heroes. They are warriors that fearlessly defended their territory, bled to the last drop, but did not surrender to plunder, iconoclasm, and treachery. Hindu Heroes of Medieval Bharat: Resistance and Valour (8th-16th Centuries) not only narrates the history of the protracted struggle that ensued between Hindu kings and the marauding Islamic armies between the 8th and the 16th centuries, it pays homage to the men, and gallant women, who preferred death to slavery, the dangers of battle to the ignominy of meek surrender. The narrative is summarily based on archival readings of Persian chronicles and other irrefutable sources that have hitherto been ignored in post-independence history writing in India. It throws much-needed light on the unrelenting challenge that was mounted by some like Prithviraj Chauhan and Rana Kumbha, that are known, and numerous others, that are unknown. It is the story of a great civilization fighting to protect itself from foreign assaulters, the story of war and victory, deceit and treachery, and above all, a deep affection for Bhārat.
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