FORGOTTEN HISTORY OF INDIAN FIGHTBACK AGAINST ISLAMIC RULE

Khusro Khan – A Hindu convert briefly overthrows the Khilji dynasty in 1320In the early 14th century (1312) Gujarat was overrun by the Muslim tyrants of who had a century earlier occupied Delhi. As was customary, the Muslims slaughtered countless Hindu victims after every victory. They also carried off many beautiful women and handsome young man as captives, to be used as sex slaves. One such handsome child was Khusro Khan. This was not his original name when he was carried off as a prisoner at the age of eleven. Even at that tender age, he had chiseled features and was fair complexioned. He belonged to the Makwana sub-caste of North Gujarat.As was the custom, all captives were forcibly converted to Islam and brought up as slaves. After nearly fifteen years in captivity Khusro Khan forgot what his original name was. He only faintly recollected that he had a different childhood which he shared with the other captives from Gujarat.His stunning features and fair complexion evoked the perverted lust of his captor Sultan Allaudin Khilji’s perverted son, Qutbuddin Mubarak Khalji. He like his more notorious father Alauddin Khalji, were in love with their young male slaves. Qutbuddin Mubarak had a particular fondness for his slave Khusro Khan and as a teenager, Khusro was sexually abused by Qutbuddin Mubarak for eight years.Khusro seethed for revenge against this barbarity that robbed him of his childhood and early youth.In 1320, Qutbuddin murdered his ageing father Allaudin and crowned himself emperor. By then Khushro had acquired a position of influence over Qutbuddin. Khusro had also used this influence to gather other captives like him and had arm them to make up Qutbuddin’s bodyguard. Khusro often wanted to put a sword through the Sultan and kill him while he was doing the immoral act of publicly kissing him. All through his teens, Khusro was forced to publicly offer his body to the Sultan like a prostitute. He did this apparent cheer, but within himself he was seething with rage and had been choking up with a desire for revenge at the way the Sultan forced himself upon him and took advantage of him.During the struggle for power in 1320 when Qutbuddin murdered his ageing father, Khusro got his chance. Qutbuddin had put his trust in his partner in perverted sex, Khusro and put him in charge of guarding his royal quarters. Qutbuddin Mubarak excluded all his father’s men from important duties in the palace and the army.Taking advantage of his position and the general resentment for Qutbuddin, Khusro murdered Qutbuddin Mubarak Khilji, and crowned himself king and assumed the title Khusro Khan. And what was a shock to the whole of India, especially to the Muslims occupying Delhi was that Khusro declared himself to be a Hindu again!! When he ascended the throne, Khusro Khan was only nineteen years of age. The Muslim nobility was shell-shocked, but with the strong contigent of Gujarati converts around Khusro Khan, they were momentarily stunned into inaction. However, they began plotting the overthrow of Khusro Khan – who in their eyes was a Murtad who had abjured Islam.Eventually, after a year, a Muslim General Ghazi Malik (who later took on the title Giyasuddin Tughlak) murdered Khusro and re-established the rule of Muslims in Delhi. After a brief interlude of Hindu rule, Ghazi Malik founded the Tughluq dynasty. But this event proved that if the Hindus had the determination grit and shrewdness, they could overturn Muslim rule in India. A dream that was to be realized later by the Marathas when they marched in to Delhi in 1720.

Venu Gopal said...
7:11 PM 27/Jun/07
Marvellous piece of history. By your reckoning, if the British had not come, would the Hindus have decimated the Muslims and re-established Hindu rule in India? Was it because the by then weakened Muslim rulers could not defeat the British (and the Hindus were not yet militarily prepared to take on the British) that the British ruled India?