200 Brahmans had been seized and confined, made Mussulmen, and forced to eat beef and other things contrary to their caste.

To begin the so much desired work of the conversion of the Hindoos and to seize on the Brahmins, ... and make them examples to the other inferior castes, in becoming Mussulmans, by suffering circumcision and being compelled to eat beef: accordingly many Brahmins were seized in or about the month of July 1788...

But it was not only the Brahmans, who were thus put in a state of terror of forcible conversion, for, in this same month, a Raja of the Kshatriya family of Parappanad, also "Tichera Terupar (Trichera Thiruppad), a principal Nayar of Nelemboor (Nilamboor)” and many other persons, who had been carried off to Coimbatore, were circumcised and forced to eat beef. The Nayars in desperation, under those circumstances, rose on their oppressors in the south, and the Coorgs too joined in.

Jonaraja gives more details. He begins by saying that while Sikandar put some limits to the persecution of the Hindus, tnese were now exceeded and there was no restraint. What he probably means is that, while the religious bigotry in the preceding reign took the forms mainly of destroying temples and demolishing the images of gods, Sthabhatta now more violently persecuted the Brahmanas. He imposed a fine or inflicted punishment (danda) on the Brahmanas and forbade religious sacrifices and processions (yoga-yatradi). Lest the Brahmanas leave the country to avoid the oppression and maintain their caste, orders were issued that no one might leave Kashmir without a passport, so that Sihabhatta might torment the Brahmanas as a fisherman torments the fish after putting them in a net in river. In spite of the regulation, some left the country by unfrequented roads. As to the rest, some tried to save themselves by putting on Muslim dress, while others put an end to their lives by fire, poison, drowning, hanging and jumping from a precipice. In order to put a stop to Hindu learning, Suhabhatta stopped the allowances of the Brahmanas, who had to move from door to door, like dogs, for food. It is interesting to note that Sthabhatta maintained that all these he did out of his regard for Islamic faith, and not out of any malice towards the Brahmanas (vv. 863-81).

Large number of tribes, Dalits and Backward Castes have a historical food culture of beef. The anti-beef agenda has been in the Brahmanical fold. It began with the South Indian Brahmins and then spread to the North and became part of the Gandhian movement. My question is, how can the state impose a certain food culture on people? The state has nothing to do with food. They can give certain food to people depending on the market, but cannot impose that you can or cannot eat certain food items. If beef eating is bad for Brahmins or Baniyas or certain upper castes, then the state is imposing that on the rest of the society. So the state is actually becoming a theocratic state.

The Brahmans who were custodians of the idols and idol-houses, and “teachers of the infidels”, also received their share of attention from the soldiers of Allãh. Our citations contain only stray references to the Brahmans because they have been compiled primarily with reference to the destruction of temples. Even so, they provide the broad contours of another chapter in the history of medieval India, a chapter which has yet to be brought out in full. The Brahmans are referred to as magicians by some Islamic invaders and massacred straight away. Elsewhere, the Hindus who are not totally defeated and want to surrender on some terms, are made to sign a treaty saying that the Brahmans will be expelled from the temples. The holy cities of the Hindus were “the nests of the Brahmans” who had to be slaughtered before or after the destruction of temples, so that these places were “cleansed” completely of “kufr” and made fit as “abodes of Islam”. Amîr Khusrû describes with great glee how the heads of Brahmans “danced from their necks and fell to the ground at their feet”, along with those of the other “infidels” whom Malik Kãfûr had slaughtered during the sack of the temples at Chidambaram. Fîrûz Shãh Tughlaq got bags full of cow’s flesh tied round the necks of Brahmans and had them paraded through his army camp at Kangra. Muhmûd Shãh II Bahmanî bestowed on himself the honour of being a ghãzî, simply because he had killed in cold blood the helpless BrãhmaNa priests of the local temple after Hindu warriors had died fighting in defence of the fort at Kondapalli. The present-day progressives, leftists and dalits whose main plank is anti-Brahminism have no reason to feel innovative about their ideology. Anti-Brahminism in India is as old a the advent of Islam. Our present-day Brahmin-baiters are no more than ideological descendants of the Islamic invaders. Hindus will do well to remember Mahatma Gandhi’s deep reflection--“if Brahmanism does not revive, Hinduism must perish.”

Wicked kings began to rule, and they exploited their subjects like thieves. Themselves worse than Shudras they converted people of all castes. Such being the condition ( sinful and sacrilegious) Brahmans gave up studying the scriptures; they became drunkards, served the ignominious, and fed themselves like dogs...on the leavings from the Turks' table.

The greater number of inhabitants of that place were Brahmans, and the whole of those Brahmans had their heads shaven, and they were all slain. There were a great number of books there; and when all these books came under the observation of the Musalmans, they summoned a number of Hindus that they might give them information respecting the import of those books; but the whole of the Hindus had been killed. On being acquainted (with the contents of the books), it was found that the whole of that fortress and city was a college, and in the Hindu tongue, they call a college, Bihar [vihara].

The manner in which he [Tipu] behaved to the inhabitants of Calicut was horrid. A great part of them, both male and female, were hung. He first tied up the mothers, and then suspended the children from their necks. The cruel tyrant caused several Christians and Heathens [Hindus] to be brought out naked, and made fast to the feet of his elephants, which were then obliged to drag them about till their limbs fell in pieces from their bodies. At the same time, he ordered all the churches and temples to be burned or pulled down or destroyed in some manner. Christian and pagan [Hindu] women were compelled to marry Mohammedans. The pagans were deprived of the token of their nobility, which is a lock of hair called kudumi; and every Christian, who appeared in the streets, must either submit to be circumcised, or be hanged on the spot. This happened in the year 1789, at which time I resided at Verapole [Varapali in Travancore]. I had then an opportunity of conversing with several Christians and Pagans, who had escaped from the fury of this merciless tyrant; and I assisted these fugitives to procure a boat to enable them to cross the river which runs past that city. This persecution continued till the 15th of April 1790.

It is said that one day a Brahman declared in the presence of several Muhammadans that the religion of Islam was true, but that his own religion was also true. When this declaration reached the ear of the Doctors, they reported it to the Sultan and as he was remarkably fond of religious and legal questions and theological controversies, he summoned the learned from various quarters, and invited their opinion on what the Brahman had asserted. The learned gave it unanimously as their opinion that he should be imprisoned, and that he should then be desired to embrace Islam, and if he should reject it, that he should be slain. Accordingly, when the Brahman was desired to embrace the Muhammadan religion, he refused to do so, and he was put to death. Many other similar instances of his zeal for religion occurred during his reign.
In his time, Hindu temples were razed to the ground, and neither name nor vestige of them was allowed to [p. 126] remain. In the city of Mathura, if a Hindu wished to have his head or beard shaved, there was not a barber that dared to comply. He prohibited the procession of the spear of Salar Mas’ud Ghazi, which went every year to Bahralch, and women were not allowed to go on pilgrimages to shrines.

On April 2, 1560, the viceroy D. Constantino de Braganca ordered that a large number of Brahmins, whose names were included in the rolls appended to the order should be thrown out of the island of Goa and the lands and fortresses of the Portuguese king. Only those who were natives of Salsete and Bardez were permitted to return to their villages. Others were banished under pain of their being made prisoners on the galleys without remission and losing all their property, one half to the accuser and the other to whatever purpose the viceroy may consider appropriate. They were given one month within which to dispose of their property.

They finally offered to surrender and were given an option of either a ‘voluntary profession of the Mahommedan faith, or a forcible conversion, with deportation from their native land. The unhappy captives gave a forced assent, and on the next day, the rite of circumcision was performed on all the males, every individual of both sexes being compelled to close the ceremony by eating beef.’

He then ordered Bakshi to make a ‘repast of rice and beef, [which] you must feed the whole of the prisoners on the same day, and afterwards incorporate them with the professors of Islam. They are then to be given in charge to the Muhammadies, with the directions for their being all forthwith circumcised. This being done, let them be reinstated in their possessions.’

With Calicut at his mercy, da Gama might have sent his soldiers ashore to put to the sword as many of its citizens as they could seize. Instead, he told his men to parade the prisoners, then to hack off their hands, ears and noses. As the work progressed, all the amputated pieces were piled up in a small boat. The Brahmin who had been sent out by the Zamorin as an emissary was put into the boat amid its new, gruesome cargo. He had also been mutilated in the ordained manner.
The historian Gaspar Correa describes what da Gama did next:
When all the Indians had been thus executed [sic], he ordered their feet to be tied together, as they had no hands with which to untie them: and in order that they should not untie them with their teeth, he ordered them to strike upon their teeth with staves, and they knocked them down their throats; and they were put on board, heaped on top of each other, mixed up with the blood which streamed from them; and he ordered mats and dry leaves to be spread over them, and the sails to be set for the shore, and the vessel set on fire … and the small vessel with the friar [Brahmin], with all the hands and ears, was also sent ashore, without being fired.