Intro

“The hopes of Bharatiyas rest on one Bharatiya. Our men have lost their valour and our females their honour. He is the broker in the market of our race. He has purchased all but the son of Udai. The descendant of Hammir Singh alone has been preserved.

I would sooner believe that the sun has risen from the West than Maharana Pratap has called the Turk “Badshah”.”

Sources

Akbar was shown a letter claiming to be from Maharana Pratap in which he said he was ready to accept Akbar’s supremacy and merge Mewar into the Mughal Empire. Prithiviraj Rathod, who was a member of Akbar’s court, wrote to Maharana Pratap asking him if this was true. The intro is a modified version of the letter that he sent to the Maharana.

It summarises to a great deal the kind of man that Maharana Pratap was.

For this episode, I have read Maharana Pratap - Mewar’s Rebel King by Brishti Bandyopadhyay, Maharana Pratap by Bhawan Singh Rana and Maharana Pratap: The Invincible Warrior by Rima Hooja.

Birth of Pratap Singh

Pratap Singh’s father was Udai Singh II. I’m pretty sure you’ve heard the a story from his childhood. I heard it first in a Hindi literature class. The story about Panna Dhai and how she sacrificed her own son Chandan, to protect Udai was one of the lessons we had to do.

So, after Banvir Singh had murdered Chandan, who he thought was Udai, Panna Dhai took Udai to Kumbhalgarh fort. There he grew up but people thought of him not as Udai, the rightful Maharana of Mewar, but he was posed as a nephew of the governor.

In 1540, he managed to gather the forces necessary to defeat the usurper Banvir, and ascended to the throne of Mewar and was coronated in its capital Chittor.

Pratap Singh was born to him on 9th May of that year, 1540, in Kumbhalgarh.

The Siege of Chittor

While growing up, the Kunwar, as princes were known then, liked to spend his time in the Aravalli hills which sort of formed the eastern border of the Mewar region. There he formed a close bond with the Bheels, a forest-dwelling tribe who were known for their archery skills.

This unlikely bond between the two very different parties - one, a palace-dwelling, prince, who for a large part of his childhood, might’ve not even stepped into the royal kitchen and a group of forest-dwellers who lived off the land - would prove to be one of the key alliances in the history of Bharat.

This brotherhood between the Mewar Rajputs and the Bheels grew so strong that it became eternalised in the coat of arms of Mewar. The coat of arms shows a large shield under the Surya devtaa’s symbol, flanked by a Bheel warrior and a Rajput warrior.

Pratap proved himself to be an able military commander when in 1562, at the age of 22, he led his father’s forces and reclaimed the territories of Chappan and Bhomat.

Five years later, Mewar as Kunwar Pratap then knew it, would change drastically.

Akbar, grandson of the Turko-Mongol Babur, wanted to add Mewar to the Mughal Empire. In October 1567, he besieged Chittor, the capital of Mewar. After being compelled by his nobles, Maharana Udai Singh and his family took refuge in Gogunda near Udaipur, some 140 km east of Chittor.

The 27-year-old Kunwar Pratap didn’t want to flee. He wanted to at least try to repel Akbar, but the nobles prevailed on him and made him abandon what essentially would’ve been a suicide mission.

In February 1568, 4 months after the siege began, the garrison that Maharana Udai Singh had left behind at Chittor was defeated. The Rajput warriors instead of surrendering and being taken prisoners of war or being forced to join Akbar’s army, engaged in Shaka. Shaka is when Rajput men charge into the enemy when defeat was certain… and into certain death.

The Rajput warriors of Chittorgarh chose to die, rather than to live to fight another day.

Maharana Pratap would one day overturn this self-sabotaging tradition.

After Chittor fell, Akbar gave no quarters and massacred 30,000 Hindus, besides looting Chittor and enslaving women and children.

We can only imagine the impact this must have had on Pratap Singh. Forced to watch helplessly from afar as tens of thousands of his countrymen were killed or enslaved.

Maybe it was at that moment that he decided to never bow down to Akbar. The person who massacred 30,000 of his countrymen, and sacked the capital of his father’s kingdom.

Kunwar Pratap Becomes Maharana Pratap

Four years after losing Chittor to the Mughals, Maharana Udai Singh lay on his deathbed in his temporary capital of Gogunda.

As to who would be the next Mahrana, it had to be Pratap Singh. He was the eldest son of Udai Singh, and more importantly, he was the most competent of his 24 sons.

The tradition was that the crown prince would not attend the deceased monarch’s cremation. At Udai Singh’s cremation, however, they noticed that Pratap was there. But someone else who was supposed to be there wasn’t.

After the cremation, the nobles rushed back to the palace at Gogunda. Kunwar Pratap did not enter the palace.

They saw Pratap’s step brother, Jagmaal sitting on the throne. Maharana Udai Singh had thrown tradition, and reason, out of the window in not appointing his eldest and most competent son, Pratap his heir. But swayed by his favourite queen, Queen Bhatiyani, he had decided their son, Jagmaal, would be the next Maharana of Mewar.

Thankfully, the nobles did not put up with this. They went to Jagmaal and told him that he was not the rightful heir, and should instead take the seat in front of the throne, where the Maharana’s brothers used to sit. When he obviously refused, two of the nobles picked him up and made him sit on the chair in front of the throne. Jagmaal got up and stormed off, went to Akbar and pledged his allegiance to him.

Pratap entered the palace, and on that auspicious day of Holi, 28 February 1572, Kunwar Pratap was crowned the fifty-fourth Maharana of Mewar.

Maharana Pratap Asserts Mewar’s Independence

Mewar was surrounded by the Mughal Empire on all sides. There was almost no Rajput kingdom that remained independent or had not sworn fealty to the Mughal Emperor.

The Mughal Empire was like an ocean that covered almost the whole of northern Bharat. But the imperialist Akbar could not put up with the fact that the island of Mewar, still remained proudly afloat. He wanted the Mughal ocean to submerge that island as well.

But Akbar, now 30, had lost some of his thirst for blood which he sought to satisfy during the siege of Chittor. He now preferred not to use the sword, when a pen would do.

One of his major tactics, and something we can learn from as well, was to co-opt his adversaries.

Akbar did not outright defeat the Rajput kings in military battle, overthrow the ruler and absorb his kingdom into the Mughal Empire. Instead, he sort of made them into his employees. And also married their daughters or sisters to seal the arrangement.

For example, राजा भगवन्त दास, the ruler of Amer which was the precursor to Jaipur sort of like Pataliputra was to Patna, became a member of Akbar’s court and fought battles for him. His sister, now famous as Jodha Bai, was also forced to marry Akbar.

In this system, like I said earlier the ruler wasn’t overthrown, but co-opted into the Mughal Empire. They would get to live comfortable lives as either Akbar’s courtiers or as his jagirdars. They would be assigned large tracts of land, or jagirs, and a part of the revenue from that jagir would go to them as salary. All they had to do was serve their master well.

And besides, all urges towards independence was overpowered by the mansabdaari system. I haven’t watched the Matrix film, but from what I know from all the memes, the mansabdaari system was sort of like the matrix. Each mansabdaar would be given a rank, or a mansab. Serving Akbar well would result in an increase in mansab, which meant more salary, and more prestige and status for the people who had internalised this system.

You commit a mistake or a blunder and your mansab would decrease.

People once inside the system would rarely try to get out of it or beat it. Like a game, they would just try to maximise their stats within the mansabdaari system.

The reward for submission was lucrative and the cost of independence was steep.

Maharana Pratap chose the latter and asserted that Mewar, and he, would never submit to the Turko-Mongol.

Maharana Udai Singh had refused to become his vassal. But Akbar thought Mewar now had a new Maharana. Maybe Maharana Pratap would finally merge Mewar into the Mughal Empire. So in 1573, in the year after Pratap became the Maharana, Akbar sent at least 4 diplomatic missions to persuade, convince, bribe or threaten Maharana Pratap to fold.

First he sent Jalal Khan Qurchi. Nothing came out of it. Then he thought maybe he should send a fellow Rajput. So, he sent Kunwar Man Singh, later Raja Man Singh, the son of Raja Bhagwant Das and nephew of Jodha Bai. That also failed so he sent Raja Bhagwant Das himself in October 1973.

But the Maharana refused to submit.

Finally in December of that year, he sent Raja Todarmal , another of Akbar’s navratna, who also failed.

It’s unclear why Akbar sent so many missions, despite them failing to achieve anything. It was a pretty peaceful period. Akbar didn’t have any major external wars going on. If he really, really wanted he could’ve dispatched a large force and overwhelmed Maharana Pratap. But he didn’t.

Maybe the Maharana cunningly kept assuring him that they were almost there. That if the Mughals could make this change or that change they could finally reach an agreement.

But while Emperor Akbar was playing Maharana Pratap’s game, the Maharana was quietly was building up his forces and improving the economy of his kingdom.

But after Raja Todarmal in December 1573, there were no discussions between the two regarding submission.

A bit more than two years later in March 1576, Emperor Akbar probably realised he was being played and dispatched an army under Man Singh to force Mewar into submission.

The Battle of Haldighati

On 18th June, 1576, Akbar’s forces under Man Singh, met Maharana Pratap’s army near the narrow pass of Haldigahti, some 40 km north of Udaipur.

Maharana Pratap’s army was winning in the beginning, and the Mughal forces were almost starting to rout. But then someone in the Mughal camp started spreading false news that the Emperor himself was coming to join the war. This boosted the morale of the Mughal soldiers and they started to fight back stronger.

The tide was now turning against the Maharana. The Mughal soldiers anyway outnumbered his own, and now they were fighting with fresh zeal. So he decided to make a strategic retreat.

While he retreated with most of his remaining army to Gogunda, his temporary capital, some soldiers chose to stay on in the battle field to hold back the Mughals.

Man Singh had forced the Maharana and his army to retreat, but he survived and Mewar was still independent. Akbar, however, considered it his defeat and banished Man Singh from his court for two years for failing to kill or capture Maharana Pratap.

After the war, as he regrouped with his remaining forces at Gogunda, Maharana Pratap would take a revolutionary decision. He was going to change how he tried to achieve his aim of keeping Mewar free and recapturing its lost territories.

He realised that it was near impossible to defeat one of the most powerful empires in the world at the time in open battle. The Mughal Empire had lakhs of soldiers, had technologically superior weapons courtesy of international trade and a ton of money at its disposal.

His physical and material resources were far, far less. He decided he would force a pragmatic break from Rajput tradition, which would change the course of history forever.

Guerilla Warfare

Maharana Pratap decided that he would exhaust the Mughal Empire through his perseverance until they folded and gave up trying to make Mewar submit.

Four months later, Akbar decided to take the matter into his own hands and came down to Gogunda from Agra where Maharana Pratap was staying with his armies. But he evacuated the palace and went into the mountains in the Banswara and Dungarpur region.

So, Akbar started for those two regions. Then he received intel that Maharana Pratap was actually leading a force to recapture Gogunda. So, he dispatched a force to fortify Gogunda. He himself reached Banswara, then Dungarapur and established Mughal outposts there. Then he returned to Gogunda.

Maharana Pratap seemed to materialise out of nowhere and destroyed the Mughal posts in Banswara and Dungarpur that Emperor Akbar had just established.

Akbar after spending six months in the Mewar region, left for his capital Agra after leaving a force in Gogunda.

The Maharana soon recpatured Gogunda and Udaipur, and made Kumbhalgarh his capital.

In October 1577, a year after Emperor Akbar himself had set out to capture Maharana Pratap, he sent Shahbaz Khan to do what he failed to do.

Shahbaz Khan laid siege on Kumbhalgarh .6 months later Kumbalgarh fell. He went on to capture Udaipur and Gogunda as well. But the Maharana was nowhere to be found. It was like trying to get hold of smoke or a cloud.

Maharana Pratap had now gone to चावंड, and from there again took refuge in the mountains. Thereon he kept moving form village to village, staying nowhere long enough for Shahbaz to capture him and his men.

Shahbaz Khan, exhausted and unsuccessful in his main goal, left Mewar and went back to Akbar.

He had left garrisons and established outposts in all the areas that he had captured, but as soon as Shahbaz Khan was gone, the Maharana sprung into action and quickly started recapturing some of the areas he had lost. In November of that year, 1578, he was preparing to capture Kumbhalgarh but Akbar got wind of his plans and sent Shahbaz back to fortify the garrison there. After that he went back.

After that followed a period of relative calm. The Maharana was mostly living in the village of Chuliya. Shahbaz came back to Mewar in March 1581 to Mewar and reported to Akbar that the Maharana had been crushed forever. It may have been because there were no major attacks on the Mughals in the preceding years. But this was just the calm before the storm.

Something happened that changed the Maharana and Mewar’s fortunes, literally.

One of the Maharana’s ministers, Bhamashah, gave him his entire personal wealth of 2.5 lakh rupees (which was obviously a lot back then) and 20,000 gold mohurs.

Maharana Pratap must’ve had immense charsima and must’ve commanded great respect from his people for the minister to have made such a huge sacrifice. Bhamashah msut’ve thought of him as someone special. All the Rajput rulers had submitted to the Mughal Emperor and yet here was Pratap Singh who was living in forests and mountains sacrificing all comfort, putting his and his family’s life in danger, hitting back at the Empire whenever he got the opportunity to.

And people can recognise greatness. And they want to be a part of that greatness, and contribute in some manner. It’s like Carl Jung said, "No matter how isolated you are and how lonely you feel, if you do your work truly and conscientiously, unknown friends will come and seek you".

With all this money Maharana Pratap started building up his army.

The Maharana was now ready to strike back. All those years of living in the forests and mountains, had led up to this moment. And he could not have chosen a better than day दशहरा, on the 16th of September 1578, to launch a massive and blitz offensive against the Mughals.

Battle of Dewair

Dewair was an important outpost of the Mughals and was situated in a forest, with hills on two parallel sides, 40km north east of Kumbhalgarh. The outpost was under the command of Akbar’s uncle, Sultan Khan. The real star of the army, however, was Bahlol Khan, a huge and physically imposing warrior.

As the Mughal forces made its way through the forest to meet the Maharana’s army, Bheel archers hidden amongst the trees and bushes took out many of the musketeers which severely crippled the Mughal army.

This was the second time the Maharana was facing the Mughals in open battle, and also the last. The two sides charged at each other. In the course of the battle, Kunwar Amar Singh, Maharana Pratap’s eldest son, managed to take out Sultan Khan. The Maharana himself killed Bahlol Khan.

After both their commanders had been killed, many of the Mughal soldiers fled the battleground and almost 36,000 of them surrendered to Maharana Pratap.

This victory boosted the morale of the Mewari army. However, they did not stop celebrate their victory. They soon started pushing forward, building on the momentum generated by the victory. Soon Kumbhalgarh, Udaipur, Gogunda and some 36 Mughal outposts fell back into Maharana Pratap’s hands. He then recaptured Chhappan and चावंड and made it Mewar’s temporary capital.

Next, he sent his forces to Dungarpur and Banswara, and after a battle near the Som river, both of them also re-joined Mewar.

Except Chittor and Mandalgarh, the whole of Mewar was now under its rightful ruler.

In 1584, Emperor Akbar sent Jagannath Kachhawa as a last ditch attempt to try to regain the parts of Mewar he had lost, but nothing came of it.

From 1585 onwards Akbar did not sent any expedition against Mewar. The emperor of the one of the most powerful empires in the world had been trying to subjugate or kill Maharana Pratap for more than a decade now. But in the end, Maharana Pratap won. Emperor Akbar had finally given up. Mewar had managed to remain independent against overwhelming odds.

Death

Nothing major happened politcally, in the next 12 years. Mewar flourished under Maharana Pratap’s rule. The economy sprung back again, and he patronised the arts.

But in the winter of 1596-97, Maharana Pratap sustained serious injuries in an accident while hunting. The wounds did not seem to be healing, and he knew that he would soon be gone. He made his son Amar Singh promise him that he would never submit to the Mughals.

On 19th January 1597, the 54th Maharana of Mewar succumbed to his injuries at the age of 56.

Lessons

The first thing that we can learn from Maharana Pratap is not to submit to the matrix. To be independent. Just think of how lonely Maharana Pratap must’ve felt inside. All of his fellow Rajput rulers had submitted to Akbar, and were leading comfortable lives. More than comfort, they were leading pretty safe lives.

They had comfortable beds to sleep on, good food to eat, social standing. While the Maharana had to keep moving from forest to mountain to village, sleeping on the floor, eating whatever was available, probably seen as doomed by his fellow Rajputs. They were in their palaces or in Akbar’s court, and here was the Maharana of Mewar living in the forests.

I wonder if he thought to himself sometimes. “What am I even doing? Why am I even doing all of this?” He had to watch people that believed in his cause, die in front of his eyes. “Is my mission even worth it? After all this sacrifice will I even be successful? Or will it all be in vain?” He must’ve had a hell lot of belief in himself or his mission or destiny or his Gods, I don’t know what, but he did not give up his independence at all.

And he could’ve stopped all of this at any point in time. That’s what makes him even more admirable. Just one “Yes” and Akbar would’ve received him with open arms. He would’ve loved to have Maharana Pratap on his side at any cost and at any time rather than against him. He would’ve been made a mansabdaar and could’ve led a comfortable life. But I don’t think he would’ve been able to look at himself in the mirror.

And I can’t think of a better analogy in our modern times than being an employee vs doing something of your own. It doesn’t have to be starting your own company. You could be a YouTuber, filmmaker, novelist, or a guy who loves to code and make awesome digital products…. basically anything that you really wanted to do, and not submitting to a life of comfort and security and blandness.

And we of course have it much easier than he did. What’s the worse that could happen to us? Bankruptcy? Being alone and not having friends? For Maharana Pratap, it was all of those plus the danger of being killed. And what if we submitted? A job, fighting for promotion and salary hikes like those mansabdaars, living from paycheck to paycheck, doing something we don’t enjoy for at least a third of our day, most days of out life? For him submission was much more lucrative. Servants to attend to his every need, warm, soft bed, great food, prestige at least within the system. We have it much easier than he did.

The second thing we can learn from him is perseverance. Losing territory, then fighting and winning them back. Then losing them again and winning them back again. He was truly remarkable to have not lost hope or have fallen into despair. And he was at it for more than a decade. With the button to stop all of the hardships right there.

Another thing is doing what needs to be done in order to achieve the larger goal. He broke away from the Rajputs’ self-sabotaging tradition of fighting to death when defeat was certain. He may have been shamed by other rulers for leaving the battlefield at Haldighati, or losing territories without dying fighting. He must’ve even wondered himself if it was the honourable thing to do. But he zoomed out and looked at what his real goal was. He was pragmatic. He knew that sometimes you need to take a step back to advance two steps.

Third thing is, it pays to have your mission crystal clear before your eyes. There was nothing more certain to him than that he must keep Mewar free. Sometimes he lost territories, sometimes he gained them, but at no point did he submit. He didn’t think of losing territories as failing. Again, it was just a step back. As long as he was live, he would continue to keep Mewar free.

And when you are laser focussed on a mission or a value you want to live your life by, difficulties/hardships have a way of getting blurred or going out of your field of vision altogether. Maybe to us his living a rough life seems like hardship and sacrifice, but maybe he didn’t think of it like that at all. The goal was so clear in front of his eyes, he just saw it as the path to achieving his goal, and not that he was “sacrificing” anything. And that's a super power few people have.