The comparison of Maharana Pratap with Akbar is absurd & meaningless

In 1568, during the reign of Udai Singh II, Chittor was conquered by the Mughal Emperor Akbar after the third Jauhar at Chittor. However, Udai Singh and the royal family of Mewar escaped before the capture of the fort and moved to the foothills of the Aravalli Range where Udai Singh founded the city of Udaipur. Rana Udai Singh wanted Jagmal, his favourite son, to succeed him but his senior nobles wanted Pratap, the eldest son, to be their king as was customary. During the coronation ceremony, Jagmal was physically moved out of the palace by the Chundawat Chief and Tomar Ramshah and Pratap was made the King, the Rana of Mewar. Folklore has it that Pratap did not want to go against the wishes of his father but Rajput nobles convinced him that Jagmal was not fit to rule in the troubled times of the day; but it is quite possible that what occurred was a bitterly contested struggle for succession: something characteristic of most South Asian kingdoms of the age.

Though the chief reasons for resentment between Pratap Singh and Akbar, two very visionary rulers is unclear, it is now largely agreed that it had to do with disagreements over the status of Mewar within the Mughal Empire, were it to at all accept Mughal suzerainty. The tensions were further characterised by the fact that Babur and Rana Sanga, grandfathers to Akbar and Pratap respectively, had earlier bitterly contested the control over the Gangetic plains and the Doab. It is evident that there were had been some measures of reconciliation, such as acceptance of ambassadors and representatives between the two courts. However, none of these could ever be taken to any logical end.

Chittorgarh (Chittor fort), Pratap's ancestral home, was under Mughal occupation. Living a life on the run, the dream of reconquering Chittor (and thus reclaiming the glory of Mewar) was greatly cherished by Pratap, and his future efforts were bent towards this goal. In essence Pratap remained king of the whole of Rajputana (now Rajasthan) and the lands surrounding it except Chittor.

Nearly all of Pratap's fellow Rajput chiefs had meanwhile entered into the vassalage of the Mughals. Even Pratap's own brothers, Shakti Singh and Sagar Singh, served Akbar. Indeed, many Rajput chiefs, such as Raja Man Singh of Amber (later known as Maharaja of Jaipur) served as army commanders in Akbar's armies and as members of his council. Akbar sent a total of six diplomatic missions to Pratap, seeking to negotiate the same sort of peaceful alliance that he had concluded with the other Rajput chiefs. This is clearly evidential of the ends sought by each of the two rulers: for Akbar, having an independent or semi-independent kingdom, within his otherwise consolidated empire was politically unsound and militarily dangerous; for Pratap Singh, on the other hand, to accept vassalage with little in return was a political suicide, and a steep fall for Mewar in the region's power structure.

Battle of Haldighati and great Chetak

On June 21, 1576  the two armies met at Haldighati, near the town of Gogunda in present-day Rajasthan.

However, the numerical superiority of the Mughal army and their artillery began to tell. Seeing that the battle was favouring Akbar and with the huge amount of death of soldiers on both sides, Pratap's generals prevailed upon him to flee the field so as to be able to fight another day riding his trusty horse  Chetak, Pratap was able to successfully evade captivity and escape to the hills. However, Chetak was critically wounded on his left thigh . Chetak was bleeding heavily and he collapsed after jumping over a small brook a few kilometres away from the battle field. A famous couplet narrates this incident of the battle:

"Aage nadiya padi apaar, ghoda kaise utare paar Rana ne socha is paar, tab tak chetak tha us paar"

Pratap retreated into the hilly wilderness of the Aravallis and continued his struggle. His one attempt at open confrontation having thus failed, Pratap resumed the tactics of guerrilla warfare. Using the hills as his base, Pratap continued small raids and skirmishes against the outlying check-posts, fortresses and encampments of his adversaries; some of whom included the Hindu vassals appointed by the Mughals in the wake of Pratap Singh's defeat.

Maharana Pratap died of injuries sustained in a hunting accident. He died at Chavand, on January 19, 1597, aged fifty-seven. It is said that as he lay dying, Pratap made his son and successor, Amar Singh, swear to maintain eternal conflict against the Mughals. Thus, his strained circumstances did not overpower Pratap even in his declining years. It is said that he also did not sleep on a bed because of a vow he took that until Chittor was freed he would sleep on the floor and live in a hut despite the fact that he had reconquered almost his entire kingdom from Akbar.

Maharana Pratap's son, Amar Singh, fought 17 wars with the Mughals. After Mewar was depleted financially and in manpower he conditionally accepted them as rulers.

 By refusing Akbar’s overtures, Pratap’s name remains etched in history for being the only one who defied Mughals. Unlike popular belief, the battle of Haldighati had no winners or losers-it was indecisive. Both sides had failed in their objective- Mughals suffered heavy casualties and Akbar could not get rid of his enemy while Maharana would have certainly been killed if he had not retreated to the hills. By the time Pratap died in 1597, he had regained control over most of his kingdom with the notable exception of Chittor

The saga finally culminated when Akbar’s son Jehangir was able to corner Rana Amar Singh 17 years after the death of his father-the legendary Pratap. Jehangir’s son Khurram (Shah Jahan) negotiated a treaty under which Amar Singh would never have to present himself in front of the Mughal court, putting an end to nearly 50 years of bloody fighting between the two sides.

So, Maharana  Pratap was  greater or Akbar?

‘Greatness’ was thrust upon Akbar by the colonial Indologist V A Smith, whose Akbar: The Great Mogul, 1542-1605, was published in 1917. That account — described by Smith himself as “a biography rather than a formal history” — has been repeatedly taken down on facts and interpretation, and is now no more than a footnote in serious scholarship.

Subsequently, textbook writers such as A L Srivastava (A Short History of Akbar the Great, 1957) and the odd European author also used the epithet ‘great’. But the most comprehensive histories of Mughal India, written over the last half century by historians in Aligarh, Delhi and the West, focused on aspects of political economy, society, administration, empire and decline — and not on the personal ‘greatness’ of any individual ruler.

Among the world’s “great” kings are counted Herod, Cyrus, Darius, Rameses and Alexander in the ancient world, the Russian monarchs Peter and Catherine, the English king Alfred, Mongol conqueror Genghis and, in India, the two Chandraguptas, Ashok, Akbar and the Chola Raja Raja IAshok and Akbar would be best known to most Indians.

These ‘greats’ have been evaluated higher compared to their peers, for their legacy and impact on future generations and history.

Ashok’s reign saw the establishment of Empire in India, manifested in an unprecedented territorial sweep, spectacular architecture, and a state  hinged on a complex machinery of revenue extraction. It marked a new stage in the development of the political economy of early India.

Akbar attempted one of history’s biggest and most successful experiments in empire-building. He gave the independent principalities around the Indo-Gangetic heartland a stake in Empire, creating the composite polity that fused the geographical entity of India into a political one. No concept of ‘nation’ could have existed then, but the process of political-geographical unification that began was to ultimately bind India closer together.

Both Ashok and Akbar propounded new theoretical and philosophical bases of imperial sovereignty: Ashok’s Dhamma, the universal law of righteousness, and Akbar’s Sulh-i-Kul, or Peace for All. Religious tolerance, and the projection of the king as father to all of his subjects, were essential principles that underpinned both philosophies.
“Since the context — spoken or unspoken — of the current debate is the underscoring of Hindu resistance against Muslim imperialism, consider Akbar’s record on religion. And remember, this is an illiterate, sixteenth century despot we are talking about.

At age 20, he was participating in fire-worship homs with his Hindu wives. Over the next three years, he had abolished pilgrimage tax and jiziya, and given a huge grant for the temple at Vrindavan.”

By the late 1570s, he had embraced Ibn al-Arabi’s doctrine of Wahdat-ul-Wujud, which led him to believe that all religions were either equally true or equally illusory — bringing him close to the Nirguna Bhakti sects, and upsetting the orthodox among all religions.

In the Ain-i-Akbari, Abul Fazl, Akbar’s mouthpiece, wrote: “The pursuit of reason (aql) and rejection of traditionalism (taqlid) are so brilliantly patent as to be above the need of argument. If traditionalism was proper, the prophets would merely have followed their own elders (rather than propound new philosophies).”

Sufi mystics, Sunni and Shia theologians, Brahmin pandits, Jain monks, Jewish philosophers and Zoroastrian priests all congregated in Akbar’s Ibadat Khana. He seems to have been especially fond of Shwetambara Jains, and banned animal slaughter for some months of the year in their honour.

Akbar’s “sayings” in the Ain show flashes of amazingly modern ideas: he once stopped the transfer of a Hindu dak chowki man until his wife too was ready to move, and he frowned at Muslim personal law that gave daughters a smaller inheritance even though “the weaker should receive a large share”.

He prohibited sati and pre-puberty marriages, and condemned slavery and slave trade — the earliest pushing of the envelope on moral/social improvement in Indian society. He rejected meat-eating, which turns the body’s inside, “where reside the mysteries of divinity, into a burial ground of animals”.

Four of the brightest ‘Nine Gems’ — Todar Mal, Man Singh, Birbal, Tansen — were born Hindu. His best generals, Bhagwant Das and Man Singh, were Krishna bhakts who refused to convert to Din-i-Ilahi, the religion so close to Akbar’s heart. He bowed to their wishes.

The current talking-up of Pratap — and talking-down of  Akbar — is clearly part of an effort to actively seek out ‘Hindu’ icons to appropriate into a modern political narrative. This has been more the rule than the exception for claimants to power everywhere.

And yet, there has never been a question on the gallantry, heroism or fearlessness of Pratap, Shivaji, or even Hemu, the brilliant military commander whose rule over Delhi Akbar ended in Panipat in 1556. No one has said that they were not brave, valorous or honourable. They were all great sons of India. To insist that Pratap was greater than Akbar is meaningless and unnecessary.

 Source: Akbar : The Great Mughul (His New Policy and His New Religion- Bashir A ; Akbar by Shazi Zama ; Akbar the greatest Mogul - SM Burke ; Maharana pratap - Dr. Bhawan Singh rana ;  Maharana Pratap : Mewar's Rebel King- Brishti Bandyopa