Rana Pratap was an ass. In contrast, Akbar was truly great.

by Guest Sat Mar 04, 2017 9:05 am

But what sort of a man was Rana Pratap? Tod’s Annals and Antiquities of Rajputana Vol I tells us about a meeting between Raja Man Singh and Rana Pratap where Pratap put out a spread for him but didn’t eat with his guest. His reason was he couldn’t eat with a Rajput who gave his sister to a Turk and who probably ate with him.
There was an exchange of words between the two and Man Singh vowed to humble Pratap’s pride. Then somebody from Pratap’s side mocked Man Singh and asked him to bring his uncle (Akbar) along.
As Man Singh left in utter humiliation, Pratap and his courtiers deemed the ground on which the feast was spread impure. The ground was broken up and “purified” with Ganges water. Then everyone bathed and discarded their clothes as they had been “polluted by Man Singh’s presence”.

The above incident shows that Pratap was a man who swore by the narrow social codes of his time, unlike Akbar who established new norms and rose above the narrow definitions of faith, caste and creed. Akbar promoted merit. The right man always got the right job irrespective of his faith. And a brilliant general like Man Singh was not just given the highest mansab in the empire but also given the title of Mirza (restricted to Mughal princes alone) and farzand (son) of Akbar.
Another incident from Pratap’s life illustrates how he treated his own people. When he was living a Spartan life in the mountains after the defeat at Haldighati, he had resorted to a scorched earth policy to deny the Mughals any advantage. His followers were barred from venturing into the plains. One unfortunate goatherd, with his livestock dying without forage, made the mistake of taking his animals to a patch of green below. He was caught and brought to the king, who questioned him for a while and then ordered his execution. His body was left hanging to terrorise anybody who had the slightest thought about disobeying the king.

In contrast, Akbar forgave even those who rebelled against him. It didn’t matter if the individual was an Afghan, a Hindu, a Turk or a collaborator with the enemy, Akbar forgave all, even when the individual was a repeat offender. In fact, Akbar even tolerated scathing criticism of people in his own court: people like the chronicler Badaoni who did hit-jobs on the emperor. Or Khwaja Baqi Billah of the Naqshbandi silsila who opposed the eclectic policies of the emperor and led a political movement against him.
But where it was required to make an example, such as during revolt of the Mirzas or the Qazis in Bengal, Akbar executed quite a few of them to ensure that they refrained from troubling him too much.
The advocates of Ghar Wapsi should also know this that it was Akbar who had first allowed Hindus forcibly converted to Islam previously to return to their faith without incurring the wrath of the state.

All these acts raised Akbar to the status of a god among his Hindu subjects. They thought he was an avatar of Vishnu. Temple hymns eulogised the emperor, Rajputana bards sang paeans to his glory.
And yet, all the good work of Akbar is dismissed on social media as acts of political expediency. While there was certainly a political objective, but Akbar did practise what he preached. Some political leaders giving lip-service to secularism today can sport the headgear of the Nagas and even the dastar of the Sikhs while campaigning for elections but cannot wear a Muslim skullcap—that’s how hard it is to follow such lofty ideals in personal life.
Akbar’s greatness lies in his Sulh-i-Kul—a concept derived from the pluralistic Chishti order that espoused the cause of peaceful coexistence of different communities. And sociologists would tell you that we haven’t been able to go beyond this even today.

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/parthian-shot/akbar-was-truly-great-pratap-only-a-great-warrior/

by Seva Lamberdar Sat Mar 04, 2017 9:50 am

There was an exchange of words between the two and Man Singh vowed to humble Pratap’s pride.

>>> That's obvious, considering Man Singh had no pride (self-respect) himself so he probably couldn't stand others (including Rana Paratap) having any self-respect.

by Vakavaka Pakapaka Sat Mar 04, 2017 12:14 pm

Seva Lamberdar wrote:There was an exchange of words between the two and Man Singh vowed to humble Pratap’s pride.

>>> That's obvious, considering Man Singh had no pride (self-respect) himself so he probably couldn't stand others (including Rana Paratap) having any self-respect.

Looks like you don't understand what pride is according to the Sikular manual.....

According to CONmen and Sikularists, pride bubbles out when a Rajput licks the boots of a Moghul. Rashmun will be very unhappy if someone says that Aurangajeb looked down upon Hindus.

So, Mansingh had a lot of pride and Pratap didn't. Jalaluddin must be giggling in his grave watching the Rashmuns of the world suffering from Stockholm syndrome.......

by Guest Mon Mar 06, 2017 12:10 am

But while there is unanimity on Rana Pratap's courage, which historians say was acknowledged even by his enemies, the home minister's version of the Mewar ruler being the "great of greats", particularly when compared to Akbar, might not be so readily acceptable.

"What are the criteria one uses to call somebody 'great'?" wonders Najaf Haider, associate professor at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. "Historians don't usually use the term and no modern historian would call Akbar or Ashoka 'great', let alone Rana Pratap." Between the two, Akbar was an emperor ruling over a territory the size of an empire, which denotes political and monetary unification of territory, while Rana Pratap was the chieftain of a much smaller territory of Mewar in Rajputana. "So, I don't know how you can make a comparison," says Haider, who specialises in medieval history.

The other narrative being peddled is that Rana Pratap was a Hindu king who was battling Islamic foreign forces. But again, historians strongly dispute this. "Rana Pratap's war against Akbar is often regarded as a fight for Rajput honour or even for Hindu honour. It was hardly that," the late Abraham Eraly wrote in The Last Spring: The Lives and Times of the Great Mughals. The Rana's army was not all Rajput or even entirely Hindu, with many Afghan chiefs fighting with him. Similarly, "on the Mughal side was arrayed the cream of Rajput nobility", including Rana Pratap's brother and the army was led by Man Singh. "The Mughal-Mewar conflict was primarily a fight for power, as between any two kings. Honour was certainly involved, but it was the personal honour of Pratap Singh, not Rajput or Hindu honour," Eraly concluded succinctly.

In A History of Medieval India, Satish Chandra, founding member of the Indian Council for Historical Research, says much the same: "The Rana's forces included an Afghan contingent led by Hakim Khan Sur, while Akbar's campaign was led by Raja Man Singh… Thus the battle of Haldighati was not a struggle between the Hindus and the Muslims, or between Indians and foreigners."

Historian Irfan Habib points out that even the best official account of Rana Pratap based on what is available in the Mewar archives, which is Shyamaldas's Vir Vinod, does not justify the statements made by the ministers. "Rana Pratap had no notion of defending India, he was defending his patrimony. You can see that in the later arrangements Jehangir made with the Mewar house." Records note that Jehangir made peace with Rana Pratap's son, receiving the prince of Mewar with great pomp at court and wisely avoiding insisting on a personal submission. What the ministers claim, therefore, is historically unendorsed. They have an agenda for which they are using Rana Pratap and running down Akbar, suggests Habib.

The reality is that the Rajputs and Mughals shared a mutually beneficial relationship, with both flourishing together, explains Haider. Thus, while we do highlight the fact that Rana Pratap was not willing to submit to the hegemony of the Mughal empire, "which was quite extraordinary… " we do not single it out as an example of some kind of proto nationalism or religious nationalism "because it's part of a larger story of the relationship between the Mughals and Rajputs," he adds.

"By forcing a comparison between Akbar and Rana Pratap, they (the ministers) are inflicting damage on both history and myth," insists social scientist Shiv Visvanathan. "They become tokens in an electoral game, creating new symbolic domains." This is not dissimilar to the recent invocation of poet Ramdhari Singh Dinkar by the Bharatiya Janata Party in Bihar, which analysts viewed as a move to woo the state's Bhumihar votes. "All these people are trying to create symbolic vote banks," says Viswanathan.

Haider says the desire to portray resistance, by itself, is fine because one should not become a cheerleader of the Mughal state. "But if you are looking for rebels who defied the Mughals, there is also Khan Jahan Lodi who rebelled against Shah Jahan - why choose only one set of people," he asks. Neither is it logical to exclude historical figures like Man Singh just because he was part of the Mughal state structure. "That does not make him any less important," he reasons.

http://www.business-standard.com/article/beyond-business/the-great-debate-115052901736_1.html

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Rana Pratap was an ass. In contrast, Akbar was truly great.

Rana Pratap was an ass. In contrast, Akbar was truly great.

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Re: Rana Pratap was an ass. In contrast, Akbar was truly great.

Re: Rana Pratap was an ass. In contrast, Akbar was truly great.

Re: Rana Pratap was an ass. In contrast, Akbar was truly great.