Maharana pratap book in english pdf

Book: Maharana Pratap: The Greatest Rajput Warrior
Author: Rima Hooja
Publisher: Juggernaut (15 October 2018)
Language: English
Hardcover: 232 pages
Item Weight: 320 g
Dimensions: 20 x 14 x 4 cm
Price: 475/-

True stories start out as news, and with the course of time they become history. As histories, particularly histories from before our modern era of information storage and fact-checking, get retold they get embellished and exaggerated, and gradually the need to tell a good story overwrites the messier bits of the truth. Eventually, the story comes to dominate the truth: that’s when history becomes legend.

Over 400 years ago, when the glory of the Mughal Empire under Akbar was at its height, a battle was fought near the village of Haldighati in Rajasthan. The mighty Mughal war machine faced the army of the Sisodias of Mewar, a Rajput clan.

The Mughals won the battle after a hard-won fight but Rana Pratap, the Mewar King who led the army on the Rajput side, managed to escape.

And, for the remaining years of his life, he played a cat and mouse game of great ingenuity with Akbar's armies. It made one of the most powerful monarchs of the world vow to use all the resources at his disposal to destroy Rana Pratap.

Akbar failed.

And, Mewar was the only Rajput kingdom during his reign, to remain free of Mughal domination.

A hero is a character; a legend is a story. Heroes can have legends, and legends almost always have heroes - but you can also have a hero who does not (yet) have a legend.

True stories start out as news, and with the passage of time they become history.

This fabulous book speaks of the exploits of Rana Pratap.

Incidentally, Pratap's life and times are known to us through three major sources, 1) the official history of the Mughal period written by court historians, 2) the Rajasthani chroniclers, and, 3) Tod's Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan.

Mughal historians, Abu'l Fazl and Badauni, wrote of Rana Pratap as a renegade and a trouble-maker who caused Akbar many difficulties due to his refusal to accept his sovereignty and become an ally of the Mughals. The Rajasthani chroniclers, including bards who composed heroic verses, regard him as the greatest hero of medieval India and the bravest of Rajputs.

It is a view that is corroborated by Tod's account of the exploits of the warrior-king. Tod's book is regarded as a storehouse of material dealing with various facets of Rana Pratap's life not usually found in historical works.

All the three sources shed valuable light on the type of man that Rana Pratap was and what compelled him to act the way he did. The exploits of Rana Pratap narrated by the bards and Tod combine myth with legend and make for a fascinating reading. Both relate romantic tales of a ruler made penniless and his sturdy frame exhausted by years of fighting, all because of his refusal to surrender his freedom.

This book certainly is a valuable addition to the repertoire.

The author has divided the book into seven chapters:

1. The Sun Kings
2. Prince of Mewar
3. The Fall of Chittor
4. A Crown of Thorns
5. The Battle of Haldighati
6. Guerrilla Warrior
7. The Maharana’s Last Years

After the death of Udai Singh on 3rd March, 1572, Rana Pratap succeeded to the gaddi of Mewar. He resolved to follow the traditions of his ancestors that the son of Bapa Rawal should bow the head to no mortal man. But it was no easy task to fight against the mighty Emperor under heavy odds.

Pratap succeeded to the titles and renown of an illustrious honour, but without a capital, without resources, his kindred and clan dispirited by reverses yet possessed of the noble spirit of his race, he meditated the recovery of Chittor, the vindication of the honour of his house, and the restoration of its power.

The scheming Mughal arrayed against Pratap his kindred in faith as well blood. The princes of Marwar, Amber, Bikaner and even Bundi took part with Akbar and upheld despotism. Nay, even his own brother Sagarji deserted him, and received, as the price of his deceit, the ancient capital of his race, and the title which that possession conferred.

But the magnitude of peril confirmed the fortitude of Pratap, who vowed in the words of the bard, to make his mother’s milk resplendent and he amply redeemed his pledge.

When Akbar sent a strong Imperial army under Man Singh and Asaf Khan in April 1576, to chastise the turbulent Rana, he came forward to meet his foes in the battle-field of Haldighat.

In their first encounter with the Mughals, the followers of Pratap made so devastating a charge that it created confusion in the vanguard of the Mughal army and many fled for protection.

The battle of Haldighati was fought on 21 June 1576. Man Singh's vanguard consisted of Rajputs under Jagannath, whereas Pratap's vanguard consisted of Afghan Pathans led by Hakim Khan Sur. The Mughals were waiting on the plains, when Pratap, wearing a helmet and chain armour over a white tunic (still preserved in Udaipur's City Palace Museum), came out and attacked the army.

He was astride Chetak, his favourite white stallion and his companion in many decisive battles. Chetak, too, was clad in colourful attire that ended with a mask resembling a grotesque war elephant, designed to terrify an opponent's horse and to protect him from the Mughal war elephants.

In the first flush of attack, Pratap's army almost broke through the Mughal ranks, but they were stopped in time by Man Singh and a few officers.

A personal encounter that took place between Pratap and Man Singh, who was riding an elephant, decided the fate of the battle. Pratap heaved his javelin at Man Singh, but ended up killing the mahout, the elephant-trainer.

Chetak, who had placed its forelegs on Man Singh's elephant was struck by the sword that the huge beast carried in its trunk. Chetak immediately turned and fled, carrying his wounded master out of danger.

Pratap was pursued by two Mughal horsemen but was saved by his brother, Sakta, who had followed them. But having carried his master to safety, his beloved Chetak, who had been severely wounded, died.

The overwhelming number of the Imperial army overpowered a small contingent of Rajputs led by Pratap.

The Rana was severely wounded and retreated to the hills. As Dr. Smith writes, “the victors were too exhausted to pursue him.”

The Imperialists later on captured all the strongholds of the Rana but the dauntless Sisodia never thought of submission.

There came many occasions when Pratap had to feed himself and his children barely with fruits of the jungle hills but he carried on his struggle till his life lasted.

Even during his lifetime Maharana Pratap had become a legendary figure, hero-worshipped for his courage and determination against tremendous odds, in maintaining Mewar’s independence, and upholding Rajput honour.

Over the centuries, the legend only grew and he remains today an enduring symbol of patriotism, valour and chivalry.

One wonders whether, in his more reflective moments, Maharana Pratap looked back at the personal histories of some of his ancestors whose lives had included periods of exile, of living in forests and caves, and other hardships, in spite of their having being born royal.

The list of such forebears included (according to Mewar’s royal genealogy) Lord Rama, who had spent fourteen years in exile in a forest, and the orphaned Guha, ancestor of the Guhila Rajputs, who was brought up in a forest cave amongst the Bhils.

Then, among his more immediate ancestors there was his grandfather Sanga and great-uncles, the princes Prithviraj and Jaimal, whose intense sibling rivalry led to all three spending part of their youth in semi-exile during the lifetime of their father.

And Pratap’s own father, Udai Singh, who escaped being murdered by his half-brother Banbeer, had spent a phase of his boyhood in hiding, shuttling between the forts of Chittor and Ranthambore, his maternal uncle’s kingdom of Bundi, and the forests and fort of Kumbhalgarh. Exile and disinheritance were aspects of reality for many a crowned head – even Pratap’s adversary Akbar had been born in exile.

Perhaps Pratap was too stoic a personality to have lamented that a life of exile and hardship in the forests and hills of Mewar was a fate preordained for his line.

But there must have been times when he wondered how long he could hold out against Akbar and his armies.

Reading the concluding chapters of this book, two questions naturally emerge in the mind’s eye of the reader:

1) What made him so unbending in his resolve to confront the Mughal forces again and again?

2) Why did he refuse to even engage in dialogue with Emperor Akbar, or to try and negotiate for peace with honour?

Perhaps the code that had been instilled in him as a boy – a code that eulogized bravery in the face of misfortune, and the readiness to choose death before dishonour – was one that was so deeply embedded in him that he could not shake it off.

Perhaps as the head of the oldest and most important Rajput kingdom he felt it his duty to uphold Rajput honour when lesser Rajput princes were succumbing to the lures of the Mughal court.

We can only speculate, for we know very little about the doughty warrior’s own feelings, other than his oft-repeated declaration that he would never lay down his weapons against the Mughals, and that he would maintain Mewar’s independence and sovereignty till his dying breath.

In 1557, Pratap died worn out both in body and mind but he had the satisfaction that he had recovered all Mewar except the fort of Chittor, Ajmer and Mandalgarh.

His Chiefs pledged to him at his deathbed that his country would not be surrendered to the Turks.

When news of Pratap’s death reached Akbar at his court, then at Lahore, the Charan poet Dursa Adha from Marwar stood up and praised the Maharana, spontaneously composing and reciting his now famous poem before the emperor.

The poem hailed Maharana Pratap as one who had not bowed before another in his lifetime, noting that the brave Pratap, the ‘noble Guhilot Rana’, had preferred hardship to subservience.

“As leygo andaag, paag leygo anaami,
Gao Adha gavday, jiko vehto ghur vaami.”

You did not let your horses be branded by the imperial seal,
Your turban remained unbowed before all.

After the death of Pratap, the Imperialists led by Man Singh, again invaded Mewar. Pratap’s son, Amar Singh, offered heroic resistance, though defeated but the imperial operations were abruptly stopped because there was a rebellion of Usman Khan in Bengal. Akbar’s death took place on 17th October, 1605 but he had not succeeded in his ambition to subdue Mewar.

True stories start out as news, and with the passage of time they become history. As histories, especially histories from before our modern era of information storage and fact-checking, get retold they get embellished and exaggerated, and gradually the need to tell a good story overwrites the messier bits of the truth.

Eventually, the story comes to dominate the truth: that’s when history becomes legend.

I scrupulously enjoyed the evenhanded standpoint of the author.

Grab a copy if you choose.