Maharana Pratap killing Bahlol Khan with his horse in two pieces.
Amar Singh, son of Maharana Pratap
“Akbar never won, Maharana Pratap never lost”
Maharana Pratap is the ruler of Mewar which includes
modern day – Bhilwara, Chittorgarh, Rajsamand, Udaipur,
Pirawa (Jhalawar),
Neemach and Mandsaur (in today’s MP)
and some part of Gujarat.
Pratap Singh I, popularly known as Maharana Pratap, is
the
13th RANA of Mewar, a region in north-western India in the
present-day
state of Rajasthan.
He
was born on 9th
May, 1540 AD in Kumbhalgarh
Fort and
and dead on 19
January, 1597 at Chawand fort at the age of
56 was the eldest son of Maharana Udai Singh II and
Maharani
Jaiwanta Bai.
Maharana Pratap Singh was
7.5 feet or 2.26 meter tall with
110 kg weight, a massive man. He used to carry
a spear
weighing 80 kg, 2 swords of 50 kg and his armour is 72 kg.
This way he is one of the
strongest warriors of India.
Maharana Pratap’s Armour, Swords etc are safely
preserved
in the Udaipur Royal family museum.
Historian Satish Chandra wrote -
“Rana Pratap's defiance of
the mighty Mughal empire, almost alone and unaided by the other Rajput states,
constitute a glorious saga of Rajput valour and the spirit of
self sacrifice
for cherished principles. Rana Pratap's
methods of sporadic warfare were later
elaborated further by
Malik Ambar, the Deccani general, and by Shivaji
Maharaj”.
Following
Haldighati battle, Maharana retired into jungles in
southern Mewar and from
there he returned to Kumbhalgarh
fort and continued his struggle. Maharana
later had many
big and small successes like winning battles of Dewar, and
Goguanda.
After the battle of Haldighati or Haldi valley, only 7000
soldiers
were left with the Maharana. And in a short time the
Mughals had authority over
Kumbhalgarh, Gogunda,
Udaipur and surrounding areas.
The treasury of Maharana
Pratap Bhama shah and his
brother Tarachand Malwa presented twenty five lakh
rupees
of and two thousand ashfarias (gold coin) to Maharana. By
giving
this big amount Bhamashah serve the Mewar state.
25 thousand soldiers could be
given the logistics for 12
years. Maharana again started to organize his
army and in a
short time a 40,000 powerful army came in light.
After this incident,
Maharana Pratap highly respected
Bhamashah and planned to attack Dewar. In
1582 AD,
Dewair in particular was Maharana’s
greatest success
against Akbar in which Mewar army defeated the Mughals
convincingly.
Maharana had changed his war
strategy from frontal battle
to Guerrilla warfare. This paid dividend to his
fight against
big Mughal armies. Seeing this Maharana used “guerrilla
warfare”
completely and the Mughals never allowed
settlement in Mewar.
Before the battle of Dewar Akbar
6 times sent his army to
capture or kill Maharana in Mewar. In 1577 he sent
Raja
Bhagwan Das Kachwaha of Amer with Amer prince
Mansingh, along with Sayed
Hashim, Sayed Kasim, and
Shahbaz Khan Etc. with a big army. But the result was
not
achieved.
In 1578 Akbar sent Raja
Bhagwan Das Kachwaha of Amer
with Amer prince Mansingh, along with Shahbaz Khan
and
Kazi Khan Badkashi.
In 1579 Mughal army was sent
under Shahbaz Khan to
conquer Mewar but in vain.
Again in 1580 Mughal army
went to capture or kill Maharana
but returned back empty hand. This time Abdul
Rahim
Khankhana was leading the Mughal army.
Battle of Dewar -
In his book Colonel James Tod describes Haldighati as
“Thermopile of Mewar” and
called ‘battle of Dewar’ as
“Marathon of
Mewar”.
The Marathon war 490 BC was fought in a place Marathon
in Greece. The
war took place during second Persian
invasion of Greece. It was fought between
the citizens of
Athens, aided by Plataea and a Persian force commanded
by Datis
and Artaphernes. That time Darius 1 was the king
of Persia. Persia was defeated
by Greece though Persian
had big army.
Colonel
James Tod writes that, “The
Maharana and his
army were as brave
as Spartans; they were knowing combat
skills, courageous, had great
determination, undaunted
heroism and were not afraid to face even 4 times big
army in
the battle field”.
Western historians call ‘Battle of Dewar’ as the second
part of ‘Battle of Haldighati’.
In this battle Mughal emperor
Akbar got tremendous defeat in the hands of
Maharana
Pratap.
Rest in next part
