Was Rana Pratap great, or just heroic?
Akshaya Mukul
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New Delhi:
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Politics Puts History Under Stress
History is under great stress these days with not a single week passing when a new narrative of past events and individuals is not being introduced. Latest is from home minister Rajnath Singh regretting that Rajput warrior Maharana Pratap has not got the same respect as Akbar despite putting up a great resistance against him.Singh's angst was immediately noticed with the Haryana government issuing public advertisement remembering the Rajput warrior. In this attempt to canonize Pratap, reputed accounts have taken a back seat and emotions are running high.
`Veer Vinod' based on Me war Records is one historical account that is taken seriously by professional historians.Writers of `Veer Vinod' knew both Persian and Sanskrit and the text does refer to Rana Pratap as a heroic figure.Somehow, that account does not put him on the same pedestal as Akbar, who had a panIndian presence.
Eminent historian Irfan Habib says, “This controversy was first created by Ashirbadi Lal Srivastava in the 1940s when as a biographer of Akbar he said both Shivaji and Rana Pratap were great figures.“ He says even Colonel Todd, the author of `Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan' also called him heroic. “No one denies he was not heroic.Even his opponents admit it.But that is it,“ Habib says, adding that one reason for Pratap's lack of stature was internal conflicts of Rajput principalities like the Mewar House and Jaipur House. For instance, Man Singh was on Akbar's side and part of Jaipur House. Under Man Singh Akbar's army crossed Indus.
Habib says this is an attempt to re-invent history and remembers former NCERT director raising Rana Pratap debate during Vajpayee's time too. However, Sardindu Mukherji, member of the ICHR and vocal among right wing historians, has his own narrative which he blames India's “progressive left for distorting history“.“They are jihad friendly ,“ he says, adding that history of Hindu resistance has not been recognized and therefore Rana Pratap has been relegated, what he claims, to the margins. Mukherji also does not think too much of the fact that Rajput generals were at the helm of Akbar's army and dismisses them as “co-option of few defeated people“.To an analogy that Rana Pratap was like Arvind Kejriwal whose ability as a campaigner is limited to Delhi, Mukherji says, “National reach has to be balanced against national resurgence.“ He also says, without citing any source, that Akbar called himself a `ghazhi', one who kills unbelievers in jihad.
Delhi University historian Seema Alavi finds the comparison between Pratap and Akbar disconcerting. “I feel historical figures are being invoked for political gains,“ she says, adding that based on a set of documents any historical figure can be projected in a certain way . “A larger context is built through inter-textual and inter-disciplinary research. One cannot talk about any historical figure through one archive,“ she explains.
Farhat Hasan, another DU professor, is more direct and says there is very little evidence to back the claim that Rana Pratap was as big as Akbar. “It is an attempt to communalise history , distort history, appropriate history to promote right-wing ideology's divisive agenda,“ he says, adding that “heroes are created only through fabrication“ in which bazaar gossip becomes historical narrative.
`Veer Vinod' based on Me war Records is one historical account that is taken seriously by professional historians.Writers of `Veer Vinod' knew both Persian and Sanskrit and the text does refer to Rana Pratap as a heroic figure.Somehow, that account does not put him on the same pedestal as Akbar, who had a panIndian presence.
Eminent historian Irfan Habib says, “This controversy was first created by Ashirbadi Lal Srivastava in the 1940s when as a biographer of Akbar he said both Shivaji and Rana Pratap were great figures.“ He says even Colonel Todd, the author of `Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan' also called him heroic. “No one denies he was not heroic.Even his opponents admit it.But that is it,“ Habib says, adding that one reason for Pratap's lack of stature was internal conflicts of Rajput principalities like the Mewar House and Jaipur House. For instance, Man Singh was on Akbar's side and part of Jaipur House. Under Man Singh Akbar's army crossed Indus.
Habib says this is an attempt to re-invent history and remembers former NCERT director raising Rana Pratap debate during Vajpayee's time too. However, Sardindu Mukherji, member of the ICHR and vocal among right wing historians, has his own narrative which he blames India's “progressive left for distorting history“.“They are jihad friendly ,“ he says, adding that history of Hindu resistance has not been recognized and therefore Rana Pratap has been relegated, what he claims, to the margins. Mukherji also does not think too much of the fact that Rajput generals were at the helm of Akbar's army and dismisses them as “co-option of few defeated people“.To an analogy that Rana Pratap was like Arvind Kejriwal whose ability as a campaigner is limited to Delhi, Mukherji says, “National reach has to be balanced against national resurgence.“ He also says, without citing any source, that Akbar called himself a `ghazhi', one who kills unbelievers in jihad.
Delhi University historian Seema Alavi finds the comparison between Pratap and Akbar disconcerting. “I feel historical figures are being invoked for political gains,“ she says, adding that based on a set of documents any historical figure can be projected in a certain way . “A larger context is built through inter-textual and inter-disciplinary research. One cannot talk about any historical figure through one archive,“ she explains.
Farhat Hasan, another DU professor, is more direct and says there is very little evidence to back the claim that Rana Pratap was as big as Akbar. “It is an attempt to communalise history , distort history, appropriate history to promote right-wing ideology's divisive agenda,“ he says, adding that “heroes are created only through fabrication“ in which bazaar gossip becomes historical narrative.
