Now, Raj university to teach Pratap’s victory over Akbar

JAPIUR: After the revision in class 10 schoolbooks, the Universityof Rajasthan’s (RU) history department is set to include a book that projects Rajput king Maharana Pratap as a victor in the 1576 Battle of Haldigati against Mughal emperor Akbar’s forces.

Historical evidence shows that Pratap had fled the battlefield 450 years ago and later continued his guerrilla warfare against the Mughals.

The dominant view about the battle so far has been in favour of the Mughal army.

But those who dispute the dominant view, including the revised history schoolbook, say that Akbar’s failure in capturing or killing Maharana Pratap, his general’s decision to not pursue the Pratap’s army after he fled, and Akbar’ s displeasure with his generals prove that Pratap prevailed in the war.

School education minister Vasudev Devnani had in March this year questioned Akbar’ s victory asking why he attacked Me war six times if he won the battle, and pronounced the Raj put king victor. The history department , in a meeting of its board of studies last month, decided to include Dr Chandra Shekhar Sharma’s Rashtra-Ratna Maharana Pratap in the list of recommended readings in the paper ‘History of Rajasthan’ in the second semester of MA History.

Sharma’s book, according to the minutes of the meeting, has a fresh interpretation of Ma ha ran a Pratap, and projects him as a great freedom fighter.

The board also decided to include a topic‘ Debate on the outcome of the Battle of Haldighati’ in the topics to be covered under the paper.

The university’s academic council subsequently approved the board’s decisions, which means students shall be studying the revised syllabus from this year onwards.