In Raj books, Maharana defeated Akbar in battle

School students in Rajasthan will soon be taught that Rajput warrior Maharana Pratap defeated the decorated army of Mughal emperor Akbar in the Battle of Haldighati some 450 years ago.

Most academics scoff at this idea because historical evidence shows that Pratap, the ruler of the erstwhile Mewar region, fled the battlefield, although in the later years he continued his guerilla war against the Mughals.

The storied military campaign is among several historical facts that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ruling Bharatiya Janta Party’s ideological fount, is accused of trying to rewrite as part of efforts to promote its vision of Indian culture and way of life.

“In fact all heroes — from Pratap to Prithviraj Chauhan — that the RSS is projecting had lost conclusively. By twisting facts one cannot rewrite history,” said professor DN Jha, former member of the Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR).

Irfan Habib, professor emeritus at Aligarh Muslim University’s history department, refused to comment, saying it would be senseless to argue with the RSS.

“They can teach whatever they want,” he said.

But Rajasthan education minister Vasudev Devnani told Hindustan Times that students will not read “distorted history” from the next academic year. Until now, students of class 10 and 12 read Pratap had lost the battle.

“If Akbar’s armies won the battle then why did they return to the battlefield six times? There has been an attempt to downplay the role of our heroes,” Devnani said.

The state government is believed to have got its idea o rewriting the history of Haldi ghati from a book titled ‘Maha rana Pratap: Kumbalgarh se Chavand’.

KS Gupta, retired professor o history from Udaipur’s Mohan lal Sukhadia University, says his book examined contemporary Persian records, near contempo rary Rajasthani sources and studied the circumstances to conclude that the dominant view that Maharana Pratap lost the battle is not correct.

Even so, most historians from Rajasthan dispute this.

“If the Mughals lost the battle they should have left but the fac is they never left for severa years, and Pratap didn’t give up fighting,” said Reema Hooja author of ‘History of Rajasthan’

“So if there was any winner in Haldighati, it was the Mugha army which was left standing in the battlefield,” said Hooja.

Professor KG Sharma, head o the history department at Uni versity of Rajasthan, said, “Ini tially the Rajputs were overpow ering in the war but then some body spread the rumour tha Akbar himself had arrived with a large contingent.”

“The rumour caused Maha rana Pratap and his men to retreat into the hills,” Sharma said.