Soon Akbar could lose to Maharana Pratap in Rajasthan’s History Books

A BJP legislator's push to alter existing narrative on the outcome of the battle of Haldighati fought in 1576 between Maharana Pratap’s and Akbar, with Pratap’s victory over the Mughal forces, has found support in the state’s education minister Vasudev Devnani.

‘It was Pratap who won the battle, not Akbar. We have maintained all along that Maharana Pratap has not been accorded his due in history’, said Devnani who just a few weeks back and had publicly given cow the distinction of being the only animal which exhales oxygen, referring to a German research.

While Raje government remained eloquently silent throughout the row over Padmavati’s portrayal in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s upcoming film after members from a fringe Rajput group attacked the director and his crew in Jaipur.

The proposal to rewrite history in Pratap’s favour also got the backing of state health minister Kali Charan Saraf.

"Generations of students have been taught a distorted version of history. If there is a proposal to fix it and teach the students that Maharana Pratap actually won the battle, then we welcome it’, said Saraf.

Challenging the existing narrative among historians on Maharana Pratap losing the war of 1576 to Akbar, BJP MLA Mohanlal Gupta floated the proposal at Rajasthan University's syndicate where he is a government nominee, last week. Besides rewriting the history of the battle of Haldighati, Gupta also demanded the inclusion of a book titled ‘Maharana Pratap: Kumbhalgarh se Chavand’ by Prof KS Gupta, a retired professor of history from Udaipur’s Mohanlal Sukhadia University which says Maharana Pratap won Haldighati, in the books recommended for Rajasthan University’s history students.

The syndicate referred the proposal to the Board of Studies of Rajasthan University’s history department to examine it. While the jury is out on if it will reach the academic council for ratification but ministers from Raje government have already pronounced their verdict in favour of a new outcome for a battle that took place over four hundred and fifty years ago.