Rana Sanga — The Wounded Lion of Mewar
Freedom and honour — these are the two things Rajputs always held dear. Especially Mewaris, the men and women of land in a small province in present-day Rajasthan, never backed down from a fight if the alternative meant bowing their heads and accepting foreign rule.
Such was the stature of these Rajputs that history literally had to curb their stories for future generations. Their bravery has echoed through several generations with all the curbing possible.
In the annals of actual history — Rajputs and their valour have a special place. Such is the tale of Rana Sanga — a kind man, a free spirit, a just ruler and a fierce warrior whose determination and heroic saga will inspire the generations to come.
Birth
Maharana Sangram Singh was the third son and prince of the Royal Family of Mewar — the Sisodia Dynasty. Born in the same bloodline as Bappa Rawal and Rana Kumbha — Rana Sanga had inherited the same valour and determination that would etch his name in history.
Rana Sanga was born in the year 1482 — a tumultuous time to be a Rajput.
It was a time when the Muslim invasions from the Northwestern region of present-day Afghanistan were at their peak. Mewar’s neighbours in the South and East were under Afghan rule. The Delhi Sultanate was going through a power struggle, with dynasties coming up and dying down as flies and another enemy who would rule the land of Bharat for another 300 years with deceit and malice.
Any invasion from the northwest faced Rajput resistance, especially from the Mewaris. By the time of Rana Sanga’s birth, the Rajputs were a decimated race. Centuries of fighting for honour and freedom had driven them to be too separated and segregated from each other.
Internal conflicts also made it hard for Rajput Kings to pull together an army that could challenge the newer technology and godless war strategies of the Muslim invaders.
The central Rajput states of Jodhpur and Bikaner, Mewar and Marwar, and Gwalior and other kingdoms were constantly at each other’s throats for Rajput supremacy.
Another cause of these internal conflicts was the subjugation of many decimated Rajput states into vassal territories of the Delhi Sultanate and then the Mughal Empire. Many Rajput rulers had accepted Islam as their religion. This fuelled the conflict even more.
Rana Sanga’s tale was the unification of these states and fighting for a single cause — “Swaraj”. While this term was not coined back then, the intention remained the same.
Escape to Marwar
Born to Rana Raimal and Queen Ratan Kunwar — Rana Sanga’s ascent to glory started with this story.
One day, Rana Raimal and his three eldest sons — Prithviraj, Jaimal and Sangram Singh (Rana Sanga) visited a priest to pray for Mewar’s well-being. Rana Raimal’s brother, Surajmal, also accompanied him.
The priest they visited was an astronomer and could tell fortunes. While they were seated on the ground in the priest’s hut, swords on their left and a straight spine — the priest mentioned to Rana Raimal that of his three eldest sons, the third would be the heir to Mewar’s throne.
Prince Prithviraj, a valiant warrior, was furious as, being the eldest, the throne should have passed on to him. He took up his sword in this anger and pierced one of Sangram Singh’s eyes with the pommel. This is how Rana Sanga lost his right eye.
Prince Jaimal drew his sword to aid his elder brother. However, their uncle, Surajmal, intervened and asked the princes to keep their swords down as it was their brother they were trying to kill, and the words of a fortune-teller should be taken seriously by Rajputs.
Prince Prithviraj gulped down his anger but wasn’t satisfied. He needed to be sure that it was he who would ascend to the throne of Mewar.
All this while, an average person would have been bitter towards his brothers or anyone who did this to him. However, Sangram Singh forgave his brothers. This should illuminate Rana Sanga’s character as a true king and a kind man.
Rana Sangram Singh forgave his brothers and took a trip with them to another fortune-teller by the name of Biri Bai. Biri Bai was a respected woman in the kingdom of Mewar known for her devotion and fortune-telling skills.
At Biri Bai’s place, there were two chairs and a carpet of straws led on the ground for guests who would come to ask her blessings.
The older princes went and sat on the chairs while the simple and kind-natured Rana Sanga and his uncle Surajmal sat on the carpet. A humble gesture that led Rana Sanga to be the great king he is in the pages of history.
Biri Bai entered the hut a little after the warriors were seated. The moment she entered, the question sprang on her by Prithviraj, “Who will be the next king of Mewar?”
Without hesitation, Biri Bai answered: The one sitting on the jajan (straw-carpet) will be the king of Mewar.
Furious, the princes attacked Sangram Singh with their swords drawn, and their uncle intervened again. Surajmal had to draw his sword and told Sangram Singh to take his horse and escape to Marwar.
By the time Sangram Singh made his escape, he was already wounded. In that state, he reached a village called Sewantri. He sought refuge under Rao Bida — a family friend and the feudal lord of Sewantri under Mewar.
The news of this fight among the brothers had travelled faster than Rana Sanga’s horse. Assessing the situation, Rao Bida hid the future king of Mewar in a temple dedicated to Lord Krishna — the Gopinath Temple.
Sangram Singh’s bloodthirsty brother, Prince Jaimal, had followed his trail and reached the village of Sewantri. Rao Bida took up arms against him to protect Prince Sangram Singh.
One might think, why would a feudal lord take up arms against a prince of the royal family that he serves? Such was the chivalry of Rajputs. As per Rajput traditions, you are supposed to protect the guest in your house and an individual under your refuge with your life as it was considered a promise. We know with history as its witness, Rajputs would rather die than go back on their word.
Rao Bida fought Prince Jaimal in a bloody battle. Although he was defeated facing the massive forces of Mewar, he bought Rana Sangram Singh enough time to make his escape from the clutches of his bloodthirsty brother.
Rana Sanga successfully escaped to Marwar — another Rajput kingdom and took up the job of a shepherd under Rao Karamchand Punwar — the feudal lord of the then Srinagar, Ajmer.
Marwar and Mewar had been at each other’s throats for supremacy in Rajputana for centuries. Hence, as a Mewari prince, Rana Sanga could not reveal his identity until later as he was in an enemy state.
He let off his royal insignias, horse, and jewellery for over three years to fit in his disguise. A Mewari prince living the life of a mere shepherd.
Ascension to the Throne
He lived in solace, keeping a low profile until Rana Raimal’s spies found him three years later. Rana Sangram Singh was returned to Mewar to take the throne after his father.
In the three years Rana Sanga was in hiding — both of his elder brothers had been killed because of ill-tempered nature and over-ambitious deceit. Prince Prithviraj’s brother-in-law poisoned him as an act of retortion to the several insults Prithviraj had hurled at him while intoxicated and unable to control his anger.
The second prince, Prince Jaimal, was killed in a sword fight over a disagreement over a trivial matter with his best friend, Ratan Singh.
Seeing all three of his eldest sons gone and with his younger sons as toddlers, Rana Raimal was aghast. This was when one of his spies told him about Rana Sanga working as a shepherd for Rao Karamchand of Srinagar, Ajmer.
These were the circumstances in which Rana Sanga was brought to his homeland, Mewar, to take up the reins.
In 1508, Rana Sangram Singh ascended the throne of Mewar, a kingdom known for her valour and valiant kings.
Character Development
Maharana Sangram Singh’s tale is not about wars, battles, valour and empire. His is a tale of patience, kindness, spirituality, and empathy.
He was a kind, simple prince who forgave his elder brothers for trying to kill him. As if this was not the best test of his character, he retreated into the simple, content life of a shepherd following spirituality and training secretly in warfare lessons.
And then he was made the king of Mewar, a major Rajput state who had churned up enemies in the surrounding Muslim kingdoms because of their love for sovereignty and never-ending love for the motherland.
Forgiveness is a virtue which has been stressed in the Vedas, the Puranas and even Shakespearean tales. A man who can forgive is a virtuous man. Belonging to the same family where kings had been killed because of misunderstandings over trivial matters, Rana Sanga forgave his brothers who blinded him in one eye and lived the life of a sage before his motherland, family, duty, and religion beckoned to him.
Swordfights, horses and palaces do not make a king; the humility that Maharana Sanga possessed does. This humility was imprinted on his successors as well.
From being a shepherd away from the royal court to being the pinnacle of politics in a monarchy, Rana Sanga’s tale is something every man, woman and child must imprint on themselves.
Life threw its unfairness at this great soul, and he took it all with only eye and many more losses to come in the coming years as a ruler of Mewar.
The Making of a Hindu Emperor
It was clear that North India was in a power struggle during Maharana Sangram Singh’s reign. The last dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate, the Lodhi Dynasty, had overthrown the Sayyid rulers and taken over the throne of Delhi. The Lodhi Dynasty, under the rule of Bahlol Lodhi, followed the same expansionist ideology of the Khiljis and the Tuglaqs who ruled before them.
To the south of Mewar, the Muslim rulers of the Malwa, who had been defeated countless times in battle by Rana Khumbha, Rana Sanga’s grandfather, had set their eyes on Rajputana.
To the south of Malwa, the Gujarat Sultanate had become more active under the leadership of Muzaffar Shah, with his ambition no different than the rulers of Malwa.
Hence, Muslim kingdoms on three sides threatened the Kingdom of Mewar by 1508, the year Rana Sanga ascended the throne. With the subjugation of the Tomars of Gwalior by the Delhi Sultanate, it had become clear that history was repeating itself by putting Mewar in the same dire situation during Rana Khumbha’s reign.
In his book, “The Annals and Antiquities of Raja’sthan”, James Tod, a British Lieutenant-Governor and Oriental History expert of the 19th century, mentions that it was almost as if Rana Kumbha had foreseen this situation arising again. This is why he took deep measures to fortify the walls of Chittorgarh, the capital of Mewar.
However, James Tod’s book did not come close to actual history as it was heavy with romanticism and presented many wrong facts. Nevertheless, this was the one part where he was not wrong.
Seeing the growing threats to the Mewari freedom and sovereignty and the black clouds of slavery floating over Rajputana under Muslim rulers with history as witnesses, Maharana Sanga decided to unite the Rajputs.
Now, the Rajputs were a proud race. Even today, they take pride in their varied history, culture and practices. Even the traditional language they speak differs from place to place.
On top of everything, pride and honour made them such fierce warriors, and one cannot unite fierce warriors so true to their clan and motherland without being fiercer than them, without showing them a dream of a unified country where their women and children would be safe, and their legacy will live on through the centuries.
Therefore, it was already understood that unifying the Rajputs under one flag with one motto was not easy. Nevertheless, Maharana Sanga took on this feat.
By 1514, he unified the chieftains of 106 Rajput clans under his banner. This mainly included smaller Rajput principalities surrounding Mewar, such as Chanderi, Raisen, Dongarpur and Idar. His conquests brought back the lost prosperity of Mewar. During the battle of Idar, Rana Sanga also captured and annexed the northernmost territory of the Gujarat Sultanate. This was a slap on the face of Muzaffar Shah, the ruler of Gujarat.
Maharana Sangram Singh, through his conquests, unified a large chunk of Hindu rulers under him and amassed an army so big that over 100 thousand soldiers were on active duty protecting Mewar during any given time of his reign.
After losing a part of his territory in 1514, Muzaffar Shah marched against Rana Sanga in 1517. He was defeated badly in this expedition. In 1518, Muzaffar Shah of Gujarat planned another attack but was crushed again by the Rajput forces.
In 1518 CE, the forces of Ibrahim Lodhi, Bahlol Lodhi’s successor, tried to invade Mewar. The Rajputs defeated them and pushed them back to the borders of Delhi in the Battle of Khatoli.
In 1519 CE, Ibrahim Lodhi made a pact with the Sultan of Malwa to attack Mewar from two fronts. The heavily outnumbered Rajputs emerged victorious in the Battle of Dholpur.
The battles of Idar, Khatoli and Dholpur saw the unification of Rajputs for the first time since the Battle of Tarain 1191 CE. Unlike his Muslim counterparts, Rana Sanga led his army into these battles with one eye, one arm and one leg. Such was the tenacity of this Rajput ruler to eliminate foreign rule from his motherland.
By the time the Battle of Dholpur was over, Rana Sanga had over 80 wounds on his body from the 100 wars he had fought for his clan and his motherland.
The chivalrous Rajputs with a strong king, Maharana Sanga, were on their way into a glorious future. These victories and acts of valour etched Maharana Sanga as the strongest and probably the last Hindu emperor for more than two centuries to come.
The Conquest of Malwa
The conquest of Malwa was one of Rana Sanga’s most famous expeditions for two reasons. First, it established a Hindu empire in the heart of Bharat after over two centuries.
Second, it mirrored the battle that Rana Kumbha fought in the early 1400s that protected Mewar from Afghan invasions till the reign of Rana Raimal, Rana Sanga’s father and predecessor.
In 1519 CE, Mehmood Khilji was the ruler of Malwa. He had lost significant parts of his territory during the Battle of Dholpur to Rana Sanga’s large Rajput confederacy and wanted to reclaim them.
However, Rana Sanga’s eyes were on Malwa since the Battle of Khatoli, as his mission was to eliminate foreign rule from his motherland. His grandfather, Rana Kumbha’s victory in Malwa a century back, made him more akin to winning back the land.
In 1519 CE, the forces of Rana Sanga and Mehmood Khilji met in the Battle of Gagron (Sarangpur). Mehmood Khilji was defeated by the Rajputs and was taken as a prisoner.
Even today, the Vijay Stambh installed by the Rajputs to commemorate their victory over the forces of Mehmood Khilji (same name) during Rana Kumbha stands as a symbol of Rana Sanga’s superior war strategy. It also serves as a reminder of unity for the Hindus and the people of Bharat.
Rana Sanga released Mehmood Khilji on orders of his mother, who reminded him that it was against Rajputi honour to keep a prisoner of war for so long and let him die in prison.
Maharana Sanga reclaimed the same land ruled by a ruler with the same name in the most heroic way possible. History repeats itself, and sometimes, gloriously so.
The Gujarat Sultanate Rebellion
After winning Malwa, the ruler of Gujarat Sultanate after Muzaffar Shah, Mallik Hussain attacked the kingdom of Mewar in 1520 CE.
During this, the Rajput Confederacy was a big army of over 200 thousand active soldiers under Rana Sanga’s command. The forces of Mallik Hussain and Maharana Sanga fought a furious battle in which Mallik Hussain was forced to retreat and lock himself up inside the fort of Ahmednagar (Ahmedabad).
The fort's gate was laced with large nails good enough to tear away an elephant’s toe. This is a story of the valour of another Rajput named Kanha Dev. Kanha Dev stood before the fort gate with his body against the nails.
He then asked Rana Sanga to order the elephants to crush down the gate. The idea was to make the elephants believe it was the soft human flesh they were kicking down instead of the sharp nails of the fort’s gates.
With a heavy heart, the elephants were ordered to crush the gate along with Kanha Dev’s body. His sacrifice remains the most notable yet forgotten one in the history of India.
Rana Sanga entered the forts of Ahmednagar and killed Mallik Hussain. Thus bringing Gujarat under his control.
Kahna Dev’s sacrifice and determination won’t be forgotten till time's end.
The Forgotten Battle of Bayana
By 1520, within 12 years of Maharana Sangram Singh’s reign, the Hindu empire established by him had expanded its borders from Gujarat and Malwa in the south to the Northwest Frontier Province of Afghanistan in the west and till the doors of the Delhi Sultanate in the east.
It is vital to establish these facts to show the extent of Rajput culture, influence and history we were never taught in schools. To us, Rajputs were always depicted as a valiant but defeated community. We never got to the side where they were a clan of fierce warriors who would relinquish anything but their sovereignty.
The Forgotten Battle of Bayana is a testament to the first victory of Hindus against the Mughal forces.
Going into a bit of retrospect, Zahiruddin Mohammad Babur, a Uzbek ruler and descendant of Taimur Lang, a tyrant, entered India with a meagre mercenary force of 12 thousand.
It is still in debate as to how and why Babur entered India (which is Bharat). Some left historians propagate that it was Rana Sanga who had invited him to fight against Ibrahim Lodhi, while some say Babur entered on his own accord to kill Ibrahim Lodhi and take the throne of Delhi.
Whatever the reason, history and logic would justify that Maharana Sanga would not ask for help from an alien power to quench his expansionist thirst. Especially not when he commanded an army of 250 thousand active soldiers in 1524–1525 when Babur invaded Bharat.
In 1526, Babur’s forces, equipped with Mongol technology and various types of cannons, defeated the forces of Ibrahim Lodhi in the First Battle of Panipat.
The First Battle of Panipat established Babur, a raider from the northwest, as the “Badshah” of Delhi, establishing the Mughal empire. As soon as Babur took the throne of Delhi in 1526, he knew he had to remove Rana Sanga from power because Rana would be the only hurdle in his race for expansion.
Now, Rana Sanga was an expansionist himself. He knew that to establish a properly functional Hindu empire, it was vital for Delhi to be a part of the kingdom of Mewar.
In 1526–1527, Babur’s Turko-Mongol army marched against Rana Sanga’s Rajput Confederacy. Both the forces met in a fierce battle in Bayana, a place on the outskirts of Agra.
After a two-month battle, Maharana Sanga’s forces defeated Babur’s Turko Mongol army and forced them to retreat to Agra. However, Rana Sanga did not pursue his enemies to wipe them off properly as he did in Gujarat and Malwa.
Maybe the small size of Babur’s army or some other factor led to Rana Sanga making this miscalculated move.
Nevertheless, the Battle of Bayana was the first victory of a United Rajput Front against the forces of the Mughal Empire. Yet this battle remains unsung and forgotten in the annals of history.
The Battle of Khanwa
Babur was a military expert who had led his armies to raid and conquer cities like Kabul and Chagatai before invading India. It is speculated that he had a childhood obsession with India for several reasons.
However, the three most important reasons that must have attracted him are India’s lush green plains, which can easily maintain an army of some 100 thousand all year round. Secondly, it must have been to establish an empire that his Mongol ancestors could not in the land of Bharat. The third reason might have been to establish a Muslim kingdom so strong that the entirety of India would be converted into a land for Muslims — the reason for multiple Muslim invasions since the 8th century AD.
Khanwa lies near the present-day Bharatpur district of Rajasthan, in close proximity to Fatehpur Sikri.
The Battle of Khanwa was a decisive war in the history of Bharat for two reasons. It paved the way for all the other great wars that Hindus must fight to save their religion. Secondly, it began an awareness in the Hindu dynasties, which Maharana Pratap and Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj carried forward.
Both sides marched against each other on 16th March 1527. Rana Sanga, with over 150 thousand men under his saffron flag, and Babur, with 80,000 men under his green flag.
While the Mughals were outnumbered two to one, they had cannons and other tricks that the Rajputs had not anticipated.
Rajputs were a warrior race who believed in ethos, rites and rituals of wartime. Mughals and other Muslim invaders before them did not. They believed in the policy of “everything’s fair in love and war.” A propaganda not known to Hindus as war was a method of protection, not loot, and love was sacred for them.
Rana Sanga’s forces were joined by Hassan Khan Mewati, a Rajput who had converted to Islam and Mohammad Lodhi, Ibrahim Lodhi’s son, along with their forces.
Both armies stood facing each other on a barren battlefield. The war began with warcries from both sides, with the Sun and the Sky as witnesses of his historic day. If you are a history buff, you will still hear the chants of “Har Har Mahadev” and “Jay Ekling-ji” if you read the complete unabridged history of this battle.
It is said that on the day of this battle, Rana Sanga roared like a lion while cutting down hundreds of Mughal soldiers while shouting “Jai Ekling-ji”. Seeing him as an incarnation of Lord Shiva, his soldiers fought with extraordinary valour and decimated the Mughal ranks.
The Rajputs fought like it was a child’s play for them. The glaze in their eyes, the shine of their armour and their zeal to fight for their motherland was so inexplicable that by midday, the Mughal army chieftains and generals were considering a retreat.
There are treatises by Mughal historians that describe Sanga and his troops as “maut ke faristhey” or the angels of death on the day of the Battle of Khanwa.
However, one shortcoming of the Rajput side was their reluctance to modernise warfare strategies. The Battle of Khanwa was the first battle where Rajputs encountered cannons for the first time. They had seen other war machines before, but nothing was like the cannon, a weapon that can be made to spread fire at will in any direction.
Secondly, the Rajputs were accustomed to fighting in plains and open battlefields, while the Turko Mongol armies of Babur had fought and won in the rugged mountainous terrains of Central Asia before entering Bharat.
Hence, post midday, with less vision due to the smoke from the cannonballs, the Mughals were gaining the upper hand.
To help their comrades, the Rajput soldiers would jump in front of their mouths and sacrifice their lives so that their comrades would get time to get to the ones feeding the cannons with cannonballs. Some Rajputs even jumped into the mouths of these cannons, which, when fired, shredded them into pieces but were rendered useless because of all the human flesh stuck inside them.
Such was the bravery the Rajputs portrayed on that day.
However, due to the noise and destruction caused by the Mughal cannons, the horses and the elephants, startled, started turning on the Rajput soldiers. It caused a stampede on the Rajput side.
Rana Sanga, mitigating the situation like a true leader, asked his soldiers to steer clear of the elephants for a while before they were taken away from the main battlefield.
After mitigating the situation, Rana Sanga charged into the Mughal army for the second time and motivated his Rajput soldiers, followed by their generals decimating the Mughal ranks even more.
Every battle ever fought has a tinge of malice to it. Babur took this to a whole new level when he tied his cannons in series to a series of bullocks tied together.
Rana Sanga and his soldiers were staunch Hindus. Hence, Babur knew they would not kill bullocks, cows and bulls as they were sacred to them.
Unable to fight the cannons, the king and his soldiers tried attacking the ones who controlled the bullocks from behind. However, by that time, the damage was done.
The stampede had already decimated the Rajput numbers by a lot, and this dirty trick from Babur’s side killed over 20 thousand Rajputs who wouldn’t commit the sin of attacking cattle. This was the Araba strategy that Mongols followed in their warfare against massive armies.
Following the Araba strategy, 70 cannons were tied together and fired at the Rajput soldiers simultaneously. The bullocks turning the cannons had musketeers hidden behind them, firing at will on Rajput soldiers whenever an opening occurred.
Subsequently, Babur used the Mongol strategy of Tulguma. Tulgama meant to divide your army into smaller troops of twenty or fewer and attack upfront, creating rifts in the enemy army. After this, the rift is created, and the troops retreat with agility. Tulguma provided agility as it involved smaller troops.
How exactly it worked is that 20 Mughal soldiers dove headfirst into the battlefield and kill around 100 Rajput soldiers from behind and then retreat, and then a new troop consisting of 20 Mughal soldiers would do the same.
While it may not have killed many soldiers, it ensured that the Rajputs were weakened in body and soul for the subsequent troops. As mentioned earlier, the Mongols had experienced wars in rugged terrains, which helped them develop these tactics.
While Rana and his soldiers could have managed all of this, a bigger hit came in the form of a miscalculation. Facing imminent danger, Rana Sanga climbed on his war elephant, which was brought back onto the battlefield after being made accustomed to the noises of the cannons.
Now, the Rana had become an easy target for the Turko Mongol archers, a force dedicated to bringing down the monarch from the point of vantage. Imagine 70 to 80 arrows being fired at you at the same time. Unshaken, Rana Sanga raged on with his battle cry.
While fighting the Mughal forces from up his elephant, Rana Sanga was hit on the head with one of the arrows. The arrow stuck the helmet, but due to the impact, Rana fell unconscious from his seat on the elephant.
Seeing the seat of their emperor empty, the Rajput soldiers thought this was the end and started getting increasingly scattered while being continuously killed.
However, this situation was mitigated by Rao Ajja Jhalla of Bundi, who took on Rana Sanga’s royal insignia and helmet and climbed back on his elephant after sending Sanga to safety with Jaipur’s Prithviraj Khachchwa, a renowned warrior and Rana Sanga’s closest friend. This instilled order in the Rajput ranks again.
Ajja Jhalla commanded the Rajput troops in an organized manner, and the Rajput soldiers started decimating the Mughal ranks with added valour and determination. The Rajputs were headed towards a sure-shot victory.
Rana Sanga’s other general, Hassan Khan Mewati, who was a Rajput by blood, also showed extraordinary valour until the musket of a Mughal general killed him. While it is believed that Mohammad Lodhi ran away from the battlefield.
In another setting, while being escorted back to safety, Rana Sanga emerged from his unconscious state and asked Prithviraj Kachchawa to take him back to the battlefield with stubbornness. However, it was too late by the time he came back.
Following the setbacks, the Rajput Confederacy sought an imminent win after fighting for over 12 hours. However, no war in the history of India is complete without a betrayal.
In the Battle of Khanwa, this betrayal came in the form of Raja Salhadi Tomar, the king of Raisen. He defected from the Rajput Confederacy and joined the Mughal forces with his 35,000 cavalry force. This came as a deathblow to the Rajputs at a crucial time when the win was imminent.
By this time, Rana Sanga had joined back in the battlefield. Furious, he charged at the Mughals, more determined to eliminate them. However, it was too late because of the untimely betrayal of Salhadi Tomar.
Many prominent Hindu chieftains and Rajputs, such as the Solankis, Chauhans and Rathods, were killed by the war's end.
The battle ended, and the Rajput and Mughal forces had to come to a stalemate. However, contrary to the famous belief, the Rajputs were not defeated.
Rana Sanga and his Rajputs retreated to a place near Khanwa. He set up camps and decided on a battle plan to win his only lost battle for another year after the Battle of Khanwa.
Settling the Debate
Rana Sanga was defeated in the Battle of Khanwa.
This is probably the best iterated white lie in a long line of Bharat’s distorted history.
Here are a few logical explanations for it.
Babur proclaimed himself “the Ghazi” and wanted to subjugate the entirety of Bharat-Varsha. In the list of his many misgivings, such as perverse sexual encounters and dirty expansionist trickery, religious intolerance takes the lead.
After defeating Ibrahim Lodhi and other Hindu kings who fought against Babur’s forces in the first Battle of Panipat in 1526, Babur decapitated them all. He followed the Mongol tradition of taking no prisoner of war.
Historians like to quote This documented history in Babur-nama as the only source of actual history. Another fallacy.
However, if this was the nature of Babur, why would he leave Rana Sanga, his biggest opponent, alive for another year after the Battle of Khanwa?
Ancient, medieval and modern warfare dictate to pursue the retreating enemy until they are holed up in a fort and lay a siege. After laying the siege, you cut off your enemy’s supply lines until they are forced to come out and meet you on the open battlefield.
This is what even Rana Sanga did with the Sultan of Gujarat.
None of this happened during this time. Additionally, there are other writings of Rajput origins like Ranchodbhat Telangi’s Raj Prasasthi claims it was Rana Sanga who won the battle from a logical standpoint as when Babur had to retreat to Delhi via Agra from Khanwa, he was scared that a fleet of Rajputs might kill him on the road.
This portion is testified in the Baburnama as well. Hence, there are literal sources that imply The Battle of Khanwa was not a defeat of the Rajputs. It was either a stalemate or Rana Sanga’s win.
There are other sources of history, such as Mewar’s Path-nama, written in old Mewari by court historians as an account of how many soldiers were conscripted for the Battle of Khanwa and how much the entire war cost. It is clearly mentioned that Rana Sanga defeated Babur at Khanwa.
From another logical standpoint, Mewar remained untouched until Rana Sanga’s death, which is unlikely if they were defeated on the battlefield. The attack on Mewar by Bahadur Shah of Gujarat Sultanate took several years after Rana Sanga’s death in 1535.
Concluding
Rana Sanga’s life is no less than an inspiration that deserves more words and credits than what history books actually impart in schools and colleges.
In 1528, Rana Sanga succumbed to the numerous wounds on his body from over 100 wars in his lifetime. He was the champion of 100 wars and a true Rajput who taught us that everything, including your body, is expendable if duty, religion and motherland beckons.
Sanga's story is an inspiration for the young and old alike, a saga of pain and happiness co-existing for the ultimate glory.
History is marred by perpetrators who cited it wrong. Throughout the history of India, brave men and true patriots have been sidelined for the sake of publicity of the ones who “could live” to tell the tale.
Bibliography
- James Tod’s “The Annals and Antiquities of Raja’sthan.”
- Chittor’s Pat-nama.
- MAHARANA: A Thousand Year War for Dharma by Dr Omendra Ratnu.
