If Rana Pratap is the true icon of India's patriotism, Akbar is of syncretic culture

There are not many contests in world history in which unbiased observers respect both the adversaries and assign them an important place in history. One such contest was between Rana Pratap, the 16th century ruler of the state of Mewar, and his life-long adversary Mughal emperor Akbar.

Pratap is a shining star of medieval Indian history whose photo, along with that of Chhatrapati Shivaji, adorns schools and hair cutting saloons in thousands of Indian villages for the heroic fight he waged against Akbar, refusing to surrender his independence at a time when almost all his fellow Rajput rulers of Rajasthan and northern India had given in to the Mughal emperor.

In 1735, when Peshwa Bajirao went to meet Rana Jagat Singh of Mewar, the Rana, out of respect for the military prowess of Bajirao, who had defeated almost every Mughal general including the Nizam, requested him to share the throne with himself. But Bajirao refused to accept the status of equality with the Rana because "he was the descendent of the great Rana Pratap who had eaten bread made out of grass for his motherland and refused matrimonial alliance with the Turks (Muslim Mughals) and maintained the dignity of his high blood”. Clearly, when it comes to sheer patriotism, Rana Pratap and Shivaji occupy the top position.

On the other hand, Akbar is a star on a different plane – the plane on which rests India’s diversity and composite culture which, in turn, is the essence of what is India. An anecdote encapsulates it precisely. When late Colonel and Mahavir Chakra winner Udai Singh Bhati captured Turtuk in Ladakh in the 1971 Indo-Pakistan war, the local Shia Muslims were more than happy to merge with India. They told him: "India is unique. It is a flower vase where flowers of different colours co-exist and live happily. We are happy to merge in the vase as one more flower".

Akbar’s initial upbringing was according to strict Islamic tenets which was amply reflected in the severity of his 1568 capture of Chittorgarh in which he massacred thousands of innocent Hindus after the heroic resistance by the Rajputs marked by Jauhar of Rajput women in which 13,000 of them ended their lives by jumping into the fire well. His transformation as a just ruler for Hindus began after his conversations with Jain and Hindu saints. One of the first Jain saints to impress Akbar was Acharya Hiravijayji of Gujarat whose teachings of non-violence and brotherhood were the first steps that inspired Akbar to come up with his doctrine of Sulh-e-Kul (peace between religions), followed by a series of measures to obliterate the injustice and persecution that Hindus had suffered in the preceding 300 years of Muslim rule in India.

The measures he took to remove the injustice included withdrawing the religious poll tax on Hindus called "Jizya", banning cow slaughter and animal slaughter during certain Hindu and Jain festivals, complete ban on iconoclasm (destroying temples), himself drinking only Ganga water during certain days of the year (which was transported in jars to him if he was on military expeditions during those days), and most importantly, not prosecuting a Hindu if he returned back to Hinduism after his conversion to Islam (Ghar Wapsi). The last step was the biggest example of his new, liberal outlook.

Seen in the backdrop of three preceding centuries of horrible persecution of Hindus during the Sultanate period (which began with the victory of Shiabuddin Mohammed Ghori over Prithviraj Chauhan in 1193 and lasted till the defeat of Ibrahim Lodhi by Babar in 1526), Akbar’s transformation from an orthodox Muslim to a liberal ruler, reversing the tide of persecution of hapless Hindus was a great moment in Indian history. Even the Rajput princesses he married were allowed to practice the Hindu religion. On another front, when a fanatic theologian, Shaikh Ahmed Sirhindi, started a campaign against Akbar, saying his policies of giving equal status to Hindus and ending their persecution would finish Islam in India, the emperor took strong steps against him.

An important and credible book on the Sultanate period titled The Delhi Sultanate by historian VD Mahajan gives a very precise idea of the level of persecution that Hindus suffered at the hands of Muslim rulers during the Sultanate period, which, in turn, underlines the importance of Akbar in Indian medieval history. According to the book, there was not a single Muslim ruler on the Delhi throne during the Sultanate period who could be called a liberal. Rather, almost all of them persecuted Hindus beyond imagination. They broke lakhs of temples and abducted thousands of Hindu women as war booty and converted lakhs of Hindus at the point of the sword.

The Moroccan traveller, Ibn Batuta, who was a religious scholar and the Qazi of Delhi for eight years during the reign of Mohammad bin Tughlaq but comparatively liberal, has left a chilling account of the Muslim atrocities on Hindus during this period. Moreover, the 166-year-old history of Gujarat Sultans of the Ahmedshahi dynasty during this period bore the same mark of Muslim brutality on Hindus. For example, the greatest sultan of Gujarat, Mahmud Begda, had the dubious distinction of breaking the temples of both Dwarka and Somnath and smashing the idols. He demonstrated unparalleled zeal in persecuting Hindus and converting them. So was his grandfather, Ahmedshah, the founder of Ahmedabad.

The only exceptions to this nerve-racking account of Hindu persecution during the Sultanate period were the Sultan of Kashmir, Zainul Abidin (1420 to 1470), known as the "Akbar of Kashmir", and a couple of Bahmani Sultans of Deccan. Abidin was as great as Akbar as he brought back the persecuted Pandits who had fled the Kashmir valley owing to the atrocities of his father Sikandar. Like Akbar, he encouraged Hindu arts and culture. Clearly, if Rana Pratap is the Indian icon of the highest form of patriotism and a god for the ideal Indian nationalist, Akbar is the symbol of India's syncretic culture. The biggest proof of it is that Akbar is a hated figure in orthodox Wahabi Madrasas. The assault of the ultra-Wahabis on India is an assault on Akbar too.