Why pitting Rana Pratap against Akbar is unfair

Pitting Maharana Pratap against Mughal emperor Akbar seems to be becoming the favourite strategy of ideological warriors identified in this country by the pacifist Left and hyper-nationalist Hindutva brigade. The latest to join this debate is Rajasthan governor Kalyan Singh, who the other day said that "Rana Pratap was any day a greater figure than Akbar. The comparison is odious because Akbar was a foreigner.” He went a step further and further exposed his lack of historical knowledge: "Akbar did no service to the nation. The suffix of 'great' should be dropped from his name."

But can’t two historical adversaries be both good for the society or the nation, may be for entirely different reasons?

A true patriot never distorts history. For, in these historical distortions are rooted causes of social disharmony, which eventually become an impediment in the progress of a nation. That is certainly the case with India. Many Leftist historians have distorted history to such levels that it has removed the feeling of national pride in section of Indians. They underplay the atrocities on Hindus committed during the Sultanate period for a span of 350 years, starting from 1193 when Shahabuddin Muhammad Ghori defeated Prithviraj Chauhan. Some of them have also tried to underplay Rana Pratap. This they do for their own ideological reasons. On the flip side, the Hindutva brigade doesn’t want to appreciate even those Muslim rulers who were just and tolerant towards the Hindus – like Emperor Akbar, Zainul Abidin of Kashmir, Ibrahim Adil Shah of Bijapur, Abul Hasan of Golkonda, Wajid Ali Shah of Awadh, Emperor Shah Alam-II and even Jehangir to a great extent.

The new antic of one of these ideological brigades is to pit Rana Pratap against Akbar and then quote highly biased historians or writers who have painted Akbar as a villain on the basis of selective and often wrong evidence. Kalyan Singh may be the latest to join this debate but certainly not the last one. Yes, none can match Pratap’s patriotism and that’s the reason why historians like Ishwari Prasad have eugolised his epic struggle against Akbar in the jungles of Aravalli ranges in their works and given him the status of the ultimate icon of Indian patriotism.

But can an honest historian deny Akbar's rightful place in history that he acquired after the bloody seize of Chittor - sold as a blot on Akbar’s name – following his interaction with Jain and Hindu saints, ultimately leading him to ban temple destruction, jiziya tax on Hindus and even killing of cows? It was turning the clock back on a dark Islamic tradition which was being practised by every Muslim ruler in India since 1193 beginning with Sultan Iltutmish. Some Jain texts have very interesting details of the catholicity that Akbar had acquired after his interaction with Jain saints, starting with Acharya Hirvijayji of Gujarat around 1571, which is some three years after the merciless sack of Chittor by him.

But there is another pressing reason at this point of time as to why Akbar should be recognised as reformist Muslim ruler by one and all and be given a place in India’s hall of fame. Today, the Sunni Muslim World is divided into three parts - Ultra-Wahabis, represented by the terror outfits like the dreaded ISIS and their overt or covert sympathisers; the moderate Wahabis, many of whom are in fact fighting ISIS; and the dargah-worshipping Sufis, who are severely opposed to Wahabism. Interestingly, Akbar took strong steps against a fanatical preacher, Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi, when the latter opposed Akbar for his new liberalism towards Hindus identified by his policy of Suleh-Kul (peace between religions) and started provoking the Mughal nobles against him. In this light, shouldn’t those Muslims fighting the ISIS be labelled as the Akbar Brigade ?

To put it plainly, pitting Rana Pratap against Akbar amounts to leaving no place for moderate Muslims in today’s fast changing world, and even in the Indian context, where Islamic terrorism is emanating from a section of Wahabi hardliners and not at all from the Sufi section of Sunni Islam. The distinction between the Sufis, also called Barelvis, and the Wahabis is made by the fact that the Sufis follow syncretic practices that are the foundation of shared Hindu-Muslim culture, while the Wahabis oppose many of these shared customs and practices saying these are un-Islamic or against the principles of puritanical Islam. That after the birth of ISIS and the bloodshed caused by ultra-Wahabi terrorists in Pakistan has turned a section of Wahabis into moderates is another matter.

Significantly, as much 65 per cent of Sunni Muslims in India are still Barelvis or Dargah-worshiping Sufi Muslims and the rest are Wahabis: identified in India and Pakistan as followers of the Deoband School, its missionary wing Tabligh Jamaat and another tanzim called Ahle Hadis, which is followed by Lashkar-e-Toiba in Pakistan. So, Akbar’s new usefulness as a symbol of Islamic liberalism just can’t be denied.

A curious friend recently asked as to whether Aurangzeb and Afzal Khan, the fanatical Bijapuri general who was killed by Chattrapati Shivaji in an epic duel on November 10, 1659, were Sufis ? I told him that is irrelevant after 9/11 because not a single terrorist today comes from amongst the Sufis of the Dargah-worshipping Muslims in any part of the world. So, Sufis have to be labelled as moderates.