Originally posted by: shrinath
Its not true. Its true that all Kingdoms of Rajputana except Mewar accepted Akbar's superiority. Its also true that Akbar offered Mansabdari to all the Rajput kings who did accept him as their Emperor. But Rana Udai Singh never accepted Akbar as his Emperor, as shown in the show earlier that he had enmity with Mughals because he believed that his mother Rajmata Karnawati had to commit Jauher because she anticipated that Humayun would come for her help as she sent him a rakhi when Bahadur Shah of Gujarat attacked Mewar. But Humayun did not turn up on time & Karnawati had to go for Jauher, & also he had also lost his father Maharana Sangram Singh in Battle Khawana when the later died fighting the Mughal Army under Babur. The reason of Akbar attacking Mewar was that Udai Singh gave shelter to Baz Bahadur the sultan of Malwa who was on the run from the Mughal Army to avoid being captured by them after loosing his kingdom to Akbar.
The war between Akbar & Maharana Pratap was fought because Pratap wanted his Mewar to be independent land & like his predecessors he to was not ready to bow in front of any foreigner.
Rajnputana kings did fight and try to annex each other's kingdoms, but certain rules were followed. Although there were hundreds of kingdoms , there was always a concept of Bharat since the days of King Bharata, son of Shakuntala, and ancestor of Ram. Kings fought each other , by a set of rules, married amongst each other and acknowledged each other as a part of the same whole. The Mughals and other foreign invaders were indeed foreign. They didnt come from India. They came from outside. India was a land of fabulous wealth. Most of these invaders came in search of tihs wealth. they came to loot, plunder, destroy the land, rape the women , kill the population and leave behind a scorched land so that it could not retaliate later. Mughals were amongst the first to want to come and stay. The annexed kingdoms by hoor or by crook, by whaterver methods that suited them. They didnt follow any rules. And they were indeed outsiders. The history of India is about outsider invaders invading and Indian kings either teamed up to fight them or betrayed their fellow Indian kings to the foreigner for petty gains. So there is no doubt that Akbar at that point was indeed an outsider who came to usurp and snatch their land. The Indian population, esp Hindus , were not treated as equals. Women were taken as slaves and misused. People were forcefully converted else slaughtered. and slavery was imposed on entire kingdoms. Rana Pratap did indeed fight to his last breath. Not everything can be politicized or communalized. A national hero is a national hero. When Akbar changed his ways, tried to became an Indian instead of an invader and looter, started treating his subjects right, then he also became a hero. But that was only in his last years. FOr most of his life, he was a ruthless conqueror, he had thousands of women enslaved in his harem, he slaughtered lakhs of people, imposed ruthless taxes on hindus and forced them to convert. for many years, he was also a man of great debauchery and estreme arrogance. please remember he almost killed his own son jahangir because he was a threat to his throne. this is what history tells us. pls dont bash me up.