The army of Mewar now raided all the Mughal trade caravans going from Delhi to Surat.
The Bhils of the Aravalis also supported him. It is a testament to the respect the young king had amongst his subjects that they obeyed him and left for the mountains. He commanded his subjects to leave for the Aravali mountains and leave behind nothing for the approaching enemy – and the war would be fought in a mountain terrain which the Mewar army was used to but not the Mughals. He moved his capital to Kumbhalgarh, where he was born. In preparation for the inevitable war with the Mughals, Maharana Pratap decided to change the city of his administration. Shakti Singh, one of Pratap's younger brothers who was now with the Mughal army, is said to have fled the Mughal court temporarily to warn his brother of Akbar's actions. However, Sagar, regretted his own treachery, and committed suicide with a dagger in the Mughal Court. He appointed Kunwar Sagar Singh, younger brother of Pratap, to rule the conquered territory. Akbar then tried to turn the people of the Chittor district against their king so that they would not help Pratap.
With the failure of efforts to negotiate a peace treaty in 1573, Akbar blocked Mewar from the rest of the world and alienated Mewar's traditional allies, some of whom were Maharana Pratap's own kith and kin. Akbar’s course of action like any tyrant was first try with false promises of peace, if it did not work attack by treason. The lines were completely drawn now - Akbar understood that Maharana Pratap would never submit and he would have to use his troops against Mewar. Maharana Pratap, was infuriated that his fellow Rajput was with someone who had forced the submission of all Rajputs. The last of these missions was headed by Raja Man Singh, the brother-in-law of Akbar. In 1573, Akbar sent six diplomatic missions to Mewar to get Rana Pratap to agree to his orders, but Rana Pratap turned down each one of them. In this part, I am going to talk about his battles with Akbar and his beloved horse Chetak.Īkbar sent several emissaries to Mewar to get Rana Pratap to agree to sign a treaty, but Pratap was only willing to sign a peace treaty whereby the sovereignty of Mewar would be intact. In the last part, I spoke about the great city of Chittor & one of her greatest sons – Bharat ka veer putra – Maharana Pratap.