The Rajputs: Mewar and Marwar traditions

Detail

Why the Rajputs stood at the front line

• Location decided their role. The Rajput kingdoms sat in northwest India — the same corridor through which invading armies entered the subcontinent. Any force marching on Delhi or Gujarat had to pass near them.
• Inherited fighting traditions. They were proud of the older dynasties they traced themselves to — above all the Pratiharas, who had resisted the Arab invasions of Sindh centuries earlier. Resistance was treated as a family duty, not a one-off choice.
• Rebuilding after the Khilji conquests. The Khiljis broke Rajput power, but the clans put their kingdoms back together. Out of that rebuilding two big clans rose:
• Mewar (south-central Rajasthan, later centred on Udaipur)

• Marwar (the dry western tract around Jodhpur)

• Memory kept alive by song. Their heroic deeds still travel through popular ballads sung in villages — an oral record, not only a written one.

• The term Rana is a title used by Rajput kings, like "king" or "chief ruler". It is not a personal name.

Rana Kumbha (15th century) — the fort-builder of Mewar

• Ruler of Mewar who resisted the Delhi Sultanate and also pushed back invasions from the later regional sultanates (the independent Muslim kingdoms that broke away from Delhi, such as Malwa and Gujarat).
• Built Kumbhalgarh Fort in the Aravalli hills. Its defence came from nature first:
• thick forests all around

• steep slopes that tire and slow an attacking army

• Famous for its 36-kilometre wall — one of the longest continuous walls in the world.

• The fort is entered through a chain of seven gateways — Aret Pol, Halla Pol, Hanuman Pol, Ram Pol, Vijay Pol, Nimboo Pol and Bhairon Pol. Each gate is a fresh obstacle, so an attacker must break through seven times, not once. [3]
• Kumbhalgarh was built in one single building programme, so its design stays consistent throughout; only the palace of Fateh Singh was added later. [2]
• Its design is credited to a named architect, Mandan, who was also a writer and theorist at Rana Kumbha's court in Chittorgarh — rare, because most medieval Indian builders are anonymous. [2]
• Kumbhalgarh is one of six forts in the Hill Forts of Rajasthan, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2013. The other five are at Chittorgarh, Sawai Madhopur (Ranthambore), Jhalawar (Gagron), Jaipur (Amber) and Jaisalmer. [2][4]
• UNESCO notes these forts show the power of Rajput princely states from the 8th to the 18th centuries, and that they all use natural defences — hills, desert, rivers and thick forest. [2]

Note: UNESCO's description says the fort walls run "up to 20 kilometres in circumference" [2], while NCERT gives Kumbhalgarh's wall as 36 kilometres. Follow the NCERT figure of 36 km for the exam; the difference is one of what is being measured (outer perimeter versus total wall run).

Rana Sanga (early 16th century) — the last united Rajput push

• United several Rajput clans under one command. This was the high point of Rajput power — normally the clans fought as separate kingdoms.
• Won many battles against sultans before the Mughals arrived.
• By the 1520s his confederacy was strong enough to threaten the whole political order of north India, which is why Babur led an expedition against him in person instead of sending a noble. [5]
• Defeated by Babur at the Battle of Khanwa (Khanua), fought on 16 March 1527. [4]
• Rana Sanga's army is estimated at about 100,000 horses and 500 elephants — far larger in numbers. [4]
• Babur won by method, not size: a barrier of carts across his centre, with gaps left for artillery and for cavalry to charge out, plus wheeling cavalry attacks on both wings. [4]

• The artillery frightened the elephants into stampeding, which broke Sanga's own lines. [4]

• After Khanwa the short-lived unity of the Rajput clans faded quickly, and they went back to fighting as separate kingdoms. [5]

Jauhar — resistance at the last stage

• Jauhar = Rajput women jumping into mass fires when a fort was about to fall, so that invading armies could not capture and enslave them.
• It was the final act of resistance once defeat was certain — not a battle tactic but a refusal to be taken.
• Remembered in Rajput tradition as a heroic act of preserving honour.
• At the fall of Chittorgarh to Akbar, hundreds of women, led by their queens, committed jauhar. (Fuller treatment in the mughal-empire topic, section 3.)
• Chittorgarh (Chittorgarh district) is itself one of the six UNESCO-listed Hill Forts of Rajasthan. [2]

Prelims Hooks

• Rana is a title of Rajput kings, not a personal name.
• The Pratiharas are the earlier dynasty remembered for resisting the Arab invasions of Sindh.
• Two major Rajput clans emerged after the Khilji conquests: those of Mewar and Marwar.
• Kumbhalgarh Fort was built by Rana Kumbha in the Aravalli hills; its wall runs 36 km.
• Kumbhalgarh's seven gateways: Aret, Halla, Hanuman, Ram, Vijay, Nimboo, Bhairon Pol. [3]
• Kumbhalgarh's design is credited to the architect Mandan, of Rana Kumbha's court at Chittorgarh. [2]
• Hill Forts of Rajasthan — 6 forts, UNESCO World Heritage inscription 2013: Chittorgarh, Kumbhalgarh, Ranthambore (Sawai Madhopur), Gagron (Jhalawar), Amber (Jaipur), Jaisalmer. [2][4]
• Battle of Khanwa: 16 March 1527 — Babur defeated Rana Sanga. [4]
• At Khanwa, Babur's artillery stampeded Rana Sanga's elephants; Sanga's force is put at about 100,000 horses and 500 elephants. [4]
• Jauhar at Chittorgarh happened when the fort fell to Akbar.

Mains Points

• Geography plus memory made the Rajputs the front line. Their northwest position put them on the invasion route, and their claimed descent from the Pratiharas — who had fought the Arabs in Sindh — turned resistance into an inherited duty. Useful for arguing that regional resistance was shaped by both terrain and political memory, not only by military capacity.
• Forts as a strategy of survival, not just buildings. Kumbhalgarh's 36 km wall, seven successive gates [3], forested and steep approaches, and the wider Hill Forts of Rajasthan pattern of using hills, rivers and desert [2] show a deliberate doctrine: make the attacker pay for every metre, since the Rajputs could rarely match Sultanate or Mughal field armies.
• Khanwa marks a technology gap, not a courage gap. Sanga had the bigger army, yet Babur's field artillery and cart-barrier tactics decided the day [4]. Good evidence for the standard GS-I argument that gunpowder changed the balance of power in 16th-century India.
• Unity was the Rajputs' weak point. Sanga briefly united several clans, and Rajput strength peaked; after his defeat that unity dissolved quickly [5]. This explains why later resistance was clan-by-clan (Mewar, Marwar separately) rather than a single Rajput front against the Mughals.