India: Maharana Pratap Singh, ruler of Mewar, Rajasthan (r. 1568-1597)

Maharana Pratap Singh (9 May 1540 – 29 January 1597) was a Hindu Rajput ruler of Mewar, a region in north-western India in the present day state of Rajasthan. In popular Indian culture, Pratap is considered to exemplify qualities like bravery and chivalry to which Rajputs aspire, especially in context of his opposition to the Mughal emperor Akbar.

The struggle between the Rajput confederacy led by Pratap Singh, and the Mughal Empire under Akbar, has often been characterised as a struggle between Hindus and the invading Muslims, much on the same lines as the struggle between Shivaji and Aurangzeb a little less than a century later.

Maharana Pratap was a Hindu Rajput. He saw the Mughals as foreigners who had invaded India and therefore refused to surrender to them or accept their rule. His father, Udai Singh, had condemned the house of Man Singh for their marriage with unclean foreigners and Pratap Singh said that he would call Akbar only a 'Turk' and not an emperor.

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