SAFFRON, THOU DEAREST OF ALL HUES

SAFFRON, THOU DEAREST OF ALL HUES

Here is the hero we should emulate, the great Maharana Pratap Singh whose royal sense of Hindu honour never allowed him to accept Akbar's suzerainty. He waged a lifelong battle against the Mughal tyrant, losing Chittor after the failed Battle of Haldighati, but recovered the rest of his lost territory from the Mughals barring his beloved capital city. Living like an ascetic amidst extreme privation after Haldighati and holding fast onto his vow of such sufferance till he had driven the infidels off the holy land of Rajputana, Maharana Pratap, like Chhatrapati Shivaji and the great Guru Gobind Singh after him, exemplified Hindu resistance to Islamic tyranny and thus laid the foundation of the renaissance of the Sanatan Dharma, civilisation and culture whose early sprouts we are witnessing today. Eternal India will rise round the flag of harmony and renunciation whose emblematic hue is the ochre, the saffron, the colour of the rising sun.

Written by Sugata Bose