Mewar · Arid Northwest

People

Name	Years	Field	Known for
Rana Kumbha	1433–1468	Ruler, builder and musicologist	Built or rebuilt a large part of Mewar's fort architecture, including Kumbhalgarh and the Vijay Stambh at Chittorgarh, and wrote on music — a commentary on the Gita Govinda and treatises on performance are credited to him. He was killed by his own son.
Rana Sanga	1482–1528	Ruler	Assembled the largest Rajput confederacy of its period and lost it to Babur at Khanwa in 1527, a defeat that settled the Mughal position in north India more decisively than Panipat had.
Meera Bai	c. 1498–1547	Poetry and devotion	Born in Merta on the Marwar side and married into the Mewar ruling house at Chittor, she refused the household role that came with it and composed padas to Krishna that are still sung across north India and Gujarat. Her temple stands inside Chittorgarh fort; the tradition places her death at Dwarka.
Maharana Pratap	1540–1597	Ruler	Refused the marriage alliance with the Mughal court that Amber and most of the other Rajput houses accepted, fought Man Singh I at Haldighati in 1576, and spent his remaining years operating from the hills, ruling from Chavand rather than from any of the lost forts.
Rana Punja	—	Bhil chieftain	Led the Bhil contingent with Pratap in the Aravalli campaigns. The Mewar emblem carries a Bhil beside a Rajput for this reason, and the accession rite of the Maharanas involved a Bhil applying the tilak.
Bhamashah	1547–1600	Minister and financier	Mewar's chief minister, who by the chronicles handed over his accumulated wealth to fund the resumption of Pratap's campaign when the state's revenues had gone. His name is still used in Rajasthan as shorthand for private money put to public use.
Maharana Raj Singh I	1629–1680	Ruler	Built the Rajsamand dam as famine relief and had the Raj Prashasti cut into it, and received the Shrinathji image into Mewar in 1672 — the decision that created Nathdwara and, with it, the region's largest continuing economy of painting, dairy and pilgrimage.
Sahibdin	—	Painting	The Mewar court's leading painter in the second quarter of the seventeenth century, who produced a Ragamala in 1628 and the illustrated Ramayana made for Jagat Singh I between 1649 and 1653. He signed his work, which is why the Mewar school can be dated with unusual precision.
Maharana Fateh Singh	1849–1930	Ruler	Travelled to Delhi for the Durbar of 1911 and did not attend the ceremony, a decision Rajasthani tradition attributes to the poet Kesari Singh Barhath's verses urging him to stay away.
Kesari Singh Barhath	1872–1941	Poetry and revolutionary politics	Wrote "Chetavani ra Chungatya", the verses addressed to Fateh Singh about the Durbar, and was imprisoned for his part in armed anti-colonial activity. His son and brother both died in custody or in the same movement.
Vijay Singh Pathik	1882–1954	Peasant organising	Led the Bijolia agitation against levies on Mewar's tenants from 1916, turning a local grievance into the first sustained peasant movement in a princely state.
Manikya Lal Verma	1897–1969	Politics	Founded the Mewar Praja Mandal, worked on the Bhil tracts and on bonded labour, and later became the first Chief Minister of the united Rajasthan formed in 1948.
Mohanlal Sukhadia	1916–1982	Politics	Chief Minister of Rajasthan for seventeen years from 1954, through the period in which the princely states' administrations were dismantled and replaced. Udaipur's university carries his name.
Devilal Samar	1917–1985	Folk arts	Founded the Bhartiya Lok Kala Mandal at Udaipur in 1952 and used it to document, train and tour Rajasthani puppetry and folk performance at a point when both were losing their patrons.

People from Mewar who shaped its history, arts, science, sport and public life. (14)