“I bow to Hasan Khan Mewati, the revolutionary who sacrificed his life for Bharat,” Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini recently said at a rally in Nuh's Punhana while campaigning for Union minister Rao Inderjit Singh, the BJP's incumbent MP and candidate in the Gurgaon Lok Sabha constituency. CM Saini was praising the 16th century Mewat ruler Raja Hasan Khan Mewati who fought against Mughal emperor Babur in the Battle of Panipat in 1526 as well as the Battle of Khanwa in 1527, in which he was killed. The Haryana BJP leaders have been showering praises on Mewati in their campaigning in the Muslim-dominated Nuh belt in the Mewat region that encompasses parts of Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. On March 9, barely three days before he was replaced by Saini, then CM Manohar Lal Khattar unveiled Mewati's statue at Badkali Chowk in Nuh, declaring the day as “Shaheedi Diwas (martyrdom day)”. Claiming that no government has commemorated Raja Mewati, Khattar said a research chair will be established in his name in the Shaheed Hasan Khan Mewati Medical College, Nalhar, which was built during the Congress regime. Khattar, who also unveiled Mahatma Gandhi's statue then, said, “External elements are seeking to disrupt the unity of Mewat’s community and residents should uphold the spirit of brotherhood, drawing inspiration from the patriotism of Shaheed Raja Mewati.” This was the first time Khattar was reaching out to the Muslim community after the riots that broke out in Nuh and adjoining areas in July last year. Addressing the Punhana rally, CM Saini called Nuh a “holy land” where Mewati was born. “We should be proud that Raja Mewati along with his army of 12,000 soldiers did not bow to Babur and died fighting. Over these years, no government has ever acknowledged him and I am happy to say that if someone has done it, it is former CM Khattar who celebrated his martyrdom day at Badkali Chowk. “ The CM also said, “In the past ten years, Mewat has seen a new development phase while other governments have only seen Mewat as a vote bank. They would only give false promises and would work for getting votes and not development.” Mewati has been lauded by the leaders of the Sangh Parivar earlier too. In 2015, in Rajasthan's Bharatpur, RSS Sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat said that Mewar king Rana Sanga's warrior Hasan Khan Mewati had rejected Babur's offer to join his army and was a “Bharat Mata putra” (son of India). "Hasan had said that his language, caste and religion might be the same as Babur but he was first Indian and Bharat Mata putra," Bhagwat said. In 2021, the RSS chief asked Muslims to emulate “fellow patriots” like Mewati. Raja Mewati Born in Alwar in the Khanzada dynasty, the Muslim Rajput king Hasan Khan Mewati was called Shah-e-Mewat and the Kotwal of Delhi. He was the maternal cousin of Delhi sultan Ibrahim Lodi and his family had strong ties with other Delhi sultans before Lodi, including the Tughlaqs, says a Mewat-based historian Siddique Ahmed Meo. In the First Battle of Panipat in 1526, Babur defeated Ibrahim Lodi, marking the end of the Delhi Sultanate and the beginning of the Mughal rule in India. In this battle, not only was Lodi killed, but Hasan Khan Mewati’s father Alawal Khan also died and his son Tahir was taken hostage. Siddique points out that Mewati then joined hands with Rana Sanga, the ruler of Mewar, to fight the Mughal king. During negotiations for the release of his son, Babur asked Mewati to join him as they were both “Muslim brothers”. “But Babur was snubbed because Mewati said he would fight with his ‘blood brother’, Rana Sanga. Aligning with Lodi’s brother Mahmud Lodi and Sanga, Mewati rode to the Battle of Khanwa in 1527, but Sanga and Lodi were injured and left the battlefield. Mewati took charge and fought ferociously, as per Baburnama,” says Siddique, adding that Mewati died after being hit by a cannon fire. The battle was won by Babur, largely owing to the use of artillery. Siddique claims that according to Baburnama, Sanga’s men had offered to help Babur in defeating Lodi. What is a complex historical episode is now being appropriated for political gains, he says. “Over the last 20 years, locals have been trying to revive the history and we have unearthed documents surrounding Mewati. When the BJP decided to erect a statue, they asked for these documents and depictions of Mewati. We provided everything, but the statue sports a face very different from that of Mewati. They gave him an Islamicised face as opposed to the Rajput-style beard Mewati is supposed to have. People raised objections, but they were ignored,” says Siddique. The Congress leaders, meanwhile, refuting the BJP’s allegations that Mewati was never acknowledged, said the medical college in Nalhar was named after him to celebrate his legacy. “The hospital was built during the Congress government, but since the BJP came to power, there has been no effort to improve the facilities here. It is being reduced to a centre that refers patients to other hospitals,” a Congress leader said. BJP's poll push As part of its Lok Sabha poll campaign in Haryana, the BJP has been reaching out to the Muslim community, which is especially concentrated in Nuh district. Although the Muslim population in the state is 7%, the community accounts for about 79% population in Nuh. Nuh district has three Assembly segments – Nuh, Ferozepur Jhirka and Punhana – which come under the Gurgaon parliamentary seat. Currently, these three seats are represented by the Congress MLAs. Rao Inderjit has been representing the Gurgaon seat since 2009. In recent weeks Nuh has seen intense campaigning by the BJP leaders, including Saini, Khattar and Rao Inderjit. They have also focused on development, maintaining how a backward belt like Nuh, which had been at the bottom in the list of the Niti Aayog's aspirational district programme in 2018, has risen on various parameters now. Nuh is the only district in the National Capital Region to be part of this programme. In the 2019 polls, Rao Inderjit had defeated the Congress's Capt Ajay Singh Yadav by 3.86 lakh votes. This time, he is taking on Congress candidate Raj Babbar. Addressing a rally in Ferozepur Jhirka last week, Rao Inderjit said they pursued a politics of development in Mewat and not of caste or community. “My family has a shared history with generations of Mewat. We fought for Independence together. In my entire political life, I have never discriminated against anyone based on their region,” he said. At the same rally, Khattar claimed Muslims have been more secure under the Narendra Modi government than the Congress regime. “In the 1980s and 1990s, we used to often hear news about riots in Meerut, Aligarh, Delhi, Kanpur and other places. But now there are no Hindu-Muslim clashes in the country,” he said. The 10 Haryana seats are going to polls in the sixth phase on May 25. In the 2019 polls, the BJP had swept the state, winning all of them.
