Gavin Thomas | Rough Guide to Rajasthan, Delhi & Agra, extract

	Udai Singh II: founder of Udaipur The founder of Udaipur, Udai Singh II (1522-72, reigned from 1540), is one of the most intriguing of all Rajput rulers, alternately vilified as the leader who abandoned his kingdom's ancestral capital at Chittaurgarh (Chittor) to the Mughals, and celebrated as the founder of the new city which bears his name. Udai's accession to the throne of Mewar is itself the stuff of Rajput legend. The youngest of four brothers, it was never expected that he would succeed to the throne, but by the time Udai had reached the age of 15 his three elder brothers had all met violent deaths - the last at the hands of Udai's cousin Banbir, who had determined to seize the throne for himself. Anxious to eliminate the final surviving brother, Banbir set out to murder the young Udai while he slept in the fort at Chittor. Udai's nurse, Panna Dhai hid the young heir and put her own son in Udai's bed, looking on while he was murdered by Banbir, who promptly declared himself king of Mewar, believing that he had extinguished all rival claimants to the throne. Panna Dhai spirited the young Udai away from Chittor and, following an arduous journey of several weeks, eventually found refuge at the fort of Kumbalgarh, where Udai Singh lived incognito for the next two years until old enough to march upon Chittor and reclaim his rightful inheritance. Banbir was driven into exile, never to be heard of again.
	Having seen off rival Mewari claimants to his kingdom, Udai Singh faced an even greater challenge to his rule in the form of the great Mughal emperor Akbar (1542-1605), who had determined to subjugate the various independent kingdoms of Rajasthan and bring them into the Mughal fold. Previous Mughal rulers had been unable to subdue the fiery Rajputs, but Akbar's more subtle approach - using intermarriage and the forging of alliances with the region's ruling families rather than attempts at outright military conquest - had already borne considerable fruit. All such attempts to coerce Udai Singh into an alliance with the Mughal empire, however, were steadily rebuffed, while Udai Singh poured scorn on those Rajput rulers (such as the Chauhans of Amber) who had come to terms with the Muslim invaders.
	The scene for a decisive clash between Akbar, the ruler of Muslim India, and Udai Singh, the figurehead of Hindu resistance in the north, was thus set. Akbar determined to attack Chittor and bring the kingdom of Mewar to heel once and for all. Upon Hearing of the planned attack, Udai Singh, instead of defending the fort against whatever odds, in time-honoured Rajput style, simply abandoned Chittor to the care of eight thousand soldiers and ran off to the fledgling city of Udaipur, in which he had already established a palace back in 1559. This act of apparently brazen cowardice called down the wrath of centuries of commentators upon Udai Singh's unsuspecting head. The British historian Colonel Tod, in his celebrated Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan (1829), described Udai Singh as "a coward succeeding a bastard to guide the destinies of the Sesodias," declaring that "well had it been for Mewar . . . had the annals never recorded the name of Oody Singh in the catalogue of her princes". Others echoed his view, characterising Udai Singh as a "craven prince", "the unworthy son of a noble sire" and so forth. Modern historians have seen the matter somewhat differently, however. Realizing the impossibility of defending Chittor against the armies of Akbar, it is argued, Udai Singh made a strategic withdrawal to a more secure position from which the independence of the state of Mewar could be far more easily guaranteed. In this respect, history has proved him right. Chittor duly fell in 1568, after a protracted and bloody siege, though by that time Udai Singh was safely established in his new capital, from where he continued to defy Akbar up until his death in 1572. Udaipur itself has flourished since its foundation right up to the present day, while, interestingly, the city founded by his adversary Akbar at Fatehpur Sikri lasted barely two decades before falling into terminal decline.
	From the Rough Guide to Rajasthan, Delhi & Agra, edition 1 (2007)

Udai Singh II: founder of Udaipur