In line with the Hindu right-wing’s consistent effort to meddle with history, and the way it is taught, Rajnath Singh of the vedic science fame has come up with another suggestion: if Mughal emperor Akbar is called Akbar the Great, then Maharana Pratap, the ruler of Mewar, a small part of present day Rajasthan, should be called Maharana Pratap the Great.Great.We cannot stop anybody from calling anyone great. If Akbar can be called great, then so can Asoka. Nehru is great, Modi is also great. We are all great, or not. Whatever. So if you want to call him Maharana Pratap Singh the Great, go right ahead. Never mind the fact that when you call Pratap Singh a "Maharana" you are actually according a higher status to him.But when you fiddle around with textbooks, then you have to look at facts, and the other side of the argument.The fact is, Maharana Pratap was nearly not as great as Akbar.Pratap Singh, son of Udai Singh, was a fearless warrior. He is known to be a great military strategist who fought till the end, and lost.Pratap Singh was initially inclined to be a Mugal vassal, but on his own terms. Initially, he sent his son Amar Singh to the court of Akbar as an act of submission. But Akbar wanted Pratap to submit to the Mughal throne personally. Pratap would have none of it, so he went to war.Akbar did not lead the army, so he sent one of his generals. Apparently Akbar thought the war with Pratap Singh was not big enough for him. The Mughals crushed the Mewaris.Pratap however escaped to the jungles and fought till the end. The skirmishes between Mughals and Mewaris came to an end only when Pratap’s son Amar surrendered to Jahangir, Akbar’s successor. But history is proof that, given the circumstances, Pratap was brave and he deserves to be in the list of the best warriors in Indian history.Akbar, though, was a ruler of another kind. For one, Pratap Singh’s kingdom was a small part of what is today Rajasthan. Akbar had a real empire, from present day Afghanistan, cutting across the Indian heartland, up to the present day Bihar. The military inquisitions under his watch were of much bigger scale.More importantly, Akbar’s contribution to governance, society and religion can be matched perhaps by only one other Indian ruler, Asoka.Akbar reformed administrative systems. The economy expanded during his rule. The efficient Mansabadari system of organizing the army began under his watch. In the later part of his regime, he was tolerant towards other religions and unorthodox sects within Islam. He tried to bring religions together at least at a philosophical level. He focussed on cultural integration. He also attempted to reform society by setting a minimum age for marriage for boys and girls, disapproved of dowry and encouraged widow remarriage. He also decreed that Muslim boys not be circumcised before a particular age. His earlier days, however, were indeed darker.Knowing what we know of Akbar and Maharana Pratap, it is unfair to the Maharana to be compared with Akbar. The Maharana is known for his bravery, but Akbar had the wisdom and opportunity to go beyond just military inquisitions and wars.Having said that, our perspective on history must not be based on who is great and who isn’t. All of them were brutal rulers, and we must stop glorifying them. Akbar’s military inquisitions came at a huge human price. These are grey areas which are missed in our gushing admiration for those we want to glorify in the name of our ideologies. Indian history must stop being reverential, and instead focus on learning from the mistakes of the past. Ideologues of all hues, be it the Hindu right wing or Marxist historians, are guilty of manipulating history to serve their political ends. We must move on.