BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh’s higher education minister Inder Singh Parmar claimed that Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama did not discover the sea route to India, but merely followed an Indian sea merchant Chandan. He also said that it wasn’t Christopher Columbus, but Indian sailor Vasulun, who could have actually discovered America.Addressing the convocation ceremony of state government’s Barkatullah University in Bhopal, the minister said that to rule India for long, the British destroyed its education policy and it is best exemplified by the distorted history taught to our students for generations.“I’ll give examples of two myths/wrong facts, which have been written by the past historians and taught to the students. The history written by them tells that Vasco da Gama discovered the sea route to India. Had they (our past historians) read his Atmkatha (autobiography) before writing the history books, our students would’ve felt proud about their ancestors. Vasco da Gama didn’t discover the sea route to India, but merely followed an Indian sea merchant from Gujarat named Chandan, who rode a three-four times bigger ship than the Portuguese explorer’s ship,” the minister claimed.“What was the need to teach our students about America’s discovery by Columbus? Instead of teaching that Columbus discovered America, our students should’ve been taught about how Columbus’s people tortured natives of that land and destroyed their rich culture, as they were worshippers of nature, including the sun. It was a great Indian sailor Vasulun, who reached there (America) in the 8th century and built many temples in San Diego. These facts can be found in a museum and a library there. Hence it should have been recognized that America was discovered by our ancestors and not Columbus,” Parmar claimed further.Parmar didn’t end there, he added that while it’s written that the first Olympic Games were held around 2800 years back which meant that stadiums and spirit of sports started from there only. “Past archaeological excavations in Gujarat’s Rann of Kutch have unearthed the remains of two big stadiums which were 5500 years old. This means that our ancestors knew in detail about sports and built big stadiums thousands of years before the modern Olympic Games started,” Parmar said in presence of the MP Governor Mangubhai C Patel and the CM Dr Mohan Yadav.He added that the New Education Policy of the current Central government has paved the way for our scholars and experts to research afresh and deny the misleading facts written in our textbooks and curriculums in the past.
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