An Indian, not Columbus, found America, says Madhya Pradesh education minister

BHOPAL: It was Indian sailor Vasulun who discovered America, and Vasco da Gama didn’t chart a route to India but only followed an Indian ‘sea merchant’ here, so claims MP minister for higher education, Inder Singh Parmar.

Indian students have been taught the wrong things and references to Columbus and Vasco da Gama will be removed from syllabus, Parmar told reporters in Bhopal on Tuesday.

Parmar was addressing the convocation ceremony at Barkatullah University when he said that “untruth is being taught to Indian students”. “Vasco da Gama had mentioned that a merchant named Chandan was sailing on the same route ahead of him. Chandan discovered India, and not Vasco da Gama. Wrong history is being taught to our students,” the higher education minister argued.

“One more lie that they should not have taught in India is that Columbus discovered America. Students in India have nothing to do with it (knowing who discovered America). And if you taught this, then it should have been about how after Columbus went to America, his people tortured natives of the land and tried to destroy them because the natives worshipped nature, they worshipped the Sun. The way they were killed and their views were altered. But that was not taught to students in India, rather they were told that Columbus discovered America,” Parmar told the gathering of professors, graduates and postgraduates.

Governor Mangubhai Patel and chief minister Mohan Yadav were also at the event.

Parmar claimed that an Indian sailor was the first to arrive on the coast of America and Indian merchants “have been doing business with the Americas since the 11th century”.

“If anyone had to write, they should have acknowledged that India’s great sailor Vasulun reached there in the 8th Century and built many temples in San Diego. These facts are mentioned in a museum there and are also in its library. It should have been recognized that America was discovered by our ancestors and not Columbus,” Parmar asserted. “When we (Vasulun and his men) went there, we cooperated with their culture (of native Indians) and that of the Incas,” he said, adding: “They built a Sun temple in America. So we can claim that Indian traders discovered America and for us America existed before Columbus.”

Speaking to the media, the minister said, “It is established in history that Vasco da Gama did not discover India. We will remove it. India existed before Vasco da Gama came to this country, so the question of ‘discovering India’ does not arise.”

About Columbus’ discovery of America, the minister argued, “Columbus landed in America in 1492 but our country has records to show we started trade relations with America as far back as the 8th Century. There are temples in museums to prove it. Our historians should have taken this evidence into account and taught our students.”

Parmar is no stranger to controversy. In Feb 2022, as school education minister, he triggered a political storm by saying hijab should be banned in schools. The then chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan wasn’t pleased and advised ministers to “exercise restraint while speaking to the media”. “No one should arbitrarily give comments on policy matters,” Chouhan had said.