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India invented the internet thousands of years ago

by on19 April 2018


Government minister touts ancient Indian engineering feat 

Ancient Indians invented the internet thousands of years ago, according to an Indian government minister.

Biplab Deb, who is the chief minister of the north eastern state of Tripura, made the comments at a public function and quoted the Hindu epic Mahabharata to prove his point.

In case you could not guess, Deb is a member of the Hindu nationalist BJP government.  This party, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has claimed many modern day scientific or technological achievements were invented many centuries ago by Indians.

More recently, in September, junior education minister Satyapal Singh raised a few eyebrows when he claimed that the airplane was first mentioned in the ancient Hindu epic Ramayana. In 2014 Modi told a gathering of doctors and medical staff at a Mumbai hospital that cosmetic surgery existed in ancient India.

Deb claimed that the battle of Kurukshetra (3102 BCE) in the Mahabharata (8-9th century BCE)  proved the existence of not just the internet, but also satellite technology in ancient India.

He said the fact that one of the characters in the epic, Sanjaya, had been able to give a blow-by-blow account of a battle that was taking place many miles away to his king Dhritarashtra proved India had access to both technologies.

"We are an old culture and civilisation and we have been using technology for past several years. This is nothing new to us", said Deb further.

More rational people are pointing out on the worldwide web that comments like this are why nationalism and religion make for poor leaders and the combination of the two is a perfect storm of stupidity. 

Even after he unleashed an internet storm, Deb was unrepentant.

"Every Indian should have a common thinking that India is best and superior country all around the world. My country had the technology years ago, which no country had. I am proud of that and I think every Indian should feel proud. I want to repeat that we should accept the truth and should not get confused."

While many right wing thinkers earlier concluded that this was evidence of television technology, Deb was convinced that it was something even more advanced. "There was technology available at that time... internet was there, satellite communication was there... The Europeans and the Americans may claim that it is theirs, but it is actually our technology", Deb said.

 

"We are an old culture and civilisation and we have been using technology for past several years. This is nothing new to us," said Deb further.
"We are an old culture and civilisation and we have been using technology for past several years. This is nothing new to us," said Deb further.

 

 

Last modified on 19 April 2018
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