Amid charges that the Modi government is saffronising education, Union Parliamentary Affairs Minister M Venkaiah Naidu here today pitched for Indianisation of country's history and advocated as mandatory its teaching among children.
"If we forget our own civilisation and roots, our country cannot survive for long and it cannot inspire coming generations. So, there is every need to know your history, heritage, culture, civilisation and past. If you want to plan for the future, you must know your past, or else you will be lost," Naidu said at a book release function.
"There is every need to Indianise the Indian history and make it mandatory for all children. The new generation must be made to read history," the senior BJP leader said.
Western historians and their followers had distorted the chronology and concocted many false theories that suited their purpose, Naidu said.
Since western and colonial historians nurtured a bias against the traditional chronology of ancient India, the majority of historians, particularly those with leftist leanings, got patronised by certain sections of the political establishment, he said.
Many in India's intellectual elite continue to promote the notion that pre-colonial India was feudalistic, pre-rational and by implication, in need of being invaded for its own benefit, the Union Minister said.
"I am told that present research work is completely based on the comprehensive study of chronological contents of inscriptions. I hope that present research work not only re-discovers the exact epochs of various ancient Indian eras as mentioned in inscriptions but also conclusively expose the fallacy of chronology in modern textbooks of Indian history," he added.
