Minister mocked over claims the internet was invented by ancient Indians

A minister has been ridiculed after claiming the internet was invented by ancient Indians thousands of years ago.

Biplab Deb, chief minister of the north-eastern state of Tripura, was blasted as "regressive" and "anti-intellectual" after making the remarks at a Regional Workshop on Computerisation and Reforms.

According to him, in the ancient Hindu epic Mahabharata, an epic battle was relayed to a blind king by a narrator with the help of the internet.

According to local press he said: "I congratulate the [National Information Centre] for their jobs but you people didn’t discover technology.

"It was discovered much earlier. Even the European countries can claim that they have invented the technology but in reality, the technology was ours."

Rewriting the history of modern science is a persistent practice in India with Prime Minister Narendra Modi one of the culprits.

Mr Modi told medics at Mumbai hospital in 2014 that the existence of the Hindu god Ganesha showed plastic surgery took place in ancient India, since a doctor must have attached the elephant's head to a human body.

Junior education minister Satyapal Singh last year claimed planes were mentioned in ancient Indian texts and that an Indian made a working aircraft eight years before the Wright brothers.

Writing on social media, Indians pointed out that such unverified claims could be damaging.

One woman wrote: "The anti-intellectualism and regressive streak from sections of [Mr Deb's party] the BJP continues to astound and worry.

"Rather than solve today’s problems they’re busy romanticizing a fictional past that never existed. Pathetic and embarrassing."

Another wrote: "Seeing the Mahabharata as offering proof of modern technology in ancient India cheapens the epic.

"It flattens an incredible piece of literature/ethical treatise/religious work to serving as a salve for the 2018 anxieties of Hindu nationalists."