Lord Krishna A Literature Specialist, Sam Manekshaw A Sportsman, Says Gujarat Govt Website

As activists campaign online to #RemoveMughalsFromTextBooks, a movement to rewrite Indian history to exclude the Mughal invaders, a Gujarat government website has described Sam Hormusji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw, one of India’s greatest military leaders, as a sportsman.

A Gorkha soldier, unable to navigate the Parsi tongue twister, had purportedly shortened Manekshaw’s name to Sam Bahadur. Sam Bahadur, or Sam the Fearless, was feted for his role in the 1971 Bangladesh liberation war and was the first Indian Army officer to be promoted to the rank of Field Marshal.

But, the team behind the website is either not aware of all this history or have let a blatant error run on a state government portal accessed by millions.

In a section called the ‘Land of the Legends’, the state website lists the celebrated people of the land. Except, that they got their history a little messed up.

There’s more.

Apparently, Lord Krishna was a specialist in literature.

General Rajendrasinhji Jadeja, who was India’s second Army chief, is described as a sportsperson too. Gijubhai Badheka, revered as one of Gujarat’s greatest education reformists, is listed among top Gujarati industrialists or ‘mahajans’ such as Premchand Raichand, Jamshedji Tata and Kasturbhai Lalbhai.

Meanwhile, Gujarat’s founder, Sultan Ahmed Shah, has been categorized as a person known for “meditation”.

Meanwhile, General Administration Department (GAD) secretary (services) Dhananjay Dwivedi told the Times Of India that it’s not their fault. “The official website of the Gujarat government is being managed by a private IT firm. It is not managed by GAD,” he said.

Published on Huffington Post