Have harmed ourselves by following British edu system: Rajnath

The education system in the country was a British legacy aimed at "subjugating Indian minds" and had led to "cultural pollution", BJP President Rajnath Singh said today.

Singh, who had recently drawn flak for blaming the English language for India's social and cultural ills, asked his party's teachers' wing to think about changes which should be brought in the prevailing academic system to make it suitable for Indian thought and culture.

"Our education system founded by British is behind the cultural pollution today... Many research works being carried out across the world have their roots in India," he said at a meeting of the party's teachers' cell here.

"The British came up with an education system meant to keep our youth uninformed about their rich culture and tradition. We have harmed ourselves by following it," he said.

Universities in ancient India enjoyed more autonomy than do Western institutions today, he said, adding that the literacy level then was close to 95 per cent and even sanitation workers could read and write.

Singh said that noted physicist Werner Heisenberg was inspired by a discussion he had with Rabindranath Tagore on Vedic philosophy which led to the discovery of the 'Uncertainty Principle', his best known work.

The Pythagoras Theorem was first discovered by an Indian mathematician, but Western scientists usurped it, Singh said.

"Indian physicist Satyendra Nath Bose wrote of the God Particle first, before Western scientists established its presence last year," he said.