Ujjain (Madhya Pradesh): The newly announced Chief Minister Mohan Yadav sparked a controversy after he said that the state would try to move the Prime Meridian—a longitude that serves as the global reference for time—from Greenwich in England to Ujjain.
Speaking at the state assembly, Yadav said it was Ujjain that gave the entire world the time some 300 years ago. "We even have ancient instruments to check time.
"The world followed our time—Ujjain's—but Paris began to set the time, and later the British adopted it, considering Greenwich to be the Prime Meridian," he remarked.
He emphasized that his government would work to "correct the time of the world" and promised to "prove that Ujjain is the global Prime Meridian."
Yadav was making reference to an antiquated Hindu astronomical theory that held that Ujjain was once considered to be India's central meridian and that this city controlled the country's time zones and disparities. It is also the basis of time in Hindu calendars. According to the hypothesis, Ujjain is located precisely where the zero meridian and the Tropic of Cancer converge. The oldest observatory in India was founded there in the early 1700s by Sawai Jai Singh II of Jaipur.
The longitude that passes through Greenwich is, in fact, recognized by the 1884 agreement on meridians as the prime or zero meridian. Indian Standard Time (IST) is derived from Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh (UP), which is located at a longitude of 82°30'E. It is 5.30 hours ahead of Greenwich Meridian Time (GMT).
The chief minister of Madhya Pradesh, who assumed office on December 11 following the BJP's resounding victory in the assembly elections, was similarly offended by the widely held notion of midnight.
"What is the reason behind altering the day at midnight when there are two kinds of living creatures in the world—one that is awake during the day and another that is awake at night?" he questioned.
Yadav went on, "Westernisation is ruining the world, and his government will work with scientific minds to reverse this rot."
'Bizarre,' Hits Out Congress
"Our culture is no longer under siege from the adoption of westernization. In order to rectify the global time, we will conduct research at the observatory in Ujjain. The honorable prime minister Narendra Modi will be able to take this to a global scale thanks to research and platform development done by researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Yadav stated.
He asserted that the neighbors of India would back Ujjain's designation as the centre meridian.
"Every nation, including China, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, feels that India will make the final decision on standard time fixing," he continued. Indeed, there's no proof that any other nation would back this kind of approach.
Yadav then attacked the Gregorian calendar, which has been used for about 500 years, claiming that the Hindu calendar, Vikram Samvat, should be given more importance.
Renowned mathematician Aryabhatta has accomplished amazing things in the field of aeronautics. It's time to acknowledge and value our ancient knowledge now. He stated that the Vikram Samvat should take precedence over the Gregorian calendar.
Studies will be conducted on Baba Mahakal and Samrat Vikramaditya, who were renowned for their kindness, bravery, justice, and talent as judges, according to the chief minister.
Following the conventions of time and date keeping, Yadav poked fun at western education.
Yadav praised the New Education Policy, saying, "The Congress did nothing about the error of Macaulay's education policy in 1835. But the New Education Policy, which we (the BJP-led NDA government at the Center) introduced, fixed it.
He was referring to the 1835 Minutes on Education in India by Thomas Babington Macaulay, which helped shape the English Education Act.
"We don't understand why the chief minister spoke about these things in the assembly. We were keen to know the government's development plan, but he gave a speech on this bizarre thing," stated Congress lawmaker Umang Singhar, the leader of the opposition in the state assembly.
