Javed Akhtar took to Twitter to criticise Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb
After Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb
claimed that satellite communication and the internet existed during the Mahabharata, poet and lyricist Javed Akhtar took to social media today to hit back at the Chief Minister, saying that "any religious belief in the world is only as logical and reasonable as the beliefs of this man (Biplab Kumar Deb)". Mr Akhtar also criticised those who were "making fun" of Mr Deb, saying that they should "look at their own religious beliefs".
After Mr Deb's remarks, saying that Mahabharata's king Dhritarashtra was getting updates from the battle of Kurukshetra, social media exploded with memes and jokes, from both celebrities and ordinary social media users, which gave many other mythological events a modern day twist.
In one tweet, writer Richa Singh claimed that if the internet had existed at the time, "all data services would have been suspended in Kurukshetra".
Comedian Sapan Verma questioned why the Pandavas played dice, instead of a popular internet poker game.
One Twitter user, in a reply to Mr Akhtar's tweet, claimed to have unearthed a giant pen drive from the Mahabharata, claiming sage Vyasa carried "a soft copy" of the Mahabharata on the pen drive.
Historian Audrey Truschke said that Krishna "really should have streamed the Bhagavad-Gita on Facebook Live".
Many supported Mr Akhtar, saying that there was a difference between 'belief' and 'fact'.
Mr Deb hit back at the "
narrow minded people" a day after he made the remarks, saying that they found it "tough to believe" and that "Indians should consider their nation to be the greatest".
Mr Deb is not the first BJP leader to claim that modern day technology existed in mythology. In January, Satyapal Singh, a junior education minister in PM Modi's cabinet, criticised the theory of evolution, claiming "
nobody saw apes turn into human". In February, he said
'mantras' had codified Newton's Laws of Motion.
Y Sudershan Rao, chairman of India's leading historical organisation, said that Indians had been flying aeroplanes, had carried out stem cell research and used cosmic weapons 5,000 years ago.
In October 2014,
PM Modi claimed that Lord Ganesha had perhaps benefitted from plastic surgery- an elephant head placed on his human body. He had also said that the account of Karna's birth in the Mahabharata indicated that "people were aware of genetic science".