Bhopal: In a strange claim, new Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav said Ujjain is the global Prime Meridian, and not Greenwich in England, and that his government will work towards shifting the line of longitude used as the global reference for time to the Madhya Pradesh city.
Speaking out against rampant “westernisation”, Yadav said that his government will “prove that Ujjain is the global Prime Meridian”, and push for correcting the time of the world.
“It was our (Ujjain’s) time that was known in the world, but Paris started to set the time and later, it was adopted by the British who considered Greenwich the Prime Meridian,” the CM said during a speech in the Assembly.
According to ancient Hindu astronomical belief, Ujjain was once considered to be India’s central meridian and determined the country’s time zones and time differences. It is also the basis of time in the Hindu calendar.
As per belief, Ujjain was located at the precise point of interaction with the zero meridian and Tropic of Cancer. It is where India’s oldest observatory, built by Sawai Jai Singh II of Jaipur in early 18th century, is located.
The 1884 convention on meridians accepted the longitude passing through Greenwich, located in south-east London, as the zero meridian or Prime Meridian. Indian Standard Time, which is 5-and-a-half hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), is calculated from Mirzapur in Uttar Pradesh, which lies on the 82°30’E longitude.
The Madhya Pradesh chief minister, who took charge on December 11 after the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) sweeping victory in the assembly elections, also took umbrage at the extant accepted idea of midnight.
“The world has two types of living beings – one who is awake during the daytime and another awake at night, so what is the logic behind changing the day at midnight?” stated Yadav, who was sworn in as CM on December 11 after BJP’s sweeping electoral win.
“The adoption of westernisation is an attack on our culture, but not anymore. We will do research at the observatory in Ujjain to correct the time of the world. Researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) and Indian Institute of Management (IIM) will do research and develop a platform so that honourable Prime Minister Narendra Modi can take this to the international level,” Yadav said, adding that India’s neighbours will support Ujjain’s anointment as central meridian.
“All the countries, whether China, Pakistan or Afghanistan believe that if it is a matter of fixing standard time, then it will be decided by India,” he claimed.
Yadav also hit out at the Gregorian calendar, which has been accepted globally for nearly five centuries, and opined that the Hindu calendar, or Vikram Samvat, should be recognised.
“Aryabhatta, who is a renowned mathematician, did remarkable work in aeronautics. Now, it’s time to give importance and recognition to our ancient knowledge. Vikram Samvat should be given importance over the Gregorian Calendar,” he said.
Congress slammed the CM’s bizarre speech.
“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 speech on this bizarre thing,” said Umang Singhar, the leader of Opposition in MP assembly.
