Madhya Pradesh's Higher Education Minister Inder Singh Parmar has claimed that America was discovered by "our Indian ancestors", and not by Christopher Columbus as taught to students.

He also claimed students have been taught "wrong history" that Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama discovered India.

Parmar was addressing the convocation function at the Barkatullah University in Bhopal on Tuesday.

In his address, the minister said, "Columbus discovered America...Indian students had nothing to do with this. If they had to be taught, they should have also been taught how people in the post-Columbus period tortured the natives and destroyed the tribal society there, because the society was worshipper of nature, worshipper of the Sun."

"(It should have been taught) how they were killed, how they were converted. But unfortunately, the correct facts were not taught," he said.

On the contrary, Indian students are taught that Columbus discovered America, Parmar said.

"I want to say that if someone had to write, they should have written that India's great hero Vasuloon went there in the eighth century and built many temples in Santiago in America. These facts are still written in a museum there. These facts are still kept in a library there," he said.

Parmar said the students should have been taught correctly that it was "our ancestors in India" who discovered America and not Christopher Columbus.

"When we (our ancestors) went there, we cooperated with the local culture of that place, the Mayan culture which was prevalent there, in their development. This is India's thought and philosophy which needed to be taught to the students," he added.

The minister also said students have been taught that Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama discovered India.

Historians could have taught the right history by studying the autobiography of Vasco da Gama, he said.

Vasco da Gama expressed the wish to see Bharat to Chandan, a Gujarati trader, at the Zanzibar port of Africa through an interpreter, the minister said.

Chandan told Vasco da Gama to follow his ship and thus the Portuguese explorer reached India, he said.

Vasco da Gama himself wrote that Indian trader Chandan's ship was much bigger than his, but students were taught wrong history that the Portuguese explorer discovered India, Parmar said.