Para on Mughals Removed, Culture Section Turned Into Photo Gallery on Govt Site

Image used for representational purposes.

(Photo: Screenshot/knowindia.gov.in)

The ‘Culture and Heritage’ section of knowindia.gov.in has been turned into a photo gallery, days after the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) removed a paragraph on the Mughal Empire from its website, following outrage on social media on the description of the Mughal Empire as one of the “greatest ever”.

The culture section which used to show India’s history, tradition, monuments, arts and other activities, now displays 30 photographs showcasing India’s dance forms and monuments.

The “corrected text, portraying the actual history” will be uploaded on the website in the coming weeks, sources told The Indian Express.

The Ministry of Culture had distanced itself from the description and said in a tweet, “It has been brought to the Ministry’s notice about content in Know India website (knowIndia.gov.in) that misrepresents India’s history. The Ministry of Culture does not run this website and is working with the concerned entities to accurately portray the events.”

National Informatics Centre runs the IT Ministry’s site and provides infrastructure for government’s IT services and initiatives of Digital India.

The paragraph on the Mughals on the IT Ministry site’s Medieval India page had said:

“In India, the Mughal Empire was one of the greatest empires ever. The Mughal Empire ruled hundreds of millions of people. India became united under one rule, and had very prosperous cultural and political years during the Mughal rule. There were many Muslim and Hindu kingdoms split all throughout India until the founders of the Mughal Empire came.”

The 'India at a glance' section reads, "India has a unique culture and is one of the oldest and greatest civilizations of the world. India has achieved all-round socio-economic progress since its Independence."

Knowindia.gov.in also redirects users to the other ministries' and states' websites.

(With inputs from The Indian Express)