NEW DELHI / NEW YORK (TIP): BJP leader and former Union Minister Anurag Thakur recently sparked a notable discussion when, at a PM Shri School event in Himachal Pradesh, he suggested that Lord Hanuman was the first space traveler. Addressing students on National Space Day, Thakur questioned them “Antriksh mein yatra karne wala pehla kaun tha? (Who was the first one to travel into space?)”

Some students replied, “Neil Armstrong.” To this, the five-time Hamirpur MP said, “Mujhe toh lagta hai Hanuman ji the (I think it was Lord Hanuman).”

https://twitter.com/i/status/1959262559770689891

This remark has since elicited a range of reactions.

The X users were quick to point out the error and provide a fact check: “Yuri Gagarin was the first space traveler.”

DMK MP Kanimozhi condemned the statement, calling it “deeply troubling”. “A member of parliament and former union minister asking school children who first set foot on the moon, and insisting that it was not Neil Armstrong but Hanuman, is deeply troubling,” she wrote on X.

A third wrote, “Instead of correcting the children, you told them Hanuman was the first space traveler with that frivolous smile. It was Yuri Gagarin. Stop playing with the innocent minds of children.”

Another commented, “Science is not mythology. To mislead young minds in classrooms is an insult to knowledge, reason, and the spirit of scientific temper enshrined in our Constitution.”