Ranchi, Feb 24 (UNI) Days after calling the Communists 'anti-national', yoga guru Swami Ramdev today said that they had distorted the history of the country to help the British regime.

Speaking at a government sponsored yoga camp here, Swami Ramdev said, ''Most of the historians were Communist minded and they were responsible for distorting the country's history to help British rulers. In pre-independence era when people started to realise that they were being ruled by outsiders, the British played a trick with the help of Communist minded historians.'' He said, ''The historians misguided the people by writing that the Aryans were outsiders and non-vegetarians. Even today our syllabus is full of such materials which are against our national culture and values.'' Swami Ramdev said, ''It is ironic that despite the claim of Communist historians that Aryans had come to India from Iran, Iranian historians say that Aryans were native Indians. I am sorry that even the government is a mute spectator to this distortion of history.'' He claimed that he was not at all concerned about the opposition he was facing from the Communists, ''It seems that the more they oppose me, the more popular I become.'' UNI RAJ-SCS SG PL/SRC1324