Kalaignar slams move to impose Sanskrit

“The BJP government is adamant on imposing Sanskrit as it would be useful for attaining their Hindutva goals”: ‘The demand to declare all 22 languages as the official language has been ignored’
DMK President Kalaignar M. Karunanidhi, on June 10, slammed the Centre for its wanton efforts to impose Sanskrit on students and said such linguistic and cultural chauvinism would disturb the nation from the path of growth.
Citing media reports that Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Smriti Irani on Jun 7 interacting with students of Kakaraparti Bhava Narayana (KBN) College in Vijayawada said that a Vedic Board would be established soon to oversee the teaching of the Vedas, Sanskrit, and modern subjects. The essence of our culture is in Vedas and without studying Vedas we could not put forward our culture. The Centre would launch ‘Vidyanjali’ programme on June 16, she has said.
The Ministry was trying to set up a board for Vedic studies in schools, he said ever since the BJP came to power at the Centre, there has been a conscious attempt to thrust Sanskrit as a convenient way of furthering the “fundamentalist” Hindutva policies. Some Union Ministers and officials were wantonly bent on imposing Sanskrit. It is well known that only a few thousand people in India spoke Sanskrit. In one of the attempts to impose Sanskrit, the Union Home Ministry issued orders that Sanskrit would be taught as third language in Central schools like CBSC and ICSC from the coming academic year 2016-17. A consultative meeting on education headed by Smriti Irani in New Delhi discussed about the programmes to be implemented in the coming academic year, when the Minister has said that “though English and regional languages were essential for students Sanskrit had to be prioritized so as to teach our wide ranging culture. At present two languages were taught in schools under Central government. It had been decided to make Sanskrit compulsory third language to give importance to culture. Hence from the coming academic year (2016-17) Saskrit will be made compulsory in these schools. In the coming years Sanskrit education would be introduced from 8-12th standards”. This announcement of the Union Minister the intention to impose Sanskrit first followed by cultural imposition in India was revealed. The members of the consultative meeting said all books of Sanskrit would be printed soon and sent to the schools.
Kalaignar also recalled Irani’s earlier statement that she would mobilise the support of all the nations to make Hindi as one of the official languages of United Nations. Union Minister Sushma Swaraj said that India was trying to mobilize the support of 129 nations to make Hindi as one of the official languages of United Nations and the Union government was ready to spend Rs 270 crores for this. “And we are now trying for permanent membership in the UN Security Council. We feel after we get permanent membership, the work of getting Hindi included in the UN will become easier”, she said.
Citing the Minister’s statement that Sanskrit would be necessary to teach Indian culture, the DMK leader said the Minister’s remarks showed that imposition of culture would follow the imposition of Sanskrit. The BJP government is adamant on imposing Sanskrit as it would be useful for attaining their Hindutva goals, he added. After the BJP government came to power at the Centre, there is urgency in acts of imposing Sanskrit. Besides celebration of Sanskrit and Hindi weeks, 30 minutes had been allotted in Doordarshan to news in Sanskrit, Kalaignar said. Kalaignar said while the Centre was eager to promote Sanskrit citing culture, the over five decade-old demand to declare all 22 languages in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution as the official language has been ignored.
He stepped up his attack on the BJP government on the move to teach Sanskrit as the third language in schools under the Union government and said it was against the concept of equal status for the all languages recognised by the Constitution. The DMK leader said, “The Union government was ignoring our plea to declare all the languages placed in the eighth schedule as official languages of India. But, it is showing keen interest in imposing Hindi and Sanskrit. Is it equal justice for all languages?”
He said ‘such discriminatory acts based on language and cultural chauvinism’ would derail the nation from development path and divert attention from the basic issues for people’s livelihood. Equal status to all the languages alone would ensure strengthen the federal structure, he said.