Sometimes, in fact often, I am taken by a sense of surprise and disgust when I see people of our country bashing the Sanskrit language with a great enthusiasm and concentrated vigour. I do remember having studied Sanskrit up to class ten. The teachers used to teach; students used to study. Parents did not protest about it. Fortunately, there were no Manish Sisodias to come on the stage and mock the ancient Indian language that the world acknowledges. Things were running smoothly in the educational institutions. So, the question must arise, what did happen that people suddenly started to despise Sanskrit? What and of what grave concern took place that today, a deputy chief minister, also in charge of the education department, mocks the Sanskrit language and ridicules it? Answers need to face the questions.
Tracing the origin of Sanskrit language is an arduous task that the acclaimed manufacturers of History in our country cannot do. If we give a free hand (that they actually have), historians like Guha and Romila Thapar will go ahead and say there is nothing like Sanskrit. It will take no more than 1 month for the ‘research’ work. We will learn that Sanskrit was a ‘saffron agenda’. Fortunately, Indians have always been wise. We have always been indulged with our glorious tradition. Many came here only to go away or die, India did not move an Inch! We Indians have nourished our cultural heritage with pride. However, today it is in danger. There are people within the country who have made it a fashion to speak evil about anything that is ‘Indian’. Take nationalism for an instance. Speak Bharat Mata ki Jai and you will welcome the badge of honour – Sanghi or Bhakt or Pseudo-Nationalist. Say something about Sanskrit and you will have the eyeballs pointed on you and the arrows of words – RSS person, Bhagwa Chhap, Sangh ka gunda, Deshbhakt, stone age propagandist, and many others.
Recently, the HRD Minister, Smriti Irani has directed IITs to teach Sanskrit. Exactly, even if I stop writing now, you can easily build the narrative and understand the episode. She was called names; Modi was ridiculed; those who supported were targeted. The most interesting and shocking as well is the fact that even people from Bollywood join the party. A person called Shirish Kunder also tweeted and registered his protest. Well, he has all the rights to protest anything he likes. His argument was that Smriti Irani is prudent. She knows the IITians will build Time Machine today or tomorrow or day after that. The Sanghis would surely like to go the Vedic age and hence, the operators of that time machine must know Sanskrit. Later, when I and many others had opinions about his idea, the coward deleted his tweet.
Fun over, coming to the point now – what’s the actual problem with Sanskrit? Many current students at the IITs have told that they’d not have any problem in studying Sanskrit. Why the ‘leftists’ and ‘seculars’ and intellectuals always presume that young India does not want Sanskrit? They are eager to know about many things; will you let them know? Well, how can they? The people who teach the students that Bhagat Singh was a terrorist and Netaji was a war criminal, what more can you expect from those? They will do anything and everything to kill the sense of national pride. For the historians in India, there is only one family who has done feats – and I don’t want to take the name! The world acknowledges Sanskrit as the mother of all the languages. They owe their knowledge to us, to our great past, to our ancient intellect. Imagine the scenario when a British boy would ask a student from India “do you know from where the English word ‘Father’ has come?” The student from our country will not answer. The British will tell our students about Sanskrit and its contribution to forming languages. We don’t let our students learn Sanskrit. They learn German, Spanish, Japanese, anything but not Sanskrit! Kudos! Our education system! Hail to our educationists!
The deputy CM of Delhi, Manish Sisodia ji is no less than his senior Arvind Kejriwal. He did not wait to jump into the frying pan filled with hot mustard oil. In a strange haste, he announced that Smriti Irani should declare all the computer coding languages anti-national. Bizarre! Isn’t it? I could not stop myself from laughing. Do you have something called ‘logic’ Sisodia? Or you have become a pakka politician now? The option number two is correct. In fact, Sisodia sahab added the colour of politics to the issue. He connected Sanskrit with the agenda of nationalism and dumped the payload on the back of RSS. Great! Now tell me Sisodia ji and all the great personalities who always buckle up against Sanskrit – is Sanskrit a language developed and owned by RSS or it’s an ancient Indian language? How dare you mix it up with an institution that has its confined goals? How dare you defy our mother tongue? And if you are actually thinking that RSS has developed Sanskrit, I will readily book a psychiatrist for you.
See, dear Indians, there has emerged a new ‘elite’ class in Indian society these days. The people in this society will abuse you if you unfurl the tricolour. They will call you names if you appreciate any good work. These people will also scorn you if you study Sanskrit. They will make fun of you if you say that Mughals enslaved India and harm our heritage. All they want to do is demolish the ‘pride’ of being an Indian, an Indian who is proud of the great culture. They don’t want to see us feeling honoured when the world credits the best of their knowledge to India. Now tell me, if you don’t study Sanskrit, will you ever be fortunate to read and understand the Bhagwad Gita? Will you ever be curious to read a rhyme from the Vedas? Will you ever bother to see a line of Subhashitanis? Yea yea! Now they will take the charge and say that Yogi Adityanath has written the Vedas and Gita overnight! What I say is clear. Don’t give a damn to these ‘modern’ people. Smriti Irani is not saying you to work and study in the Sanskrit language. What she wants is ‘just learn a bit of it’ and who knows it might interest you!
Attention please: Don’t expect from me a ‘politically correct’ type thing. The politics in our country is entirely incorrect. I will be myself; will go ahead and exercise my ‘freedom of speech’ share that Indian constitution has proudly given to ‘me’. Shame on you people who despise Sanskrit!
