The Uttarakhand government recently announced an ambitious programme to vigorously promote Sanskrit in the state. It had taken the first step back in 2010, when Uttarakhand became the country’s first state to declare Sanskrit as its second official language; Himachal Pradesh followed suit. Now, the Uttarakhand Sanskrit Academy has decided to deploy trainers to encourage the local population to use Sanskrit as a spoken language. The centre of this push is the small village of Dimar in Chamoli district.

Chamoli has a historical connect with Sanskrit. It boasts of a Sanskrit school that has been functional for over a hundred years, and has contributed to both academics and religious purposes. The Dimri brahmins, who manage worship rituals at the famous Badrinath temple, come from Dimar. A large section of the local population in the village is conversant with Sanskrit, but rarely uses it for day-to-day conversations. The government wants that to change, and the Sanskrit Academy will helm the effort. A few other villages apart from Dimar have been identified for the pilot scheme.

The project will collaborate, across the state, with academic institutions that have Sanskrit as their discipline, to promote effective learning. The trainers will be incentivised; while the exact amount is still to be finalised, it will hopefully be reasonable enough. Expecting the trainers to put their heart and soul into the project by paying them peanuts, will not work. A lot depends on the success of the unique project. The Central Sanskrit University (CSU) has shown interest. If the Uttarakhand government pulls it off, then the CSU will replicate a similar model across the country.

A perception has been sought to be created that Sanskrit is a dead language, and that learning it is a wasteful exercise as it will not take the learner anywhere in life. The fact is that as long as Indian civilisational and cultural values exist, Sanskrit can never die. Because, the language is intrinsically linked with our traditions and customs. Sanatan Dharma’s rituals and practices use mantras and shlokas that have been composed in Sanskrit. The language has a rich history dating to the Vedic period. The Vedas are in Sanskrit, and so are the two major epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. The Bhagavat Gita too is composed in Sanskrit. All of these texts remain pivotal to Indian consciousness and belief systems. How can then Sanskrit, a divine language, be termed as ‘dead’?

Sanskrit is the mother of most Indian languages. It was main medium of instruction for centuries, but its importance declined with the arrival of the British who replaced it with English as the language of administration and science. Sanskrit was painted as an ‘ancient’ language that had outlived its purpose, while the modern world needed English. The colonial rule ensured that the wisdom and knowledge—such as in medicine, astronomy, mathematics— contained in Sanskrit texts, and that which had served Indians and the world well for centuries, was relegated to the margins.

But even in that bleak period, several prominent writers and thinkers, among them being Swami Vivekananda, Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya, continued to promote the language. Post-independent India did see a level of revival of Sanskrit, with the establishment of Sanskrit educational institutions, but it was not enough. The dominance of English continued—there is nothing wrong with the promotion of English, but it is unfortunate that often it is done at the cost of Sanskrit.

To this day, no scholar or researcher who wishes to study India’s ancient history through its historical and sacred texts, can do so without a knowledge of Sanskrit, or without taking the assistance of a scholar of Sanskrit. It is an irony that, while so many Indians believe that Sanskrit is history, the rest of the world is increasingly understanding and appreciating the value of the language, which they admit is very much alive and robust. The world is today familiar with the term ‘Vasudhaiva kutumbakam’, which is Sanskrit for ‘The Earth is One Family’—a philosophy that had been advocated centuries before ‘globalisation’ became a concept. It has evolved into a slogan for global diplomacy.

Besides, interest in Sanskrit has risen in prestigious institutions of the West, with the realisation that its precise grammar and linguistic pattern can be used in artificial intelligence and computational logistics. But there is also a flip side. Western scholars of Sanskrit have often interpreted the language and its historical value in ways that bear the influence of communist thought, and downplay the more holistic Indian influence that dates back to millennia.

That said, our educationists over the decades should be held accountable for failing to popularise Sanskrit at the school and college levels. There has been little effort to produce material in Sanskrit that is attractive and relatable to the youth of today. There is a need for the publication of illustrated stories and comic books, the creation of cartoons, games, songs, etc. in Sanskrit, to draw the attention of the youngsters to the language. Sanskrit tutors in schools need to adopt innovative and creative methods of teaching that make the learning of the language entertaining. Rather than simply asking students to learn the language by rote, teachers must engage them in holding conversations, enacting scenes, debating etc., in classrooms

There has been an unfortunate trend in India to weaponise Sanskrit for regional/political purposes. It has been publicised by vested interests that Sanskrit must be condemned as it has been the language of the oppressors, of those that introduced and promoted caste hierarchy in society. Of course, this is not true, as any person with a modicum of understanding of the language’s history will tell. The other attempt at discrediting Sanskrit—and this has been happening in Western academic circles as well—is by associating the language with Hindutva or Hindu identity politics. Efforts to revive Sanskrit are seen by these academics as a ‘revisionist’ strategy to promote ultra-nationalism or Hindu nationalism (whatever that means).

In ancient India, Sanskrit flourished due to the patronage of kings and emperors, but also without their patronage—Abhinavgupta, for example, penned his masterpieces independent of royal support. There is no reason why Sanskrit cannot be revived in contemporary times. But for that to happen, both government and non-government efforts have to be made. Already, a lot is being done to reclaim our cultural values and also present them before the global community. These efforts will be incomplete without giving Sanskrit the impetus that it deserves. Sanskrit is not just a language; for Indians it is a connect with their civilisation and cultural legacy.

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