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Mother Language ‘Sanskrit’ Needs Urgent Protection- Hemant GoswamiIf we want to preserve our heritage,the indifference towards Sanskrit hasto stop.“SANSKRIT,” THE mother of allIndo-Aryan languages, which has alsohelped in development and enrichmentof almost all languages across theglobe is fighting a tough battle in itsown country of origin, India. Thelanguage, acknowledged anddocumented to be the most structuredand scientific language in the entireworld, and which was the lingua-franca.has now been reduced to a vanishingminority with just about 14,000speakers left, across a country of overone billion.Why this plight of Sanskrit?It took nearly 200 years ofsystematic attack on Sanskrit toreduce it to such a pitiable andmarginalised position. It all startedwith the advent of the Britishers in Indiaand their desire to control the entirecountry. The transgressors identifiedthat India is so evenly structured thatit was almost impossible to enslavethe country. The British identified thesocial structure and the lingua-francaSanskrit, which was also the languageof scriptures, as an essential foundingblock of this unity in all the diversity ofIndia. A systematic and strategicpropaganda about the social structureand class division was started and anonslaught on Sanskrit was initiated.With the entry of T. B. Macaulay, whowas the ‘Secretary to the Board ofControl’ and looking into the affairs ofIndia, things changed very fast.Macaulay advocated that for takingcomplete control of the countryteaching of Sanskrit has to be stoppedand only English should be promoted.He argued that support for thepublication of books in Sanskrit (andArabic) should be withdrawn, supportfor traditional education should bereduced to funding for (the Madrassaat Delhi) and the Hindu College atBenares, but students should no longerbe paid to study at theseestablishments. The money releasedby these steps should instead go tofund education in Western subjects,with English as the language ofinstruction. He said, “...that we oughtto employ them in teaching what isbest worth knowing; that English isbetter worth knowing than Sanskrit orArabic; that the natives are desirousto be taught English, and are notdesirous to be taught Sanskrit orArabic; that neither as the languagesof law, nor as the languages of religion,have the Sanskrit and Arabic anypeculiar claim to our engagement; thatit is possible to make natives of thiscountry thoroughly good Englishscholars, and that to this end our effortsought to be directed.”This policy resulted in theEducation Act of 1835. Thereafter, allSanskrit schools and institutions lostto the British policies and bureaucracyand Sanskrit suffered irreparabledamage.Reinterpretation of Hindustan’sscriptures and documentsA battery of British scholars startedlearning Sanskrit and based onwhatever they could learn of Sanskritin a year or two, they startedtranslating the ancient scriptures anddocuments in English. While in Indiathey started a propaganda claimingthat Sanskrit was a dying language;but ironically Sanskrit was beingintroduced in almost all universities inEurope. The tardy and incorrecttranslations based on desultorylearning of the British scholars becamean introduction of Hinduism andSanskrit to the rest of the Englishspeakingworld. Selected works withtwisted translations which presentedHinduism and India in bad light werepromoted with full vigour to highlighthow bad the system of India was. Thelanguage of instruction of Sanskrit forhigher education in India was changedto English and almost all top positionsof Sanskrit professors were occupiedby Europeans. The neo-scholars ofEnglish language of Indian origin, whocould not be educated in Sanskrit, alsostarted relying on the Englishtranslations by the European authors,which also got referred in allsubsequent works. Unfortunately, ifone picks up any Indian textbook onHistory, the same propagandacontinues. Among the list of booksreferred to prepare any Historytextbooks; one can find that 80 per centof them are by foreign authors and restare using their work as leadingreferences. Nearly 200 years of thiskind of propaganda not only pollutedour culture but also almost destroyedthe learning of Sanskrit.Sanskrit Post-IndependenceDuring the framing of India’sConstitution, there were long debateson official language of the Country andthe role of Sanskrit. The ‘ConstituentAssembly’ and the sub-committeeformed on ‘Languages’ highlighted theneed to undo what the Britishers haddone and emphasised on the need tomake Hindi as the language of theState so that the common man canbe empowered and made a part of theGovernment. Article 343 of theConstitution specifically provided thatEnglish as a State language would bephased out in 15 years period and Hindiwould be the State language. Sanskritwas also considered to be made theofficial language, but it was felt thatthe country should wait for some moretime before initiating such an effort. Inthe same spirit, Article 351 specificallymentioned that for enriching Hindilanguage, Sanskrit would be used. TheConstitution of India directs underArticle 351 that wherever necessary ordesirable, for development of Hindivocabulary, it shall be expandedprimarily based on Sanskrit andsecondarily on other languages.The then political leadership wasfully aware about the importance ofSanskrit and a handful of our leadersdid highlight their concerns then andnow. While underscoring theimportance of Sanskrit, first PrimeMinister of India, Pandit Jawahar LalNehru said;“If I was asked what is the greatesttreasure which India possesses andwhat is her finest heritage, I wouldHeritage Explorer 9 January 2013