New Delhi: Firmly in the saddle, the Union Human Resource Development Minister, Ramesh Pokhriyal on Thursday made a strong pitch for promoting and popularising Sanskrit in the country.
Pokhariyal, who started his career as a teacher in RSS-affiliated Saraswati Shishu Mandir, favoured the setting up of at least two Sanskrit speaking villages bordering every Sanskrit institute in the country, a statement issued by the Ministry said.
Chairing a meeting of central language institutes, he said more highly qualified
Sanskrit teachers and professors should be engaged to give a new life to the ancient language both at the national and international level.
Setting the Ministry’s agenda under the Narendra Modi government for the next five years, he said there is a need to do research in Indian languages, translate books into other languages and set up a ‘Bhasha Bhawan’.
The over-emphasis on Sanskrit during the meeting has, however, raised many eyebrows in the academic circles, especially when the Modi dispensation has been accused of driving the nationalist agenda in the education sphere.
Talking to Odisha Bytes, a senior academician, requesting anonymity, said the move is a typical case of saffronisation of education.
“The RSS has always batted for upholding Sanskrit and its promotion. It started with full earnest when Smriti Irani was made the first HRD Minister under Narendra Modi’s first term and the thread is being carried forward by the present minister,” he said.
Language promotion is essential in a pluralist society such as India but the minister should take up other issues confronting the education sector with equal zeal, he said.
Among the many controversies, Smriti Irani had presided over during her tenure, making Sanskrit a third language in the Kendriya Vidyalayas was one.
