No Separate Fund For Promotion Of ‘Classical Language’ Odia; Odisha MPs Question ‘Skewed Priorities’ Of Centre

Bhubaneswar: Members of Parliament from Odisha Pinaki Mishra and Amar Patnaik on Thursday questioned the ‘skewed priorities’ of the central government and the preferential treatment to Sanskrit over other five classical languages – Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Odia.

Retweeting a post in which senior Congress leader and Rajya Sabha member Jairam Ramesh can be seen questioning the whopping Rs 640 spent crore on promotion of Sanskrit in three years, BJD Lok Sabha MP from Puri Pinaki Mishra wrote: “What is the future of other classical languages like Odia if this lopsided policy continues?”

Rajya Sabha member Amar Patnaik said that it was insult for people of Odisha.

Jairam Ramesh argued that only 15,000 people speak Sanskrit in India. “It is the language of priests and courts. Buddha preached in Magadhi and the Bhakri Movement took place in regional languages. Since Sanskrit is part of our cultural legacy, we take pride in it,” he said.

Referring to an unstarred question asked in Lok Sabha in 2020, he added, “I am giving this information because we are at the danger of giving greater importance to Sanskrit than it derives at the cost of other regional languages.”

According to figures released by the Union Ministry of Culture in response to an unstarred question by three Shiv Sena MPs and two BJP MPs on February 3, 2020, the amount spent on Sanskrit ( Rs 643.84 crore) was 22 times the total amount of Rs 29 crore spent on the other five classical Indian languages – Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Odia.

And what could be a matter of concern for Odisha is that the government has not created a separate fund for the promotion of Odia nor it has established any centre of excellence to promote the language. The same goes for Malayalam.

In December last year, Minster of State for Education Subhas Sarkar told Lok Sabha that in 2021-22 the government has allocated Rs 1186.15 lakh for Tamil language, but the Central Sanskrit University received grants of Rs 19883.16 lakh. Indian Council of Cultural Relations (ICCR) has signed Memorandum of Understandings (MOUs) with eight international universities for “establishment of Indian Chairs abroad in classical languages comprising Sanskrit and Tamil. The ICCR has established a Tamil Chair in Poland, he further informed.