Why do you say the current debate over reviving Sanskrit is more emotional than practical?
Today, very few people claim Sanskrit as
their first language – it’s not possible to buy a train ticket or even
get Ayurveda medicine using Sanskrit. It is not a language of use any
more. It’s not been a language of use in India since the 17th century –
and we’re now in the 21st century. So, to whip up emotions about losing
Sanskrit, then
reviving it, is a purely emotive effort.
reviving it, is a purely emotive effort.
It is true that modern Indian languages
are based on Sanskrit. But it is also true that modern Indian languages
have been in existence for nearly 1,000 years now and can be studied
seriously on their own. For great scholarship in English, you no longer
have to study Latin and Greek.
It’s an emotional issue – and it has very clear overtones of caste and religious identities.
You’ve fought to ensure certain languages don’t die – why shouldn’t Sanskrit be amongst those languages?
I fight for languages spoken by people in
communities. They need to live on, so that the communities can continue
their existence with dignity.
Some languages are seen as less important.
Tribal languages are seen as inferior and backward. That is not
desirable. But with Sanskrit, no one will ever look at its use as a sign
of backwardness. On the contrary, if there’s an individual who can
speak or write Sanskrit, that’s seen as a sign of scholarship.
The fear is, we might forget the legacy of
Sanskrit, rather than the life of Sanskrit. We have to make that
distinction. There are ways of managing that fear by preserving
manuscripts, building good libraries, digitising Sanskrit literature.
Look at how the French take care of their language.
All Indian languages together constitute less than 1% of the international web space, which is not good.
If we strive to protect all our Indian languages, that would lead to a much better situation.
Many see English as a threat to Sanskrit – your view?
It definitely isn’t. The use of the two
languages is different. In India, we’ve managed successfully to allow
languages to have different roles in our lives.
Our banking is done in English but our
birth, death and marriage rituals are in Sanskrit. Certain domains of
our lives are dominated by Persian even today – our entire entertainment
domain is managed by languages that spring out of Persian. On the other
hand, cricket comes from an English ethos.
To disturb the good harmony between different languages is not a good thing for India.
Which Indian languages deserve as much emphasis as Sanskrit?
Tamil, Telugu and Bengali – these are
spoken by very large numbers and will survive this phase of language
decline. From a business point of view also, these will be important in
the future.
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