What's wrong with those seeking to promote Sanskrit? An ex-Hindi professor has the answer

Ajay Tiwari 

I have always wondered why certain elite sections are so fascinated by Sanskrit, to the extent of even practicing speaking a language that, for all practical purposes, isn’t alive. During my Times of India stint in Gandhinagar, the Gujarat state capital, I personally witnessed an IAS bureaucrat, Bhagyesh Jha, trying to converse with a friend in Sanskrit.

Jha, a courteous official without an air of arrogance, was the state culture secretary at the time. Known to be close to the then-chief minister Narendra Modi, he would insist in personal conversations that Sanskrit needed to be promoted in the country. “There are families in Gujarat who speak Sanskrit at home,” he would claim, but I would always laugh it off.

Paradoxically, Jha is better known for his poetry in Gujarati. Interestingly, his colleagues, in private conversations with me, would often dismiss his poems as mere tukbandi—improvised rhyming compositions that sound pleasant when recited but allegedly lack literary depth. Yet, regardless of their literary merit, they were easy to understand and engaging. I wonder if he ever tried writing all of his poetry in Sanskrit, and if so, for whom.

Indeed, I have always wondered why Sanskrit failed to gain popularity among the common masses. Even those who recite Sanskrit shlokas during religious ceremonies like marriages or childbirth—many of whom are die-hard Brahmins, I have been told—mostly do not understand the meaning of the verses they chant.

A senior academic, who was initiated into Sanskrit in his early years but later became a top chemical engineering professor, once told me that only 10% of those reciting shlokas actually understand their meaning, while the rest merely memorize them for ceremonies. This makes me wonder: why has Sanskrit education—so zealously promoted by the powers that be, allegedly to keep alive the fire of Indian culture—failed to take root among the masses?

And what an irony! While Sanskrit is included in the Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution, I have yet to come across anyone who actively seeks to converse in it. A quick internet search tells me that Sanskrit is not a dead language, but it is also not spoken as a primary language by anyone. It is only used in religious practices, philosophy, and linguistics.

The search further reveals: “No one speaks Sanskrit as their first language. Sanskrit was once limited to a small group of people, such as Hindu priests. Most Sanskrit knowledge was passed down orally, and this tradition has declined.” But it adds that Sanskrit is still studied and understood by linguists and academics and continues to be used in hymns and chants for religious purposes.

Be that as it may, the main trigger for this blog—apparently a continuation of my earlier piece on the same subject, written during the peak of COVID-19—is a Facebook post by my Delhi University friend, Ajay Tiwari, a former Hindi professor.

One of the few scholars who delve deep into the social and historical factors influencing Hindi literature, Tiwari’s post intrigued me because he highlights a major reason why languages perish.

According to him, India’s “communal leaders” fail to understand that language has no religion, and “religion has no language.” He argues that once a language is associated with a particular religion, it begins to be spoken by fewer and fewer people. For a language to flourish, he suggests, it must remain secular and adaptable, thriving through societal interaction.

Tiwari states, “When language and religion become inseparable, the downfall of one leads to the downfall of the other.” He offers the example of Pali, which was associated with Buddhism. The language disappeared with the decline of Buddhism in India. Similarly, Latin, the language of Christianity, was eventually abandoned for everyday use.

While Christianity spread across Europe, and its scriptures remained in Latin, sermons were delivered in local languages. “Not without reason,” he says, “in India, Christian missionaries do not preach to tribals in Latin or English.”

Regarding Sanskrit, Tiwari notes that it has been positioned as the language of Hinduism. He critiques the Brahmins, who took on the responsibility of preserving and spreading knowledge but confined it within Sanskrit, thereby limiting access and causing much of that knowledge to be lost. “Now, we complain that Europeans used our ancient texts to make modern discoveries! If this knowledge had been widely shared, would this situation have arisen?” he asks.

As for Hindi, Tiwari strongly opposes the claim that Urdu originated with Amir Khusro. “In my book Sangeet Kavita: Hindi Aur Mughal Badshah, I have demonstrated that Urdu was born ten years after Aurangzeb’s death, during the reign of Muhammad Shah Rangila. The claim that Khusro is the father of Urdu stems from the same communal sentiment that fuels the nonsense about studying Urdu turning someone into a mullah or a fanatic.”

Bhagyesh Jha

Tiwari argues that Khusro was not an Urdu poet but an early poet of the deshbhāshā (regional language) and the first poet of Khari Boli. He was a renowned scholar of Awadhi and other dialects of Uttar Pradesh. His global reputation stemmed from his writings in Persian, but in the hearts of Indians, he remains alive through his Hindi works, deeply rooted in folk culture.

He adds, “Khusro is an example of how much Muslims contributed to the formation and development of Hindi. To be honest, Muslims contributed to the development of all modern languages just as much as Hindus did.”

After reading his post, I called Tiwari and asked him a pointed question: what does he think of those who advocate for “Hindi, Hindu, Hindustan”? A Hindi enthusiast, his response was clear—if Hindi is tied to Hinduism, it would inevitably mark the beginning of the language’s downfall.

This instantly reminded me of my school days in Delhi. Studying at Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, where the medium of instruction was Hindi until the eighth grade, I found it strange—even as a schoolboy in the late 1960s—when there was an attempt in North India to purify the language by incorporating as many Sanskrit words as possible. This was done to distinguish Hindi from Urdu, a move contrary to what Mahatma Gandhi envisioned—Hindustani, a blend of Hindi and Urdu.

Efforts were made to repaint billboards in Hindi, replace English nameplates, and encourage vehicle owners to use Hindi number plates. This provoked a strong backlash in South India, fueling the hate-Hindi campaign—a sentiment that persists today, as seen in recent statements by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin.

I will conclude with an observation about Narendra Modi’s stance on Sanskrit. Contrary to the expectations of those who sought to replace English with Sanskrit, Modi, as Gujarat chief minister, chose instead to promote English while quietly sidelining those pushing for mandatory Sanskrit education.

At the time, Anandiben Patel—now the governor of Uttar Pradesh—was the state education minister. During an interaction with me (accompanied by Indian Express journalist Bashir Pathan) in her Sachivalaya chamber in Gandhinagar, she asked, “Why English? Why not Sanskrit?”

Despite this, Modi prioritized English education over compulsory Sanskrit instruction. Interestingly, a pro-RSS group running a school in Gandhinagar invited journalists, including me, to a press-cum-lunch meet where they complained that Modi was neglecting Sanskrit in favor of English. They even announced plans to agitate against this neglect—an agitation that never materialized.