SANSKRIT versus GERMAN So the controversy rages. And caught in the eye of the storm is the indomitable HRD Minister whose own academic credentials are shrouded in mystery. ‘Why Sanskrit? Why not German?’ thunder the angry parents who apprehend that their children will now lag behind in the race for global job market. They have their ready sympathizers in the frenzied secular section of the media as well as in the liberal intelligentsia whose collective conscience goes on an overdrive every time they suspect BJP of an attempt at saffronizing education as a part of their radical Nationalistic propaganda. But a controversy has a different side also. On the other side of the spectrum there are the overzealous BJP loyalists who feel that Sanskrit is essentially the language of the Indic culture and its revival marks the realization of a majoritarian Hindu pride. ‘Why, of all languages, German?’ they retort dismissively, ‘And that too at the cost of Sanskrit?’ Both are simultaneously right and wrong. There is no denial that Sanskrit is almost a dead language. But it is also a fact that Sanskrit is not the language of the Hindu scriptures alone as it is made out to be. It is one of the richest languages of the world treasuring some of the greatest literature. This is evident from the admiration of the great German poet Goethe for Kalidasa’s ‘Shakuntala’ : If anybody wants to combine the young year’s blossoms and the fruits of its decline, and all by which the soul is charmed, enraptured, feasted and fed, then it is ‘Shakuntala’, and nothing further is needed to be said. It may also be mentioned that the Old Indo-Aryan language of which Sanskrit was a standardized form had its ancestry rooted in Proto-Indo-Iranian and Proto-Indo-European languages. It is not for nothing that researches in Sanskrit gained great popularity in Britain and Germany in the last two centuries. One of the pioneers, Max Muller, was a German. It is a different matter that he was later vilified by Indian nationalists for his alleged help in propagating the ‘migration hypothesis’. It is interesting to guess if Goethe and Max Muller would have taken the same stand as unbelievably taken by the German Ambassador Michael Steiner and the German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the current Sanskrit versus German controversy. It is also heard that with its inflectional exactitude and syntactical freedom Sanskrit has arguably the viability of being one of the most suitable languages to be implemented in computer science. Obviously I am not an apologist for clinging to a dead language. German, as opposed to Sanskrit, is a vibrant modern language and Germany offers a good job market for the Indian aspirants. It is learnt that Indian students enrolment in German universities has gone up by more than 100% in 5 years. For the records let it be stated that the US, the UK, Australia and Canada have been the most favoured destinations for Indian students, partly due to the absence of a language barrier. But Germany, which has the fifth biggest Indian student population on its campuses, has sought to bridge the gap by introducing courses in English and easing visa norms to allow students to look for jobs there after completion of studies. Recently Franziska Lindhout, Director of the DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Ausausch Dienst or German Academic Exchange Service) said in Chennai that Germany encouraged Indian students to sign up for masters and research in engineering as not many natives were showing an interest in the discipline. Lindhout also said that efforts were being made to internationalize German institutions and Germany had also been making a conscious effort to woo Indian students by sponsoring initiatives aimed at enabling Indian students to study, carry out research and gain work experience in that country. The Sanskrit-German imbroglio has to be viewed in this context of aggressive marketing by the Germans. Every major decision concerning matters like education policies has to pass through a test of not only diplomatic and economic considerations, but also through deliberations of social, cultural and legal nature. The furious guardians are arguing that Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) had introduced German as an optional (and not compulsory) subject only vis-à-vis Sanskrit and its introduction was in consonance with the recommendation of Academic Advisory Committee and approval of the Board of Governors of the KVS in its 89th Meeting held on 3.11.2010. The question remains : Who empowered the said Board of Governors of the KVS to approve the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Goethe Institut in flagrant violation of our stated language policy? And even if a representative of then HRD Ministry was present in the process of negotiation, how does that fact impart a legal sanction when the language policy remains unrevised? The guardians forget that there is no bar in learning a foreign language outside the three-language policy, if the educational institutions have the wherewithal to teach it. What is the stated language policy? Ours is a country of diverse cultural and linguistic traditions. So the Government enunciated a language policy which could to an extent facilitate national integration. Every student was required to learn English and Hindi besides his/her mother tongue. And in the case of one whose mother tongue happened to be Hindi, it was thought proper to impart to him/her the basic lessons in another regional language, preferably from South India. The three-language formula pursued by the Government and reiterated in 2005 through the National Curriculum Framework is as under : “Children will receive multilingual education from the outset. The three language formula needs to be implemented in its spirit promoting multilingual communicative abilities for a multilingual country. In the non-Hindi-speaking States, children learn Hindi. In the case of Hindi speaking States children learn a language not spoken in their area. Sanskrit may also be studied as a Modern Indian Language (MIL) in addition to these languages.” The controversy is about the replacement of a modern Indian language (in this case Sanskrit) by a modern European language through a MoU signed between KVS and Goethe-Institut, Max Mueller Bhawan, on 23.9.2011. It has to be decided, therefore, whether the so-called need for national integration can be substituted by the pragmatism of being jobworthy in the global market. In the changed global scenario my answer is a thoughtful ‘yes’, but then the language policy has to be suitably amended for all. Yes, we must not allow any language to be imposed. Now, neither English nor the mother language can be excluded from the curriculum. So it boils down to the fact that only Hindi-speaking students will get the opportunity of learning German, for they are the ones who can abandon the third language being either Sanskrit or any modern Indian language other than Hindi. What about the non-Hindi-speaking students for whom the requirement of learning three languages including Hindi is fixed? How will they pick up German? How will they compete in the global job market? Is national integration is left to be achieved through them, and international integration reserved for the more fortunate? In non-Hindi-speaking regions like Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, West Bengal, Assam, etc., the policy should be revised so much so that learning of Hindi should be made optional; anybody aspiring to hit the international job-market should be allowed to choose German or French instead of Hindi. It has to be admitted that the abrupt mid-session change was a hasty decision, inconveniencing thousands of students. It should be done in a phased manner. I hear it has now been decided that the students of Classes VI, VII and VIII will be taught the syllabus of Sanskrit for the first term of Class VI and accordingly their evaluation for respective formative assessment and summative assessment would be done. But the most pragmatic option probably lies in a complete overhaul of the language policy in our desperation to send our children to serve in foreign countries.
Posted on: Sat, 22 Nov 2014 07:32:03 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015