Disclaimer: I am not a BJP supporter. I am not against BJP.
***
Smriti Irani has outdone herself by asking IITs to teach Sanskrit. Obviously, Twitter found its new trend (quite rightly so); I had joined the bandwagon, and had tweeted, ridiculing her; and shared the news on Facebook. Having fulfilled my moral obligation, I felt like that man from the Raymond commercial.
***
Smriti Irani has outdone herself by asking IITs to teach Sanskrit. Obviously, Twitter found its new trend (quite rightly so); I had joined the bandwagon, and had tweeted, ridiculing her; and shared the news on Facebook. Having fulfilled my moral obligation, I felt like that man from the Raymond commercial.
Not very long back, I had a discussion with a friend —
a soul way more rational than I am. A curious character, this woman: I mean,
who spends time reading when you can act like complete morons on social media?
This is why I am often sceptic when talking to her.
She ruins my shares, my tweets, by throwing irrefutable data at me. For
example, in this case, she pointed out to me two facts:
1. There has been no order. It was just a request.
2. She has asked to offer Sanskrit as an elective
subject, not compulsory.
Did we actually try to cross-check exactly what she
had said? This is from The
Hindu: “IITs have been requested to offer Sanskrit as an elective
subject or as a language course for students who wish to study the language.”
The Hindu was not the only news organisation that covered this.
This was a PTI copy, filed by Zee
News, India
Today, The
Times of India, Business
Standard, etc.
Hang on, the quote sounds just about fine. There is
nothing wrong in requesting an institute to offer an elective course.
But my inner jingoist was not willing to accept all this
nonsense. Why IITs? Why do IITs need this?
It is nothing new, I was told: IIT Bombay has a
Sanskrit department for some time now...
So I did some research. IIT Kanpur had been at Project Valmiki Ramayana for
over a decade now. Back in 2012 they had also offered “Learn to speak Sanskrit in 10 days”
classes.
There was a proposal to offer Sanskrit as an optional
course in IIT Delhi as
early as in 2000.
Here is an excerpt from the URL: “IIT has decided
to concentrate on the scientific areas. One text which will be taught will be
the Astadhyayi, the grammar of Sanskrit which is responsible for the
modern linguistic sciences and is supposed to be the forerunner of artificial
intelligence. The programme will also conduct research into the use of Sanskrit
as a ‘programming language’. Sanskrit is almost like a computer language. The
traditional scholar is a species which is dying out. Something had to be done.
We want to give our students an opportunity with Sanskrit studies.”
Note: You may want to read more on Sanskrit computational languages.
This is not too
boring.
Hang on, that does not sound too bad!
Was Ms Irani’s suggestion was based on the same
ground? I have no clue.
Was Ms Irani’s suggestion (intentional or otherwise) a
poor one? Hell, no! Nobody is being forced here. If someone wants to take up an
optional course, who will be harmed?
If a champion scientist wants to master a classical
language in addition to his IIT workload, what is the harm?
But wait, that voice, now small but not quite silenced, why do Indians have
to go through all this for the sake of an ancient language?
What do the other Universities, technological ones,
do? MIT, for example, offers
Latin; Caltech does
the same; ETH Zurich offers Latin as well as Ancient Greek.
Additionally, Caltech offers ‘informal classes’ in
Sanskrit; and there is actually an MIT group that goes by the name MIT Sanskritam.
So, what is the issue? Why did we actually go all-out
against Ms Irani when she proposed the inclusion of Sanskrit as an elective
in IITs?
I, seriously, have no clue. Maybe some others can
throw some light.
Maybe nothing good will transpire out of this. Maybe the
entire effort will be a futile one.
But what if some scholars, willing to pursue Sanskrit
to the next level, benefit out of this? What if their classmates are inspired
to write more, write better?
I wonder what made Ms Irani strive for a better understanding of classics, of literature among IIT students. Do you, my dear readers, have an idea?
I wonder what made Ms Irani strive for a better understanding of classics, of literature among IIT students. Do you, my dear readers, have an idea?
Shared views on education with HRD Min @smritiirani, who seems quite keen to make reforms. Ok,also managed a selfie. pic.twitter.com/tnOCe8KX4v— Chetan Bhagat (@chetan_bhagat) February 5, 2015
