New Delhi: Only 24,821 Indians can speak Sanskrit, based on the 2011 Census, found an RTI query filed by Agra-based activist Dr Devashish Bhattacharya.
The information was revealed by the language department of the Union home ministry’s Registrar General and Census Commissioner’s office, in reply to the RTI. Sanskrit is listed as one of the 22 official languages in the 8th Schedule of the Indian Constitution.
Speaking to ThePrint, Dr Bhattacharya said, “With digitisation and emergence of social media platforms, the Sanskrit-speaking population has gone down even more.” Dr Bhattacharya also said that he has highlighted the alarmingly low numbers of Sanskrit-speaking citizens with the grievance cell of the Prime Minister’s Office.
The 3,500-year-old language has a rich cultural heritage and is used in Hindu religious texts such as the Vedas. Several languages like Bengali, Punjabi and Gujarati also trace their origins to Sanskrit.
“It is saddening to say that despite being fairly educated in Sanskrit, I don’t know the language to its depths,” Dr Bhattacharya added. He also mentioned that only a few scholars in India would know the language well enough to be able to converse.
Most schools in India offer Sanskrit only as a third language from Class 6 to Class 8, and in some cases as a second language in Class 9 and 10. For someone to understand Sanskrit and be able to converse in it, Dr Bhattacharya said, education boards should include the language.
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