‘MOTHER TONGUE SHOULD BE MADE COMPULSORY’

NEW DELHI: Samskrita Bharati, a non-government organisation with links to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) that works for the preservation and propagation of Sanskrit has urged the government to follow a three-language formula whereby English is not mandatory, and students are given the choice to select any Indian language they want to study.

“We do not even recommend making Sanskrit mandatory. We have said that only the mother tongue should be made compulsory; students should have the freedom to exercise their choice for learning any of the languages in the eighth schedule of the Constitution,” Dinesh Kamat, the all-india organisational secretary of the body, said.

Kamat said owing to the focus on English, it has become a language of choice for many.

The suggestion was made by a delegation of functionaries from Samskrita Bharati to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a meeting on October 19. The delegation also urged that the new education policy being drafted should have provisions for following the three-language formula till class 10 and the two language one for classes 11 and 12.

“At present, most students in classes 11 and 12 only end up studying English. We also think by allowing students to opt for skill education instead of a language, we will discourage them from opting for learning Indian languages,” Kamat said. On why the organisation does not want to make Sanskrit compulsory he said, “We are confident that students will pick Sanskrit, which is the mother of all Indian languages, without having to enforce it.”

The organisation has also begun working on a suggestion that PM Modi had for them. The PM told the organisation to focus on teaching Subhashita, a genre of Sanskrit epigrammatic poems that convey life values.

Between November 9 and 11, the organisation will organise a world conference, which will be attended by delegates from 19 countries, said Shreesh Deopujari, the all India general secretary of the organisation.