Smriti Irani asks IIT’s to Teach Sanskrit: Will it revive its lost charm?

The HRD Minister of the country has issued an order to include Sanskrit as a language in IIT’s. Along with science and technology now Sanskrit will also play an important role in raising the top mind of the country.

The ordinance was passed in order to save the dying culture of the language which in today time has seen a sudden fall. A committee had been selected to not only save the language but also to draw a 10 year roadmap in order to revive the dying language.

The committee consist of economist and NITI Aayog member BibekDebroy, H R Nagendra who is PM Narendra Modi yoga guru and UGC Chairman Ved Prakash as members. The committee has also at the same time asked IIT’s to appoint professors for the Sanskrit post.

The order to include Sanskrit in the top colleges of the country is not something that has been done for the first time. The bill was earlier passed in the year 2000 under NDA-1 rule whereby it had issued notice to 40 institution including the IIT’s and IISC to take into account the inclusion of Sanskrit language.

But the question now remains to be answered is whether this new ordinance by SmritiIrani will see the light of the day and also if this new plan can be of any benefitting nature to the institute.


One look at internet and paper and you can easily see that this new order has received more criticism than support. The major point that has been raised by different part of the country is what elements will it bring to the institute which is known for raising the top minds of the country.

Secondly the students in IIT are from different regions of the country, so it clearly points out that half of them would not even be knowing anything about this language. If we look at the demographic strengths of our population only 14000(NSSO-2001) people, see it as their native language.

So it would have made more sense had the committee done it at the basic level of education and instead of making it as an optional it should be a compulsory subject in the school level.

The other flak thrown at the committee is that instead of imparting autonomy to the institute on whether to include it in their course, the dispensation is dictating its term which does not throw a good light at the government.

More ever in the 21st century whether technology has more or less taken over the world would there be enough archives of ancient material in Sanskrit to broaden any horizons of idea for the student. If we also look at other colleges in different part of the world one can easily see that there has been no prominent development done on the basis of Sanskrit.

Sanskrit has been known as a language which has played a prominent role in formation of different languages in the world. Books like Siddhanta Shiromani, Mayamatnam are of great importance when it comes to research and innovation.

Some of the best minds of our country like Dr Ramanunjan has done great progress in the field of science because of his hold in this language. The language has more structure and derivable for it to understand it and to take out more meaning from it.

As one of the best mind of the world Albert Einstein himself believed it to be the most important language in the world.

If we do look at the larger picture maybe the initiative taken by the government is the need of the hour, as there is a need for the revival of the language which has lost its charm in the world of technology.

But the question that still remains to be answered is whether this step by the HRD minister is in the right direction and how pivotal a role can it play in the global age where there is hard to find any buyers.