Learning Sanskrit or German?

The columnists seem almost unanimous - making Indian children learn Sanskrit is a fundamentalist-obscurantist, Hinduttva conspiracy, while learning German is something forward looking-progressive and modern.

I feel that learning and knowing different languages is culturally enriching, a wonderful way for us to know the world. Thus in my opinion, learning German is fine. However, I also believe that India has neglected teaching Sanskrit to school children, depriving them of a wonderful tool in knowing their own cultural roots.

THE DEBATE

Lord Meghnad Desai, a member of House of Lords in UK, wrote about it in Indian Express:

Sanskrit is today a dead language which is spoken rather badly by a few. How often have we all heard Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam murdered by bad pronunciation. Sanskrit is and was, throughout history, an elite language which only Brahmins were privileged to learn... in India, the forward-looking, development-oriented people want to learn German. But the obscurantists want the country to go back to its ancient roots and learn Sanskrit.

Outlook clarifies that the order of Education Minister Ms Smriti Irani is not just about Sanskrit but it asks Kendriya Vidyalayas (Central schools) to replace German, taught as third language, "with Sanskrit or any other modern Indian language". In a letter, Ashok Aggarwal, writing on behalf of All India Parents' Association has written that the decision of education minister is "unfair, illegal, unconstitutional and unjust".

I don't know if legally Ms. Irani has taken a wrong decision and if it is unconstitutional - I hope not. However, I wonder if media and columnists, by making it a "German versus Sanskrit" debate, are perhaps deliberately creating some confusion? Would it not be more appropriate to pose it as the "foreign language versus an Indian language" debate?

The three language education formula (mother tongue + English + an Indian language) was created to promote unity of India. I feel that today there are many persons in India, especially those who speak English, who think that in the globalized world using school time to learn another Indian language is a wastage of time while learning French, German, or any other "foreign" language is much more important for the future job prospects of their children.

I wonder if all this debate, presented in terms of Hinduttva-versus-Progressive ideas about education, is really about our belief about the inferiority of India's vernacular language speaking majority world?

NEGLECT OF SANSKRIT IN INDIA

I had studied Sanskrit for three years in the middle school. I do not recall those studies with particular pleasure, but that did not mean that Sanskrit was an especially boring subject - rather, I think that in general, teaching in our school was unimaginative and boring, not just in Sanskrit, but also in other subjects like physics and history. Unless we are fortunate to get a gifted teacher, most of Indian education system continues to be like that.

Few decades later, when I was living in Italy and was forced to learn Italian, which included learning the Latin linguistic structures, I was suddenly reminded of Sanskrit - the way of remembering changes in verbs according to the tense, gender and persons in Latin, is very similar to Sanskrit.

Later, my work helped me to learn French and Portuguese. I also studied German on my own for some time, though I was never any good at it. Knowing different European languages, often I am struck by the similarities in the roots of different words in different languages, wondering about their common origins and about how languages intermix and gain from each other.

Learning different languages helped to awaken my interest in different humanistic areas - arts, history, archeology and anthropology. It gave me many opportunities to learn about these areas in the European (and western) context. It also made me understand that while I knew so much about origins of Greek and Roman cultures, I hardly knew anything about India's past - for example, I was unaware of the works of persons like Kalidasa or Shudraka.

For many centuries, learning Sanskrit was barred to majority of Indians - it was reserved for Brahmins. However, in Independent India, what stopped us from democratising Sanskrit knowledge and making sure that all Indians could learn it? Or because it was also the language of exclusion and discrimination in the past, should we ignore it and forget it?

I do not have any ideological love for any language or any desire to prove that ancient Indian civilization was better than any other civilization. But I think that Sanskrit is a part of the Indian heritage and if we ignore it, we ignore our own past. How can we love and cherish who we are, if we decide to ignore and forget where we come from?

NOT JUST SANSKRIT

In the end I don't think that the discussion is about closing our doors to languages like German. Learning German can give us an entry into reading and understanding works of great writers like Goethe, Kant and Hesse. However, I don't think that those who talk of teaching German are worried about not knowing the great German writers. I think that our worries about learning German are more practical - how it can help us to find jobs and make carriers.

I think that as a market-driven society, we are willing to ignore education about literature, art, culture and history, and focus on practical skills that can get us jobs. I also think that it is a short-sighted view.

Today, learning new languages especially European languages, is easier than it has ever been in the history. Internet, free online courses, watching TV channels from other countries, making friends from other countries and chatting with them - if you really wish, you can learn new languages and keep that knowledge alive through internet. Perhaps one day, it will become equally easier to learn Indian languages and Sanskrit through internet.

I believe that learning our own languages and cherishing our own history, literature, art and culture is an important first step for becoming aware and responsible citizens. Only when we know about our own roots, can we explore and appreciate the roots and rich diversities of others.

It is not just about Sanskrit - I wish, our education system could teach our children about the rich works in our "vernacular" languages - from Marathi, to Tamil to Urdu.

Sanskrit may be a "dead" language, not spoken by people, but the language is very much alive for understanding our past. Words from Sanskrit have permeated all the different Indian languages.

I think that this debate is also about a "future-job centric" view of education versus the building of a "cultural foundation" role of education. I believe in a holistic education and not a job-centric education - make our science and maths learning more interactive and practical, but do not give up on subjects like arts, literature, culture and history.

If I were to ask you about the works of Shakespeare or Homer or Dante, probably you would be able to give me some answers. However I suspect that if I ask you about the works of Kalidasa or Banabhatta or Jayadeva, few of you will be able to remember the titles of their works. That is the real tragedy.

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The Hurt Syndrome

The news came from a Japanese friend. She had forwarded a message from a common friend in the US and the message said:

... I am asking that each of you send an email to Nick Park and Aardman Annimations to object to the manner in which persons affected by leprosy are being portrayed in the soon to be released movie titled, "The Pirates! Band of Misfits." In the event you have not seen the trailer, the characters board a "pirate leper ship" and a body part falls off one of the sailors. This is a cruel portrait of the millions of persons affected by leprosy and negatively creates a lasting image on the minds of the young viewers from throughout the world who will see this movie ...

For past couple of decades I have been working in the field of leprosy. One of the key issues that continues to trouble the finding of new cases with leprosy and then ensuring their treatment and rehabilitation is the common image of this disease in public perceptions all over the world. Afraid of the social stigma and virtual social banishment that the disease can cause, people with leprosy often try to hide as long as possible.

However, over the past three decades, the actual situation of leprosy has changed drammatically. Today it is possible to get free treatment all over the world and the persons can get cured easily and completely. Therefore, it should no longer be seen as a disease that causes fear and is seen as "curse of the God".

I can understand the anguish of my friends because when we talk of this disease today, it is about thousands of persons who still get it today and have to face the social consequences of having a "dreaded disease" that are unjustified. Though most persons feel that leprosy is a kind of relic of the past, the reality is that every year there are about 250,000 new cases of leprosy every year. India and Brazil are the two most important countries in terms of number of new cases of leprosy today.

However, I do not believe in banning of films or insisting that they cut the scenes that are wrong in our view. This is what all the groups seem to be asking for when they feel that their depiction in the media is inappropriate. They make protests and ask for changes.

Here are a few examples of fights of other "misrepresented" groups from recent past asking for censorship or banning:

(1) In India, such protests are common place with persons of different religious, caste and social groups getting angry is a person of their community is shown in a negative way or in humour. The protestors frequently threaten violence and often end up destroying public property. Most the the time Indian Government gives in easily to such demands refusing to protect the writers, actors, directors and producers, and hides behind the bogey of "law and order situations".

Similar protests in relation to Islamic symbols/ideas in other parts of the world also has had many violent episodes.

(2) Persons with mental illnesses and persons with disabilities in many parts of the world have been fighting for not using their sterotypes in the different media including TV and films all over the world.

(3) Using caricatures of jews as being nasty moneylenders, and of arabs or Muslims as being terrorists are some other common examples from Hollywood.

I believe that if we go on like this, artists, writers and film makers will always be forced to express their ideas in narrower spaces and the world will be a poorer place for all of us.

I do not believe that banning films or censoring them to cut certain scenes is correct, whatever their provocation unless it is explicity asking for violence or expressing hate about some group.

We all have a right to criticise and if we find depictions in a film to be wrong or derogatory or stereotypes, we have the right to express our opinions, to debate and to discuss, to write about it on our blogs, to organise forums and if we feel very strongly, to promote calls for boycotting. If you don't agree with something don't go to see it, don't watch it, don't read it, and tell all your friends to do the same.

If you feel that it may not be understood by children, ask that it should be only for those above a certain age.

But I believe that no one should be asking for banning of people or their books, art or films or websites just because you feel that it gives a negative view of your religion/caste/community/gods. And no government should give in to such demands.

The only exception  to this, in my opinion, is those expressions that ask for killing, violence and hate against specific group of persons.

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PS 6 February 2012: I have heard that producers of the film "Pirates the band of misfits", following the protests, have decided to review and modify the parts related to persons affected with leprosy.

About language

I read an article on Chimurenga Chronicle about "Somali invasion of Nairobi" written by a Kenyan writer called Parselelo Kantai, and I was struck by the wonderful way that he describes the "Nairobi English" of a woman:

"For a people for whom ‘negative ethnicity’, the newspaper euphemism for the prevailing ethnic rancour that had shredded the nation into a farcical edifice of a thousand cuts, ‘othering’ the Somalis restored a sense of collective indignation. Hate and rancour were the only things holding us together…

I was surprised at her vehemence. She had always talked in a language that irritated me – the exultant language of the reaspora bubble in leafy-suburb Nairobi. It was a velvety, arriviste Nairobi English, full of possibilities and faux tourist innocence. It was an insider language that walked on water, saw no evil, advertised its privilege with cocktail kisses, intimate nods, bursts of happy laughter. It was used to suggest non-contamination, that one’s head was above the loud sucking sounds of this place, the descent into naked Nairobi calculations, pettiness, desperation. It was not the other thing: that guarded edge in your voice that revealed a loss of independence and optimism, that now your diaspora dollars were running dangerously low and you had recently turned a page in your contact book, and made the call to a powerful uncle for a job, a contract, a deal.

But Kileleshwa, an old mzungu suburb whose civil servant houses were being transformed into apartments for the yuppy beneficiaries of the Kibaki-era economic boom and the returning Western diaspora, exiled for two decades by Moi repression, was now under siege. There was no velvet to couch this new fear..."

Isn't it beautiful?

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