Sanskrit has many supporters in Council

March 16, 2005

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE, MARCH 15. A demand was raised in the Legislative Council

today that Sanskrit be given its due importance as it is a

repository of knowledge.

The issue came up during Question Hour when Veeranna Mathikatti

(Congress) asked the Minister for Primary and Secondary Education,

R. Ramalinga Reddy, why salary arrears of teachers in 226 Sanskrit

pathashalas had been pending for six months.

No sanction

The Minister said that there are 505 teachers in 226 pathashalas and

their salary is being paid with the available grants. The salary up

to September 2004 has been paid. Agreeing that the Sanskrit teachers

have been put to severe hardship owing to non-payment of salary, the

Minister said the situation has arisen as an official in theate of Urdu and Minorities Welfare had approved the

recruitment of 116 Sanskrit teachers without sanction from the

Finance Department.

This triggered a debate and V.S. Acharya, M.R. Tanga and Balakrishna

Bhat (all BJP) expressed displeasure over what they called the

Government's apathy towards Sanskrit language. Without learning the

language, it is impossible to study Ayurveda, Dr. Tanga said.

Chandrashekar Kambar joined them and demanded that due importance be

given to the teaching of the language, but disagreed with an opinion

expressed that even Dravidian languages were derived from Sanskrit.

V.S. Ugrappa (Congress), who often quotes Sanskrit slokas, did not

agree with the belief that it was the language of one caste

(Brahmins). Mr. Ugrappa said Sanskrit should not be neglected and

children of all castes and communities should be encouraged to learn

it.

Dr. Acharya said Sanskrit had been clubbed with Urdu and they needed

to be separated.

The Minister promised to consider the suggestion. He also promised

that the Sanskrit teachers will not face problems in the next

academic year.

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