Manipur Government strongly criticized for its move to promote Sanskrit in the State

IMPHAL: The Northeast Forum for International Solidarity (NEFIS) strongly criticized the recent announcement by the Manipur government to promote Sanskrit in the state at the cost of other urgent measures which need to be taken regarding educational issues in the state.

The Manipur Education Minister recently declared that Sanskrit would be introduced in the curriculum of select schools and colleges in the state.

He further stated that a Sanskrit department would be set up in Manipur University. The promotion of Sanskrit is being done on the lines of new National Education Policy (NEP), 2020.

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"The NEP 2020, it should be noted, emphasizes the study of Sanskrit at the cost of other Schedule 8 and other languages of India. It can be seen as an attempt by the RSS-BJP government to impose a single identity on the various peoples of India. Furthermore, the reason for the study of Sanskrit mentioned in the NEP 2020,especially highlights the utter insensitivity towards the other languages. It has been stated the there is a unity in most of the languages of India as they have been derived from Sanskrit or the other classical languages. The reasoning of the policy makers is incorrect atleast and outrageous at best since the languages in the country area result of various influences, not just that of standardized classical languages. Infact, most of the standardized forms of modern languages are unfamiliar to the general speaking population of these languages. While the other classical languages are mentioned in the policy to forest all any attack on the intentions of the central government is to impose aunitary identity on all by Sanskritisation, and giving Sanskrit a greater prominence than other languages," the NEFIS said.

While there is an urgent need for tackling the real issues in education such as the pathetic number of government schools, the bad quality of teaching in such schools and the pervasive inequality among the educational institutions in the country, the new NEP among other retrograde measures openly advocates informalization of the education both at secondary and higher levels, and thereby intensify inequality in the society, the body said.

"The solution to the educational issues being faced is to earmark more funds for public-funded educational sector and build more infrastructures in all the regions and providing generous funding to the regional public-funded educational institution," it stated, adding, "However, these measures stand evaded as the central and state governments seek to only make cosmetic changes to the hierarchical and discriminatory educational edifice of the country."

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