A petition has been filed in the Supreme Court asking to notify Sanskrit as the national language of the country.
According to the reports, the PIL has been filed by the former additional secretary to the Gujarat government, KG Vanzara, who is currently a lawyer in the Gujarat High Court. The petition seeks the Supreme Court to direct the Union Government to notify Sanskrit as India’s National language while keeping Hindi as its official language.
In his petition, Vanzara claimed that the national language status will be higher than the official language status accorded to Hindi. The petition said the notification can be done simply by an Act or an executive order, without disturbing the present Constitutional frame.
“Official Language cannot necessarily be equated with National Language. Both definitely can be separate,” the petition said.
India should learn from Israel, says petition
Further, the petition said that India should learn from Israel who in 1948, made Hebrew, considered to be a dead Language for the last 2000 years, along with English as the official/national language of Israel. Vanzara also added that the move would not face any opposition from any of the religions or castes.
The plea said Sanskrit has “the biological scientific phonetic structure of Sanskrit, which develops the brain, rhythmical pronouncing and memorising capacity in children”.
Even former PM had said “the greatest treasure that India possesses is and what is her finest heritage, I would answer unhesitatingly that it is the Sanskrit Language literature and all that it contains,” the plea read.
Presently, the Indian constitution does not recognise any language as the ‘National Language of the country’. However, there are 22 official languages in India and they are covered under the 8th schedule of the Indian Constitution.
