Nagpur: Former Chief Justice of India Sharad Bobde questioned why Sanskrit cannot be India's official language for everything including use in courts. He claimed that in 1949, the architect of the Constitution and eminent jurist BR Ambedkar had proposed it as per media reports. He also observed that Sanskrit vocabulary is common to many Indian languages.
He was speaking at the Akhil Bhartiya Chhatra Sammellan organised by Sanskrit Bharti.
"Hindi and English are used as official languages in governance and courts as per law, while every chief justice receives representations seeking nod to introduce respective regional languages, which is now a reality in the district level judiciary and some high courts," he added. "At the level of the high court, the official language is English, though many HCs have had to allow applications, petitions, and even documents in regional languages," said the former CJI.
He further said that the issue of official language should not remain unresolved. "It has remained unresolved since 1949. There are grave dangers of miscommunication in governance and administration of justice, though this is not the place to discuss."
He also asserted that introducing Sanskrit as the official language will not amount to any religion because 95% of the language has nothing to do with any religion but deals with issues related to philosophy, law, science, literature, phonetics, architecture, and astronomy. "The language will have to be taught as a language without any religious connotation. Like English is taught in professional courses. A vocabulary (will need to be) created and the language added to the Official Languages Act," he added.
"The (Sanskrit) language does not belong to south or north India, and is perfectly capable for secular use. It has been found most suited for computers by a NASA scientist, who wrote a paper 'Knowledge Representation in Sanskrit and Artificial Intelligence'. It can be used to communicate messages in the fewest possible words.
He further said that many language experts agree that Indian use many Sanskrit words while communicating with each other in regional languages. "Every regional language, including Urdu, contains words of Sanskrit origin. Some, like Assamese, Hindi, Telugu, Bengali, and Kannada contain up to 60-70% Sanskrit words."
Bobde also stated that the transition to Sanskrit cannot take place overnight but over many years.