Speaker responds to Maran protesting Sanskrit interpretation of LS debate

New Delhi: Speaker Om Birla reacted sharply to senior DMK MP Dayanidhi Maran's Tuesday protest against the Lok Sabha secretariat's decision to provide simultaneous interpretation of Lok Sabha proceedings in Sanskrit, claiming that taxpayer funds were being wasted on the language, which Maran said was hardly spoken in India.

Birla responded that Sanskrit was the nation's primary language and that many Indian languages originated from it.

“Which country are you living in? This is Bharat and its primary language has been Sanskrit. You have issues with Hindi also… Simultaneous interpretation will be available in Hindi and Sanskrit,” Birla asserted, triggering applause and cheering from the treasury benches.

After the Question Hour, the Speaker stated that members could now get simultaneous interpretation of Hose proceedings in six additional languages: Bodo, Dogri, Maithili, Manipuri, Sanskrit, and Urdu. In addition to Hindi and English, the list currently includes Assamese, Bangla, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil, and Telugu.

“Bharat is the only democratic institution that is giving simultaneous interpretation of the (House) proceedings in 16 languages besides Hindi and English,” Birla said, Indian Express reported.

Maran immediately protested asking why Sanskrit should be added to the list. “Who is speaking in Sanskrit here? What about Bhojpuri,” he asked.

According to the 2011 population survey, 73,000 individuals spoke Sanskrit, said Maran. “Which state has Sanskrit as official language? Why taxpayers’ money should be wasted…,” he asked.

Birla shot back at Maran: “What’s your problem?” “I said there will be 22 languages, not Sanskrit alone. Why do you object to Sanskrit? There are 22 recognised languages in Parliament. Simultaneous interpretation will take place in Hindi as well as Sanskrit,” he asserted.

Maran's intervention elicited heated reactions from the ruling party. Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan called it an "unwarranted remark” and said it was “not only in bad taste but also revealed DMK’s selective outrage, hypocrisy and propaganda when it came to India’s linguistic heritage”.

Warning the DMK leader, Pradhan said “indulging in divisive politics is the real waste of taxpayers’ money”. “We don’t need to diminish one language to promote another,” the minister said.