Gujarat: Ex Additional Secretary files PIL to make Sanskrit as national language

Former Additional Secretary to Gujarat government Kaluji Gobarji Vanzara filed public interest litigation (PIL) in Supreme Court seeking direction to the union government to notify Sanskrit as "national language" while continuing with Hindi as the official language.

The petition said to be running into 200 pages, is listed for hearing on January 4.

Vanzara, 65, who practices law post-retirement, has filed the petition as party-in-person. When contacted he refused to divulge information related to the petition. He is learnt to have contended in the PIL that since there is no national language in the country as Hindi is only the official language, the government of India can create a separate category "higher than the official language" for making Sanskrit as country's national language.

"This can happen 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," he argued in the PIL.

KG Vanzara also happens to be the brother of controversial ex-IPS officer D G Vanzara who was discharged from Sohrabuddin Sheikh and Ishrat Jahan encounter cases after spending nearly eight years in jail.

He claimed, "About 40 prominent Constituent Assembly (which drafted the Constitution) members including BR Ambedkar, the chief architect of the Constitution who was not allowed to take Sanskrit as second Language in matriculation on caste basis in 1907, ferociously advocated to make Sanskrit (not Hindi) as an official language." He cited several prominent names who also advocated in favour of Sanskrit.

Vanzara has added a statement reportedly made by first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru as saying, “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.”

"If Hindi is continued as an official language and Sanskrit, in addition, is declared as National Language, there cannot be dispute or division on the lines of caste, creed, region or religions...Even a staunch Islamist scholar Dr. Zakir Nayak, although declared as an absconder for some reasons, favoured Sanskrit as a language of the common man. India should learn from Israel who in 1948, made Hebrew, considered to be a dead language from the last 2000 years, along with English as official/national language of Israel."