One of the earliest Indian language institutions in India, Kolkata’s Sanskrit College, was founded by Englishmen in 1824. Horace Hayman Wilson, one of the greatest Sanskrit scholars of the time, played a major role in setting up the college and its scientific-Orientalist pursuit of subjects like ancient literature, philosophy, Hindu law, grammar and Indian culture.
However, it was Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar—as a student and later principal—who turned out to be most associated with the college. He opened it out to Hindu students without caste distinctions in the 1850s, reduced tuition fees, composed manuals of Sanskrit grammar and made the college the most important centre for learning and interpreting the classical language and ancient Indian texts. But Sanskrit could not fight the “emancipatory potential” of English, effectively subjugating the linguistic plurality of the country in subsequent education policies. In 2016, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee transformed the institution into a university to revive the language. Udaya Narayana Singh, chair-professor and dean (arts), Amity University, says the Kolkata institution continues to deftly straddle traditional and modernist streams of Sanskrit teaching. “But some of the best Indian language teaching institutions are not even formally recognised as Central universities,” says Singh. “The language universities scene in India is very complicated.”
According to the 2018-19 report of the ministry of human resource development, there are 13 Sanskrit universities and nine language universities in India. Singh points out how the late 1960s saw progressive moves by the government of India with regard to language universities, especially in the context of anti-Hindi agitations in south India. Mysuru’s Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL) was established in 1969. “This was a world-class institution, but again, not a university,” says Singh, who served as director for CIIL for nine years. “It was too precious for the government to let go of for various tactical reasons. A lot was happening there, including defence and border area research vis-a-vis languages. We could train the local military and the armed battalion in languages of the other side before engaging in armed conflict. Some of the biggest projects of the government are still being run by them. But it is not a university. Interestingly, it is recognised by 25 universities to be an advanced centre, so they can conduct research and the degrees can be granted by some other university.”
When it comes to enrolment, the variations between language colleges and universities get more pronounced. The modern Indian languages departments of Central universities are extremely popular. For higher studies in Urdu, Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia are preferred outposts but they are not even language universities.
Singh points out that with respect to original research output, two language institutions are the current frontrunners: CIIL and English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU) in Hyderabad. “Students from both English and foreign languages are mostly sought after for appointment as teachers, content writers, copy editors, editors, language interpreters, translators and language experts by premier institutions like Amazon, Paper True, Byju’s, Oracle and TCS,” says, E. Suresh Kumar, vice-chancellor, EFLU. “Every year about 85 per cent of EFLU students receive placements from these companies.” While EFLU is generally considered a leading player in the instruction of foreign languages, their offerings in Indian languages are equally interesting.
Certain gaps and challenges persist when it comes to language universities in India, like the difficulty for students to relate one language with the other. “Each of the big languages, whether it is Sanskrit, Urdu, Hindi or Tamil, really draw on many other Indian and western languages,” says Singh. “There was a lot of give and take—like Urdu cannot be studied without Persian and Farsi—for cutting-edge research to take place, both for academic purpose and government work.”
“If a Kannadiga wants to learn French and contribute to French-Kannada [relations], it is not encouraged in India,” says Shashi Kumar, who is on a graduate research assistant fellowship in the English and film studies department, University of Alberta, Canada. “India has accorded classical status to six of its languages: Tamil, Sanskrit, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam and Odia,” says Kumar. “Some of the languages have a connection with [dialects] in Greek. The Greek have had trade contacts with India since the time of the Mauryans…. My point is, if researchers want to explore this connection further, basic training in classical Greek is required. Our Indian universities are not equipped to facilitate this. Whereas south Asian studies in the US and Europe have connections with Indian languages because they are taught in some of the major universities. Strangely, researchers who want to work on Indian languages, go to universities in these continents, and come back to India to work on it.”
Even when it comes to Sanskrit instruction—what with the ruling government’s strong pitch for promoting the language in the education system—senior academic administrators are torn between two types of focus: to work on ancient Indian knowledge systems like mathematics, geometry, science or medicine or to promote modern-day Sanskrit writing. “A lot of people are writing new texts, trying to keep Sanskrit afloat as a living literary language,” says Singh. “This is a big challenge. Some people are focusing on the second type of teaching at the cost of the first.”