Union HRD Minister Smriti Irani said IITs Have Been Asked to Teach Sanskrit

In order to facilitate the study of science and technology as reflected in its literature, the IITs have been asked to teach Sanskrit to its students. The suggestions were made by the panel which was chaired by former Chief Election Commission N Gopalaswami. The report presented by the panel suggested all the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) to facilitate study of science and technology as reflected in the Sanskrit literature. They are also told to focus on inter-disciplinary study of Sanskrit along with modern subjects in the institutes.

The announcement of the recommendations was made public by Smriti Irani in the Parliament through a written reply. She mentioned in the reply, “Accordingly, IITs have been requested to teach Sanskrit language especially with reference to study of works which contain scientific knowledge.”

In the year 2000, during the NDA-I regime, the central government had issued notices to 40 educational institutes including IITs and IISc to consider introducing Sanskrit courses. The notices worked to an extent making a few IITs to integrate knowledge available in ancient Indian texts in the engineering curriculum. During the last tenure of the NDA government an advisory was issued to introduce Sanskrit language in IIT Bombay and IIT Gandhinagar. Quite a few cells had also been set up to provide courses specific to Sanskrit studies in these institutes.

A committee that was given the job of preparing a 10 year road map for including Sanskrit into the mainstream engineering curriculum has also suggested setting up Sanskrit cells in institutes like IITs, NITs, IISERs and other central universities.