The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) has accused the Central government of ‘Sanskrit imposition’ in Tamil Nadu after it was reported that Anna University had decided to teach its students Hindu scriptures and Philosophy as a subject to its 3rd semester B.Tech and M.Tech students.
Later, Vice-Chancellor, M.K. Surappa, clarified that the notification will be amended soon and students will have a choice in the matter.
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The allegations of Sanskrit imposition was raised after it was reported that the university has decided to include Upanishads, Srimad Bhagavad Gita, Vedas, Plato and Francis Bacon etc in the undergraduate engineering course.
“To make the students well-rounded apart from technology, we are introducing more and more courses in humanities,” Surappa told reporters. “If some student doesn’t like this course, he always has an option to choose any other course… so no course is compulsory, nobody is controlling anyone here,” he said. “We are not imposing anything, in fact, we are not teaching Sanskrit at all,” he added.
“It is condemnable to attempt imposition of Sanskrit by making philosophy compulsory in the syllabus of Anna University’s CEG campus,” DMK President M.K. Stalin said in a tweet. CPI(M) state unit secretary K Balakrishnan said that it was condemnable that philosophy and Bhagavad Gita had been included in the engineering syllabus.
“This is against the principles of secularism. Introducing the teachings of a particular religion in a syllabus studied by students from all faiths and the state government standing by that is not acceptable,” he said demanding its withdrawal.
The Hindi imposition debate was triggered recently after Home Minister Amit Shah remarked that Hindi should attain the status of ‘Raj Bhasha’. “But there is a need for our nation to have one language so that foreign languages don’t find a place. This is why our freedom fighters envisioned Hindi as ‘Raj bhasha’ (official language),” Amit Shah had said at the event to mark the day the Constituent Assembly adopted Hindi written in Devanagari script as the central government’s official language