Amid the ongoing Budget session in Parliament, discussions are underway in the House regarding the 2025-26 budget. However, during the session, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) MP from Tamil Nadu Dayanidhi Maran raised questions about the Sanskrit interpretation of the Parliament work calling it an RSS ideology. However, his remarks drew a sharp response from Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.
“Sir, you are giving translations for languages, which are most welcome, for official state languages. Can you tell me which official state language is Sanskrit? Why are we wasting taxpayers money on a language which is not even communicable? It’s not communicated in any of the states in India and nobody speaks it. Sir, the population survey in 2011 said that only 73,000 people were supposed to be speaking Sanskrit. Why should the taxpayers’ money be wasted because of your RSS ideology?” asked Dayanidhi Maran.
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However, Speaker Om Birla gave a hard response to Maran’s allegation. ” “Hon’ble member, in which country of the world are you living in? This is Bharat and the core language of Bharat has been Sanskrit. We are giving translations in 22 languages, not only in Sanskrit. Why have you objected to Sanskrit? You have a problem with Hindi and Sanskrit. There are 22 languages in India recognised by Parliament. The translations will be done in all 22 languages including Sanskrit and Hindi,” said Birla.
The Hindi reference comes as Southern states like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have been accusing the BJP government of Hindi imposition.
Earlier, speeches in the House were available for translation into 10 languages, including Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Punjabi, and Odia. However, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla has now included additional languages such as Bodo, Sanskrit, Dogri, Urdu, and Maithili.