Namaste 2.0: The Campus Scene
Picture a lecture hall at an Indian Institute of Technology where students in hoodies and headphones pause their AI/ML project discussions to repeat after an instructor in a Spoken Sanskrit workshop: “Bhavatu! Aham ready (I am ready).” The scene could be straight out of 3 Idiots , but it reflects a very real trend. Across premier institutions, from IITs to new-age Nalanda administrators are infusing Sanskrit, the classical language of sages, into environments dominated by coding bootcamps and corporate recruiters. (https://www.wired.com/2001/01/dead-language-talking/?utm)The result is a rich tableau of irony: the hyper-modern gurukul (traditional school), where knowledge of Python and Panini are expected to flourish side by side.
This semi-dialogue of old and new plays out daily. One moment a student might attend a seminar on quantum computing sponsored by a tech multinational; the next, she’s invited to a Sanskrit Sambhashan (spoken Sanskrit) session on campus. In the college café, amid the aroma of espresso, a bold sign proclaims in Sanskrit, “आहारगृहे स्वागतं” (āhāragṛhe svāgataṁ – welcome to the cafeteria), as if to gently remind the patrons of India’s illustrious linguistic heritage.
It’s a charming, absurd scene: a cadre of future engineers and managers, poised to conquer global markets, being urged to converse in a tongue spoken fluently by perhaps no more people than would fill a small sports stadium. Indeed, as per India’s own Home Ministry data, only about 0.002% of Indians speak Sanskrit in daily life (https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/people-speak-sanskrit-india-home-ministry-language-department-2005594-2022-09-28). That makes it the least-spoken of India’s 22 official languages – a status oddly at odds with the fanfare on campuses, roughly 24,000 individuals. But statistics be damned; in these halls of higher learning, Sanskrit isn’t just a language, it’s a statement.
NEP 2020 and the Sanskrit Renaissance
To understand this campus Sanskrit saga, one must examine India’s National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. This policy, while charting reforms for a 21st-century knowledge economy, made a case for classical languages. Amid recommendations on coding, critical thinking, and global exchanges is a call to revive Sanskrit. The NEP encourages Sanskrit as an option at all education levels, asserting that no student should be denied learning it. (https://www.newslaundry.com/2020/08/25/does-nep-2020-really-not-promote-hindi-and-sanskrit?utm).
In fact, ever since NEP 2020’s announcement, there’s been “a renewed interest in Sanskrit” across educational institutions, with new training programs and research initiatives launched to “improve the reach of the language” https://kgpchronicle.iitkgp.ac.in/making-sanskrit-accessible-through-ai-based-text). Suddenly, Sanskrit is not just for pandits in traditional pathshalas; it’s being packaged as a modern skill, even a patriotic duty.
The venerable IITs – better known for incubating unicorn startups – have been asked (politely but pointedly) to contribute to this “Sanskrit renaissance.” One IIT director quipped in an interview, half-seriously, that his institute was now expected to produce both the next Sundar Pichai[1] and the next Panini. Indeed, courses began popping up: IIT Bombay’s humanities department cross-listed a Sanskrit course; IIT Madras held a Sanskrit Week celebration; and IIT Kharagpur went a step further, offering an online Spoken Sanskrit course via its digital learning platform.
The IIT Kharagpur course, taught by a Sanskrit scholar in the humanities department, promises students a “strong foundation in Sanskrit” and practice in speaking Sanskrit with correct grammar. (https://www.careers360.com/university/indian-institute-of-technology-kharagpur/advanced-level-of-spoken-sanskrit-certification-course) – all packaged in a slick MOOC format alongside courses on data science and machine learning. That a top technology institute is literally teaching students how to chit-chat in an ancient language is both admirable and vaguely absurd.
The NEP’s influence extends beyond the traditional education system. Even the newly revived Nalanda University – a project explicitly framed as India’s global intellectual hub – features Sanskrit prominently. Nalanda, re-established with international collaboration and touted as a symbol of India’s academic soft power, offers diplomas in languages such as Sanskrit, Pāli, Tibetan, Japanese, and Korean.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nalanda_University#:~:text=Literature%2FHumanities%20,23)
It’s a telling inclusion: amidst Asian languages vital for contemporary diplomacy, Sanskrit stands its ground as a civilizational link. The Prime Minister himself inaugurated Nalanda’s new campus, underscoring Sanskrit’s role in the institution’s mission. Thus, from policy corridors in Delhi to university campuses, a clear message resonates: Sanskrit is not only our heritage but also our future, or so we are led to believe.
Hyper-Modern Dreams vs. Ancient Schemes
Step onto any elite Indian campus today and you’ll sense a double vision. These institutions project hyper-modernity – labs with cutting-edge equipment, halls named after tech giants, and students groomed as global corporate citizens. The IITs and central universities flaunt partnerships with multinational corporations; their incubators are funded by Big Tech, their conferences draw international experts. The rhetoric is about innovation, disruption, and India’s emergence as a global superpower in science and commerce. Yet, amid this tech-driven fervour, one finds Spoken Sanskrit circles and Vedic discussion clubs sprouting up. It’s like finding a ancient yajña altar in the Googleplex.
Consider a typical day at IIT Global Tech (fictional, but not far-fetched). Morning: a seminar on Artificial Intelligence, where researchers unveil an AI system that can parse Sanskrit texts using state-of-the-art machine learning. The project, ironically, exists because Sanskrit’s complex grammar poses a delightful challenge for AI – and indeed IIT Kharagpur’s team proudly announces superior results in Sanskrit computational linguistics (https://kgpchronicle.iitkgp.ac.in/making-sanskrit-accessible-through-ai-based-text-processing/#:~:text=,).
Afternoon: a career fair sponsored by Google and Infosys, where students in Western business attire network furiously; but it opens with a Sanskrit prayer for wisdom, drawing puzzled looks from a few foreign recruiters. Evening: a workshop titled “Modern Technology, Ancient Language,” where volunteers from Samskrita Bharati (an NGO dedicated to Sanskrit revival) teach interested students how to have basic conversations in Sanskrit.
They go over how to say “password” (guptanirvāchaṇam?) or “login” (praveshanam?) in Sanskrit – coining words on the fly for concepts ancient sages never had to describe. The intent is earnest, the content occasionally comical. As Wikipedia dryly notes, organizations like Samskrita Bharati have been conducting Speak Sanskrit workshops across India to popularize the language en.wikipedia.org. Now those workshops have found their way into the heart of the campuses of higher learning.
Students straddle these incongruent worlds with amusement and patriotism. One undergraduate jokes that his resume now has C++, Python, and Sanskrit under skills. Another admits attending the Sanskrit club to appease her parents, who see her tech career as worthwhile only if she remains culturally “grounded.” The institution’s administration publicizes these Sanskrit events to curry favour with policymakers and present a distinct identity in global academia. It’s not lost on them that promoting Sanskrit aligns with the national narrative – and might unlock a special grant or two. When the government funds Sanskrit promotion, why shouldn’t an institution teaching Economics or Commerce host a Sanskrit seminar if it helps get that new research center approved?
Nationalist Narratives and Soft Power Sanskrit
Government figures often extol Sanskrit as the “mother of all languages” (a claim linguists view as nonsense, but it plays well to the gallery). There are even techno-mythical rhetoric floating around – perhaps you’ve heard the one where NASA scientists purportedly find Sanskrit the best language for computers (a widely debunked urban legend, but it refuses to die in some WhatsApp circles). Such narratives, while not officially endorsed, create a halo of scientific awe around Sanskrit that makes its introduction into these institutions seem like a natural homecoming. ( https://malharmanek.substack.com/p/thieleology)
The language is presented not as a dead relic but as a timeless repository of knowledge – containing ancient insights into mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and philosophy that modern science can still learn from. In this view, a tech student learning Sanskrit isn’t wasting time; she’s tapping into 3,000 years of wisdom to inspire future innovation. The irony that she reads those Sanskrit texts in English translation most of the time is conveniently glossed over. (Ibid)
Moreover, Sanskrit has utility in the realm of soft power and international image-building. By promoting Sanskrit globally, India projects a unique identity that sets it apart from other rising powers. For example, India routinely sponsors Sanskrit courses and chairs at foreign universities through institutions like the ICCR (Indian Council for Cultural Relations). The World Sanskrit Conference, held periodically in different countries, is often inaugurated by Indian dignitaries showcasing Sanskrit as India’s proud export. (Ibid)
The government’s encouragement of Sanskrit in elite institutions at home ties into this outward narrative: it’s a way of saying India’s knowledge revolution isn’t just about STEM, it’s STEAM with an added “A” for ancient wisdom. A case in point is the new Nalanda University in Bihar – supported by international partners but unabashedly rooted in Dharmic and Sanskritic tradition (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/education/news/pm-modi-inaugurates-nalanda-universitys-net-zero-campus-eyes-golden-age-for-india/articleshow/111109934.cms.) The funding of Sanskrit departments or courses in such globally oriented institutions reveals a dual aim: appeal to domestic cultural pride and impress abroad with the depth of India’s heritage. In short, Sanskrit has become a tool for nation-branding – a classical lingua franca for India’s soft power projections.
The Spoken Sanskrit Paradox
Yet for all the lofty motives, the push for “Spoken Sanskrit” in modern academia comes with delicious contradictions. Foremost is the basic fact that Sanskrit has not been a commonly spoken language ever. By the 21st century, its usage is largely liturgical (in Hindu rituals, Buddhist chants, etc.) or scholarly. Reviving it as a spoken medium is an exercise in wilful nostalgia – or as some might say, performative culturalism. ( https://malharmanek.substack.com/p/thieleology ).
On campus, the incongruity is often evident in small, comic moments. During a Sanskrit conversation practice at a tech institute, a student trying to be sincere asked how to say “algorithm” in Sanskrit. The instructor coined “क्रियाक्रमसूत्र” (kriyākramasūtra, roughly “procedure formula”), a brilliant but unwieldy concoction. The class chuckled – not to mock Sanskrit, but at the surreal realization that they were reinventing a classical language for concepts like algorithms, software, caffeine, or WiFi.
In another instance, participants at a Sanskrit retreat in a central university found themselves tongue-tied when asked to discuss modern politics in Sanskrit – the ancient lexicon simply doesn’t have words for “trade deficit” or “hybrid electric vehicle.” The organizers, undeterred, urged them to get creative and use Sanskrit’s compounding genius to invent new terms. If Sanskrit once gave the world zero and the concept of shunya, surely it can give us a word for “startup valuation” today! The endeavour is intellectually stimulating, no doubt, but it underscores how contrived the idea of Sanskrit as a spoken vernacular in 2025 really is. (Ibid)
The term “Spoken Sanskrit” itself hints at the paradox, and nowhere is this more apparent than in official functions at institutes: the convocation at a central university might begin with a Sanskrit prayer and end with the vice-chancellor proclaiming “Satyameva Jayate” (“Truth alone triumphs”), but the degrees handed out are in English, and the after-ceremony networking happens in a smattering of English and Hindi.
The function of Sanskrit in these academic ecosystems is thus largely ceremonial and symbolic, even as everyone involved asserts its importance with straight faces. This disjunct is not lost on students. A satirical student magazine at one IIT poked fun by printing a comic where Lord Ganesh, the deity of wisdom (often associated with learning Sanskrit scriptures), tries to debug a piece of code and exclaims in frustration, “न बुझ्यते!” (“I don’t understand!” in ‘Sanskrit’) – implying even the gods might find an STEM curriculum overwhelming when mixing two different knowledge systems to produce STEAM.
Campus Ironies and Cultural Crossroads
In the halls of Indian academia, these narratives are not clashing so much as colluding in a grand show. The result is a kind of intellectual theatre that is both inspiring and comic. Where else would you find, for instance, a college named Sunaina Sanskrit Mahavidyalaya offering a B.Tech. in Computer Science and Engineering in Sanskrit ?
The very idea reads like the punchline of a joke – the words “Sanskrit” and “B.Tech in CSE” in one sentence – yet it’s an actual degree on offer, emblematic of this mash-up of the ancient and ultramodern.
The protagonists of this story – students, professors, policymakers – are not oblivious to the irony. Many play along enthusiastically. The tech student who codes by day and chants by night might tell you with a wink that he’s training to become a “shloka-startup entrepreneur,” harnessing the blessings of Saraswati (goddess of learning) for his future IPO.
As a final imaginary scene, let’s revisit that IIT lecture hall we started this write-up with. After the class, a student (perhaps playing the role of the irreverent jester) asks in Sanskrit, “कदा भोः Google भविष्यति गगनचुम्बीसंस्कृतप्रयोक्ता?” – roughly, “Sir, when will Google become a top user of Sanskrit?” The hall erupts in laughter. Even the dignitaries chuckle, because everyone knows the answer: likely never, but that’s beside the point. The point, as the dean gently replies in a mix of English and Sanskrit, is that India’s institutions are trying to be something unique – laboratories where software meets scripture, where one can write code in the morning and decipher ancient code-language by afternoon. It’s a grand experiment born of both idealism and ideology. And as with any experiment, it comes with unpredictable outcomes – sometimes profound, sometimes amusing.
In the end, the revival of spoken Sanskrit in India’s elite academia may not transform the daily language of the masses (or make Sanskrit the next Python), but it has already succeeded in sparking conversations – ironic, intellectual, and important ones. As we leave the modern gurukul, we might borrow a line from Sanskrit to sum up the spectacle: “इति कथाम् समाप्तयामः”, thus we conclude the tale.
Only in this tale, conclusion is too strong a word – the dialogue between Sanskrit and silicon on India’s campuses is ongoing, tongue firmly in cheek, striving for that elusive balance where a nation’s soul and its ambition can coalesce. And if nothing else, it makes for one heck of a satirical story that even the ancient playwright Kalidasa might have admired, had he been invited to teach a workshop at IIT.
Subscribe to Our Newsletter
Get the latest CounterCurrents updates delivered straight to your inbox.
Pravin Raj Singh is Associate Professor, Department of English,Satyawati College, University of Delhi.
