संस्कृतभाषा न कठिना

एकचक्षुर्नकाकोSयं बिलमिच्छन्न पन्नग: |

क्षीयते वर्धते चैव न समुद्रो न चंद्रमा ||

This was, by some distance, the high point of our Class IX Sanskrit textbook. The syllabus had recently changed, which meant fresh (and therefore not so efficiently censored) textbooks. Mistakes were discovered at alarmingly high frequencies. Whether the inclusion of this shloka in a chapter comprising of many other riddles (none of which I can recall) was an honest mistake or there were deeper reasons behind the decision will remain a mystery and it is not my intention to unravel it.

The riddle roughly translates as follows: “I am one-eyed, but not a crow. I seek a hole but I am not a snake. I grow and shrink. I am neither the sea nor the moon.”

If the authors expected students to accept the answer given at the end of the chapter, then they should have thought of one which was at least not as lame as a ‘needle’!          

Languages are in the public domain. They do not belong to any particular group, especially languages like Sanskrit which have existed mostly on paper and rarely (if not never) in sound waves and therefore are immune to bids of ownership. There have been claims of existence of Sanskrit speaking villages in modern India. But those are results of modern-day Sanskrit revival movements, rather than ancient Sanskrit speaking communities existing in seclusion.  Because no modern Indian linguistic/religious group can claim Sanskrit as their own, I find the controversy stirred up by the CBSE’s decision to celebrate Sanskrit Week rather amusing.  Some supporting this move have argued that most Indian languages are derived from Sanskrit and therefore promoting Sanskrit is equivalent to preserving our culture.  On the other hand, groups opposing this move accuse the government of trying to impose Hindu traditions on the nation by promoting a language which is so closely associated with Hindu religious texts. I think, both stands are equally misinformed.

Sanskrit is certainly a very old language when compared to most modern Indian languages. Kalidasa, the most celebrated Sanskrit poet-playwright, is thought to have been born in the 5^th century CE, when Sanskrit literature was probably at its peak. Marathi, on the other hand, appears only after the 12^th century. Does that mean Marathi descended from Sanskrit in a linear fashion? Not unlike Latin, Sanskrit was mostly a written language, a symbol class and education. Ever since its grammar was codified, it has remained in a permanantly fossilized state with its use being restricted to literature. A vast majority of the population communicated in the vernacular. These vernacular or prakrit languages are more likely to be the ancestors of modern-day languages and Sanskrit could be just another shoot in the tree of languages rather than being the root.

Religious texts in Hinduism, Jainism have been written in Sanskrit. Does that make it a religious language? And does studying Sanskrit imply giving you allegiance to India’s Hindu Right? Nothing could be further away from the truth. Sanskrit is too multifaceted, too versatile to be labelled a religious language. (After all, how could a language which dares to make riddles about  male genitals be just a religious language?) I have had the honour of knowing staunch atheists who have earned PhDs in Sanskrit literature. Their passion for Sanskrit was entirely compatible with their dislike of Hindutva politics. Religious texts in Sanskrit might be well known. But literature that defines the language and grants it worldwide fame is in the form of poems and plays.

उपमा कालिदासस्य भारवेरर्थगौरवम् |

 दंडिन: पदलालित्यम्  माघे सन्ति त्रयो गुणा ||

(Kalidasa’s simile, Bharavi’s depth of meaning, Dandin’s wordplay…Magha has all three of these qualities.)

And that is perhaps why three of the most famous Sanskrit writers have been immortalized in this shloka for their writing ability and not religious philosophy. Therefore, Sanskrit deserves to be delinked from the religious texts it is so often associated with and examined as a language in its own right.

Therefore, the stand taken by the groups opposing the Sanskrit Week Celebrations- by labelling Sanskrit Week Celebrations a Hindu conspiracy- seems ridiculous. A more legitimate mode of opposition would have been to argue that no language (whether it is the mother of all languages or a foreign language) can be forced on students and that the CBSE need not issue advisories on school activities that are cultural in nature. After all, CBSE’s objectives are confined to the realm of conducting examinations and prescribing the syllabus to schools affiliated to itself.

I feel Sanskrit has been defamed by people belonging to both camps. On the right, Sanskrit has been made the ‘mother of all languages’, something which it is not. And on the left, Sanskrit has been tagged a ‘Hindu conspiracy’.

Perhaps we need more riddles about needles (or human genitalia?) until Sanskrit is freed from cheap politics.

References:

1.       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C4%81lid%C4%81sa

2.       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marathi_language

3.       http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-28755509

4.       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanskrit_language

5.       http://cbse.nic.in/welcome.htm

Away He Walks

Muffled screams and stifled cries

Of pain and grief, unseen by eyes

In the land of truth and peace and gods

Of shattered dreams and blatant lies

Where terror rules and bullets fly

Where uniforms kill and plainclothes die

Where people rule, or so they say

Justice, though, turns a blind eye

Ban the words: ‘human rights’!

Unquestionable, truly, is the nation’s might

Our ‘collective conscience’ swells with pride

When men are hanged in the dead of the night

Where laws are guilty of heinous crimes

Where emerald greens turn into mines

Where villages vanish as waters rise

‘Development, development’, scream out headlines

As smoke spirals and fires rage

‘Eye for an eye’, demands the sage

Keepers of law, unfazed and unmoved

Quietly turn a fresh new page

 

Has, out of our lives, the light gone?

The ‘no ordinary one’ that once here shone?

Six and a half decades have passed

As away he walks, distant and alone

शास्त्रज्ञ

Alfred Russel Wallace (Image from Wikipedia)

नाना रानवनी जरी तो फिरला, सर्वस्व अर्पूनिया

सृष्टीची गुपिते तया उमगली, अज्ञात का तो तरी?

आग्नेयेत वनी प्रवास करुनी, वैविध्य न्याहाळूनी

त्याच्याही मनी हे अपत्य वसले, क्रांतीची नांदी खरी

वार्ता त्याची ही अंग्लादेशी कळता, धाबे दणाणुनिया   

दर्जा दुय्यम हा तयाचि दिधला, उमराव त्याच्या वरी

झेलोनी अपमान तो वदतसे, “मी काजवा तो रवी”

शास्त्रज्ञ स्थितप्रज्ञ तो झळकतो, नभी व्याध ताऱ्यापरि

    

 

The High-altitude Prison

    In 1834, Zorawar Singh, a brilliant military leader, launched a fierce assault on the isolated kingdom of Ladakh and kick-started a chain of events that would go on to change the politics of the region forever. Zorawar managed to annex Ladakh to the Dogra Empire and later went on to capture Baltistan, further north. Twelve years later, in 1846, the British rewarded the Dogras for their contribution to the British war effort against the Sikhs with a sizable portion of former Sikh-ruled territory- the Kashmir Valley. Thus the Dogras of Jammu became rulers of what we presently call Jammu and Kashmir. In 1947-48, the boundaries were drawn again, as the two newly born nations fought to control the state of Jammu and Kashmir, which had initially, chosen to stay independent. Fences were built, guns (and men to operate them) brought in and regions with indistinguishable cultures were split into two. What once was a continuous entity, where people and goods could freely move, suddenly had an impermeable barrier right in the middle. Further developments in the early 1960s meant that another impermeable barrier was set up in the region. This had dramatic implications to Ladakh, especially considering its geography.

    The first time Ladakhis saw an airplane was during the first Indo-Pak war. Isolated as they were, nobody in their wildest dreams had imagined anything like an airplane.  The arrival of a large flying monster into Leh caused varied reactions. Some were panic-stricken and hid into their basements. Some were overcome by a deep sense of devotion to this ‘savior’, who would protect them from the invaders and tried offering hay to the aircraft! After all, Ladakhis had not even set their eyes upon a bicycle by then, not to be surprised by the appearance of a giant military transport plane.

    Air-connectivity did miracles to Ladakh- especially to its previously non-existent tourism industry. It ushered in an era in which people could, as my mother quite aptly describes, jump through a rabbit’s hole to enter a completely new world.  It also did wonders too our administrators’ memories, which seem to have eliminated from themselves the bits concerning Ladakh’s geographic isolation. 

Boundaries of a variety of kinds, some natural, some artificial, some ancient, while some quite new have ensured that Ladakhis remain virtually, as one hotel-owner in Kargil describes,   in ‘prison’ for a large part of the year. Their contacts to the east have been severed due to sour relations of their political master in Delhi with Beijing. Their relations with the north-west have been blocked as the same political masters are constantly at logger-heads with Islamabad. The ranges of Karakoram, Zanskar and the Himalayas do the rest- and you have the four walls of a prison cell.   

    There are only two land routes into Ladakh from the plains of India- and both remain open only during  the spring and the summer. The Manali-Leh highway is a very treacherous road, at several points climbing above the 5000 metre mark. It opens in May or June and (if weather permits) remains open till October. The Srinagar-Leh highway is only slightly better. It opens, usually, before its counterpart from Manali and altitude-wise is not as formidable. It runs quite close (within striking distance) to the LOC and its strategic importance came under the spotlight when it was bombed in 1999. Although most portions of the road are at benign altitudes (in relative terms, of course), Zoji La, a mountain pass at 3528 metres above sea-level remains an obstacle. In winter, without fail, it gets buried under several tens of feet of snow and an immense effort with heavy machinery is required for the pass to be cleared for traffic. 

    Early in spring, Ladakhis have their eyes and ears trained towards Zoji La, as its opening means an end to their arduous four-month long prison sentence. As winters melt into springs, the essentials – food, fuel, etc. – start diminishing from Ladakhi markets. Very little, if anything at all, is brought in by air. Therefore, it is Zoji La that brings in much-needed supplies, in absence of any trade with Baltistan or with Tibet. Despite featuring in elections manifestos (probably several times), plans to build an all-weather tunnel at Zoji La, which will ensure year-long connectivity with Ladakh have failed  to materialize. The pass usually opens in the first week of April, marking the beginning of the tourist season.

    Any delay in clearing the pass for traffic can have disastrous consequences for Ladakh and therefore the local populace is completely at the mercy of the administration (both military and civillian) which decides how much money and effort should be spent in digging snow on the pass. This is precisely what happened in the spring of this year, which coincided with the general elections. Unusually late snowfall and an unusual lack of enthusiasm (even by Indian standards) on the part of the administration to open the road meant that Zoji La did not open till the second week of May- bringing Ladakh on the brink of starvation. Vegetables disappeared from the markets, prices of essential goods skyrocketed and the arrival of hundreds of tourists through the ‘rabbit’s hole’ made matters only worse. Some felt it was a conspiracy by the administration to prevent people from running off to Jammu and Srinagar and thereby ensuring a high voter turn-out in the Ladakh Lok Sabha constituency. Others felt it was just lethargy on the part of the administration, which (not too unexpectedly) seems to have forgotten the lessons of 1999 about keeping strategic roads firmly under control. Whatever the reasons were, the closure of the pass for longer than usual was enough to cause trouble to thousands of people.

    Couldn’t Ladakhis themselves produce essentials like food? Perhaps, with innovative agricultural techniques, it might be possible. But it must be remembered that Ladakh’s population does not comprise of just the natives. There are as many, if not more, mouths to feed among the huge floating population of labourers, tourists, merchants and government servants (not counting the hundred thousand army personnel, who must be taken care of by the army itself). It would be harsh to expect Ladakhis to feed everybody in Ladakh, with limited amount of fertile land and a small window of warm weather.

    In my opinion, it is time to break down the walls of the prison cell or at least build a few windows. Trade routes with Baltistan, if opened, could prove invaluable to the region. Relations with Central Asia through the Karakoram Pass (a route which was a part of the celebrated Silk Road) in the north could be reestablished.  But the prospects look dim. The newly elected government in Delhi plans to reinforce the existing walls rather than making an effort to break them down. Mr. Chewang Thupstan, BJP’s candidate from Ladakh who managed to win the seat by a record margin of 36 votes had campaigned with  ‘UT for Ladakh’ as one of his principal election promises. It remains to be seen whether the new government plans to take measures that will bring people closer or wield the tried and trusted weapon of divide and rule. 

References

1.       Partha S Banerjee Ladakh, Kashmir, Manali- the Essential Guide

2.       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zorawar_Singh_Kahluria

3.       http://eciresults.nic.in/ConstituencywiseS094.htm?ac=4

4.       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoji_La

Acknowledgements:

I must thank Dr. Tsering Norboo of Spituk, Leh for sharing his experiences with me.