• Telugu language lovers should raise their voices and start a language movement
Private junior colleges have started teaching Sanskrit as a second language in Inter as a business principle. Senior High Court lawyer, Aleru former ZPTC, BRS state leader Botla Parameshwar expressed concern that this has become a reason for Telugu not being taught in Inter. Speaking to the media, he said… Sanskrit literature is never belittled. We have a lot of love for it. Sanskrit literature contains not only myths but also sciences and a lot of knowledge. Sanskrit lovers like me are also against making Sanskrit a second language in Inter. Now government officials are working hard to bring about this situation in government colleges too. To take Telugu as a second language in Inter, one must have studied Telugu as a second language from class one to class ten. But to take Sanskrit as a second language in Inter, it is not necessary to have studied Sanskrit till then. That is, Sanskrit is taught at the first class level in the first year of Inter. So, to learn Telugu level in Inter, you need to have studied for 10 years before that. If you have that level, then Sanskrit will not even have a fifth grade level. See the syllabus of Telugu and Sanskrit in Inter. In Telugu, you have to learn poetry lessons, which means ancient poetry, scripture, literary literature, grammar, (conjunctions, phrases, allusions, etc.), and rhyme, and write the exams. But whatever the Sanskrit syllabus, there is an examination system in which if you master the most basic sounds and minerals in the Shabda Ratnavali and write them in the exam, you will get more than 80 percent. There is no need to write the rest of the poetry lessons in Sanskrit. There is also the facility to write in English. If you learn Telugu up to Inter, that knowledge will be useful to everyone in life. This will be useful to Inter students no matter what studies they pursue or jobs they do later. But ninety percent of the students who studied Sanskrit as a second language in Inter go on to courses like Engineering and Medicine. There are a few Arts students who take group exams and appear for Civil Service exams. There, neither the Science students nor the Arts students have any connection with the Sanskrit they learned in Inter. After that, Sanskrit is of no use to the students after Inter. It loses its connection with it right there. We are saying that this Sanskrit with corporate culture in Inter is of no use to the students. But we are not trying to diminish or belittle the greatness of Sanskrit literature. We are only opposing Sanskrit being used as a business commodity and as a machine to show more marks to the parents of the students, he explained. The Telangana government has made it mandatory to study Telugu from class one to class ten. That means there is a requirement that students in any school in Telangana must study Telugu. For this reason, the reason why these same students take Sanskrit when they enter the intermediate is that they score 97 or 98 percent marks in it, while Telugu does not score that much, and the colleges are advertising that it is great in first class marks and that your children’s aggregate marks will increase. In fact, students should be banned from taking a language in the intermediate that they have not studied until the tenth grade. The government should make it mandatory for students to study whatever language is the second language from the first to the tenth grade. Then Telugu will be mandatory in the intermediate as well. Now, those who have higher education in Sanskrit, i.e. M. or PhD, need job opportunities, so there are government officials who say that Sanskrit should be included. It is true that if there are ninety out of a hundred people who study higher education in Telugu and look for job opportunities, there are ten who have studied Sanskrit. That is, instead of providing ninety percent job opportunities, will these governments deprive ninety percent of those who have studied higher education in Telugu by providing them with ten percent and making Sanskrit a full-fledged subject? Is this fair… If there is no Telugu in the Intermediate, there will be no one to study Telugu in the degree in two or three years. The reason is that if there is no Telugu as a second language in the Intermediate, it is not possible to study in the degree. And if there are no people who study Telugu in the degree, there will be no students for the MA and PhD courses in the universities within five or six years. This leads to a situation where Telugu departments in the universities will be closed. This is why there is a need to bring a movement against corporate Sanskrit in the Intermediate. If any state wants to make Sanskrit optional in the Intermediate, there should also be a Sanskrit syllabus equal to the Telugu syllabus. Only those who have studied Sanskrit from the first class should be eligible. The exams should be written in Sanskrit and not in any other language. The reason is that Telugu students write in Telugu. Because this is justice. Otherwise, the government should stop Sanskrit in the intermediate. For this, all Telugu language lovers should raise their voices and start a language movement, said Botla Parameshwar.
