Maran gets Sanskrit rap from Om Birla

New Delhi: DMK MP Dayanidhi Maran was pulled up by the Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla for his comment alleging that tax-payers money was being wasted by providing simultaneous interpretation of Lok Sabha proceedings in Sanskrit due to RSS ideology.

Speaker Om Birla hit back saying Sanskrit has been the primary language of India. A visibly upset Birla said simultaneous interpretation of House proceedings was not limited to Sanskrit alone but other recognised languages too. “Simultaneous interpretation will be available in Hindi and Sanskrit,” the Speaker said.

Soon after the Question Hour concluded, Om Birla said he was happy to announce that six more languages -- Bodo, Dogri, Maithili, Manipuri, Sanskrit and Urdu -- have been included in the list of languages in which simultaneous interpretation was available for members. He said besides English and Hindi, simultaneous interpretation is available in Assamese, Bangla, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Odiya, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu. When Birla made the announcement, DMK members started raising slogans prompting the Speaker to ask Maran what his “problem” was.

Maran said while he welcomed simultaneous interpretation of official state languages, he had objections to Sanskrit interpretation as it was “not communicable”. He cited the 2011 population survey to claim that Sanskrit was spoken by 73,000 people. “Why should taxpayers’ money be wasted because of RSS ideology,” he said.

Birla hit back, asking the DMK member which country he was residing in. “This is Bharat and its primary language has been Sanskrit. I said 22 languages, not Sanskrit alone. Why do you object to Sanskrit. There are 22 recognised languages in Parliament. Simultaneous interpretation will take place in Hindi as well as Sanskrit,” he asserted.

It may be mentioned here that recently Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi had described Manusmriti as a text that protects the rapists while speaking in Lok Sabha.

This had angered the Dharma Sansad held under the under the chairmanship of Swami Avimukteshwarananda during the Maha Kumbh Mela in Prayagraj on Sunday.