NEW DELHI: Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar will release the Sanskrit translation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s collection of poems titled ‘Aankh Aa Dhanya Che’ on November 20 at the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in Varanasi. The choice of Varanasi, Narendra Modi’s Lok Sabha constituency, to release the book is being perceived as an attempt by the government to promote Sanskrit in educational institutions.
‘Aankh Aa Dhanya Che’, written in Gujarati, was first released in 2007. Sources said students and university teachers, including BHU Vice-Chancellor Girish Chandra Tripathi, are expected to participate in the book release function.
A senior government official said that the PM has chosen BHU to test the waters and experiment his government’s move to propagate Sanskrit.
The collection of poems was translated into Sanskrit by Rajalakshmi Srinivasan, an award-winning translator and scholar of Tamil literature. She is noted for studying texts in Tamil and Sanskrit. Her daughter, Jayanti Ravi, is a senior bureaucrat in Gujarat.
Ever since the Modi government came to power, the language politics of Sanskrit has been on top of its agenda.