NEW DELHI: The claim has to be ambitious enough for it to evoke the right degree of belief — or disbelief. BJP national president Jagat Prakash Nadda on Saturday made such an attempt by saying Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party are the “custodians of culture” and work with an aim to protect and promote it globally. The equivalence he sought to make was between Indian culture and Sanskrit, a language that was historically known only by a minuscule fraction of the population.
Where there is Sanskrit, there is sanskriti (culture), Nadda said. Indian culture, in his opinion, is indisputably and indispensably intertwined with Sanskrit -- and he added for good measure that the BJP would always stand by its “grandeur and glory”. Speaking at the Utkarsh Mahosatva, organised by the Central Sanskriti University, Nadda did not stint on the metaphors that conferred on the BJP with a divine role. “Where there is Sanskrit, the language of God, there is our ideology.
And the BJP’s ideology will stand by with the culture of country,” the BJP presdent averred. Taking a jibe at the previous non-BJP governments in the country, Nadda said: “Why were the central universities of Sanskrit not formed in the earlier government? Why are they being formed only in today’s government? ‘‘The reason is simple. The intention of the Prime Minister is clear, so the policy is very clear to take the Sanskrit forward”.