Paragraph numbers below are the court’s original numbering, recovered from the source text.
9. The 1986 policy has to say as below in this regard in para 533: "Research in Indology, the humanities and Social Sciences will receive adequate support. To fulfill the need for the synthesis of knowledge, inter-disciplinary research will be encouraged. Efforts will be made to delve into India's ancient fund of knowledge and to relate it to contemporary reality. This effort will imply the development of facilities for the intensive study of Sanskrit." (Emphasis supplied)
10. It would be of some interest to note that whe;:i Sir William Jones, one of the most brilliant men of 18th century, came to India in 1783 as a Judge of the then Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort Williams in Bengal, he got interested to learn Sanskrit and it grew so strong that within six years he not only became the master of the language but translated Kalidas's Shakuntla. After about two hundred years it has fallen to the Judges of the present Supreme Court to highlight the importance of Sanskrit and to see that it finds its due place in the niche of our national life. Place of Sanskrit in our educational ethos.
11. It is well known that Sanskrit is a mother of all lndo-Aryan languages and it is this language in which our Vedas, Puranas and Upanishadas have been written and in which Kalidas, Bhavbuti, Banbhatta and Dandi wrote their classics. Teachings of Shankracharya, Ramanuj, · G Madhwacharya, Nimbark and Vallabhacharya would not have been woven into the fabric of Indian culture if Sanskrit would not have been available to them as a medium of expressing their thoughts.
12. The report of the Sanskrit Commission (set up by the &o>ern- ment of India) which was submitted in 1957 speaks eloquently about the importance of Sanskrit. We do not purpose to burden this judgment will SANTOSH KR. v. HUMAN RESOURCES DEV. [HANSARIA, J.] all that was said by the Commission in this regard. It would be enough for A our purpose if we take note of some passages finding place in the report which highlight the quality, substance, content and strength of Sanskrit. At page 71 of the report it has been mentioned that Sanskrit is one of the greatest languages of the world and it is the classical language par excel- lence not only of India but of a good part of Asia as well. At page 73 the B report states that the Indian people and the Indian civilisation were born, so to say, in the lap of Sanskrit and it went "hand in hand with the historical development of the Indian people, and gave the noblest expres- sion to their mind and culture which has com_e down to onr day as an inheritance of priceless order for India, nay, for the entire world". The report further speaks at page 74 about the "great mental and spritual link" C of Sanskrit and of it being the elder sister of Greek and Latin, and cousin of English, French and Russian.
13. There is no need to dilate on the importance of Sanskrit further in our national ethos in view of what was stated by no less a person than D the first Prime Minister of the country, Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, in which regard, which is as below : 'If I was asked what is the greatest treasure which India possesses and what is her finest heritage, I would answer unhesitatingly – it is the Sanskrit language and literature, and all that it contains. This E is a magnificent inheritance, and so long as this endures and influences the life of our people, so long the basic genius of India will continue.- Is teaching of Sanskrit against secularism?
14. Of the three objections mentioned by the Addi. Solicitor General regarding the inability of the Board in acting in accordance with the prima facie views expressed by us in our order dated 19.7.1994, the only objection which merits our close look is. that if Sanskrit were to be included as an elective subject, Arabic and Persian shall also have to be so done. The two G other objections, namely inclusion of French and German also in the syllabus and of language like Lepcha do not deserve any consideration for obvious reasons.
15. The first objection needs our consideration because in some . quarter there may be a feeling that by conceding to Sanskrit alone as an H SUPREMECOURTREPORTS [1994]SUPP.4S.C.R. elective subject, we would act against secularism, which has been accepted by a nine-judge Bench of this Court in S.R. Bommai v. Union of India, [1994] 3 SCC 1, as a basic structure of our constitution. It is apparent that we cannot give any direction about which it can be said that it is against the secularist requirement of our Constitution.
16. For the disposal of the cases at hand it is not necessary to elaborately discuss what ar.e the basic requirements of secularism inasmuch as in Bommai's case tlrls exercise has been well done by the learned Judges. It would be enough for our purpose to note what some of the learned Judges said in this regard. Sawant, J., with whom one of us (Kuldip Singh, C J.) agreed, quoted in para 147 of the report what Shri M.C. Setalvad had stated on secularism in his Patel Memorial Lectures, 1965. One of the observations made by Setalvad was that a secular State is not hostile to religion but holds itself neutral in matters of religion. The further observa- tion in para 148 is that the State's tolerance of religion does not made it D either a religious or a theocratic State. Remaswami, J. stated in para 179 that secularism represents faiths born out of the exercise of rational facul- ties and it enables to see the imperative requirements for human progress in all aspects and cultural and social advancement and indeed for human survival itself.
17. It would be profitable to note that according to Justice H.R. Khanna secularism is neither anti-God nor pro-God; it treats alike the devout, the agonistic and the atheist. According to him, secularism is not antithesis of religious devoutness. He would like to dispel the impression that if a person is devout Hindu or devout Muslim he ceases to be secular. This is illustrated by saying that Vivenkanand and Gandhiji were the greatest Hindus yet their entire life and teac!iliigs embodied the essence of secularism (See his article 'The SpiJ:it of Secularism' as printed in 'Secularism and India: Dilemmas and Challenges' edited by Shri MM Sankhdhar).
18. We also propose to refer to what was said by the Sanskrit Commission on the subject of 'Sanskrit and National Solidarity" in Chapter IV of its report. The Commission has, in this context first stated that Sanskrit is the 'embodiment of fadian culture and civilisation'. It then observes that the Indian People look upon Sanskrit as the binding force H for the different peoples of this great country, which was described as the SANTOSH KR. v. HUMAN RESOURCES DEV. [HANSARIA, J.] greatest discovery which the Commission made as it travelled from Kerala A to Kashmir and from Kamarupa to Saurastra. The Commission, while so travelling, found that though the people of this country differed in a number of ways, they all were proud to regard themselves as participants in a common heritage; and that heritage emphatically is the heritage of Sanskrit. According to the Commission one of the witnesses which ap- peared before it went to the length of suggesting that if the Sanskrit Commission had come before the States Reorganisation Commission, many of the recent bickerings in our national life could have been avoided: (Pages 80 and 81).
19. Form what has been stated above, we entertain no doubt in our C mind that teaching of Sanskrit alone as an elective subject can in no way we regarded as against secularism. Indeed, our constitution requires giving of fillip to Sanskrit because of what has been stated in Article 351, in which while dealing with the duty of the Union to promote the spread of · Hindi it has been provided that it would draw, whenever necessary or D desirable, for its vocabulary, primarily on Sanskrit. Encouragement to Sanskrit is also necessary because of it being one of the languages included in the Eighth Schedule.
20. We, therefore, conclude by saying that in view of importance of Sanskrit for nurturing our cultural heritage, because of which even the E official education policy has highlighted the need of study of Sanskrit, making of Sanskrit alone as an elective subject, while not conceding this status to Arabic and/or Persian, would not in any way militate against the basic tenet of secularism. There is thus no merit in the first objection raised by the Board.
21. In the aforesaid premises, we direct the Board to include Sanskrit as an elective subject in the syllabus under consideration. Necessary amendment in the syllabus shall be made within a period of three months from today.
22. The writ petitions are. allowed accordingly. No order as to costs. T.NA. Petitions allowed.