Protests erupt in Rajasthan after government replace Urdu with Sanskrit in schools

A protest against the Bharatiya Janata Party government's decision to switch Urdu to Sanskrit as a third language in certain schools was initiated by Urdu teachers in Rajasthan on Feb 18.

The Education Department has announced that it is discontinuing programs providing Urdu as a subject due to a lack of students.

In addition to the instructions for two government schools in Jaipur and Bikaner, a minister's comments that certain Urdu teachers had obtained employment with "fake degrees" also caused a stir.

The minister's comments were deemed "baseless and irresponsible" by the Rajasthan Urdu Teachers' Association.

The Mahatma Gandhi Government School (RAC Battalion) in Jaipur and the Government Senior Secondary School on Napasar-Sinthal Road in Bikaner will no longer offer Urdu classes, according to directives from the Education Department.

According to both instructions, Sanskrit teacher positions would be established in the two schools, and Urdu programs would be discontinued. Madan Dilawar, the minister of education, is said to have given the orders.

The department said that while there was a demand for Sanskrit study, which required more professors, very few students wanted to choose Urdu as their third language.

At a public event in the Deeg district on Feb 17, Minister of State for Home Jawahar Singh Bedham expressed growing dissatisfaction with the directives by claiming that the previous Congress government had replaced Sanskrit teachers with Urdu teachers, even though many Urdu teachers had obtained jobs using fake degrees.

“No one studies Urdu nowadays. We don’t know Urdu… We will abolish the posts of Urdu teachers and impart education that the people here want. We will achieve this objective very soon,” Bedham said.

Ameen Kayamkhani, the head of the Urdu Teachers' Association, claimed that Bedham had made the accusations without doing any investigation and that his accusation against the former government was baseless.

“The minister has targeted the linguistic minority to get the support of Hindus, which forms part of the BJP’s agenda of creating hatred for political advantage,” Kayamkhani said.

In a letter to Dilawar, Congress MLA Rafeek Khan, the chair of the State Minorities Commission under the BJP government, pointed out that there were enough students who were interested in studying Urdu.

“Of the 323 students enrolled in the school in Jaipur, 127 are studying Urdu as a third language. Closing Urdu classes will adversely affect the students,” Khan said.