The sanitising power of spoken Sanskrit

Out in northeast Delhi, nestled amidst the industrial, agricultural, and residential suburb of Mandoli, is a small compound where a committed group of Sanskrit enthusiasts live, study, teach and speak only Sanskrit. Camps are held there year round, run by Samskrita Bharati, an organisation devoted entirely to propagating spoken Sanskrit "in every home and in every village" (grihe grihe graame graame). This motivating ideological force extends to "every city in every nation" as well (nagare nagare deshe deshe).

Samskrita Bharati is a part of the Sangh Parivar, the collection of nationalist, political, social, paramilitary, religious and cultural organisations devoted to the furthering of its particular version of 'patriotic' Hinduism. The Sangh would like to see an ideal utopian Hindu nation and world with Sanskrit as its lingua franca. Samskrita Bharati's role in this movement is linguistic and cultural; however, it is enmeshed in the political, religious, and para-military preoccupations of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), respectively. Sanskrit is a symbolic vehicle for the ideology and practices of the Sangh Parivar. Samskrita Bharati's mandate is to undertake the "Revival of Samskrit as a mass communication language (jaanabhaashaa) and facilitation of common man's access to its vast knowledge treasure."