The Centre has stopped giving out an award to honour scholars of Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian and a few other languages for five years, drawing the ire of scholars who claimed the move would demotivate litterateurs.
The government has been giving the Presidential Award of Certificate of Honour for Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian since 1958. The scheme was extended to cover Pali/Prakrit in 1996 and Classical Kannada, Classical Telugu, Classical Malayalam and Classical Odia in 2016.
The education ministry sets up an expert committee to select the awardees. Data accessed by The Telegraph from the education ministry under the RTI Act showed that no one has been given the award after 2019.
Under the scheme, an awardee gets a one-time monetary grant of ₹5 lakh and ₹50,000 per year for life, apart from a sanad and a shawl.
There are 15 awards for Sanskrit, three each for Arabic, Persian, Classical Telugu, Classical Kannada, Classical Malayalam and Classical Odia and one for Pali/Prakrit.
A senior ministry official said that the education ministry had set up a committee in 2021 to select the awardees but the panel never met. “No meeting has taken place in the last three years. No scholar has received the award for the last five years. The scheme is still there,” said the official.
Bhagwat Charan Shukla, a professor of Vyakaran at the faculty of Sanskrit Vidya Dharma Vigyan of Banaras Hindu University, said that sitting on the award for five years amounted to its discontinuation. “A presidential award is a matter of prestige. In art and literature, awards are necessary to encourage artists and litterateurs. If it has not been given for the last five years, it is as good as being discontinued,” Shukla said.
Two awards to recognise contributions to the Hindi language have also been put on hold.
The Central Hindi Directorate (CHD) has been giving out the Hinditar Bhasi Hindi Lekhak Puraskar for over 60 years and the Shiskah Puraskar for the last 30 years. The education ministry has asked the CHD to stop giving out the awards.
“The directorate last gave out the awards in 2018. Following the education ministry’s direction in May 2023, the awards have been put on hold till further order,” said the RTI reply.
The Hinditar Bhasi Hindi Lekhak Puraskar is given to Hindi writers who are non-Hindi speakers from non-Hindi-speaking states. The award categories include creative writing, non-fiction and translation.
The Shiskah Puraskar is given to Hindi or non-Hindi-speaking authors for writing books on science, social science, and philosophy, among others.
Chaman Lal, who received the Hinditar Bhashi Hindi Lekhak Puraskar in 2001 and returned it in 2016 to protest against the Narendra Modi government’s action against Jawaharlal Nehru University, said: “It is a bit surprising that the government, which takes pride in promoting Hindi, discontinued such a prestigious award.”
An email was sent to higher education secretary Sanjay Kumar to understand the government’s perspective on the criticism over the discontinuation of the awards. His response is awaited.
