India - the Mother

November 11, 1967

(From a conversation with teachers regarding Indian languages to be taught.)

Everybody should learn Sanskrit. Specially all those who work here should learn it.... Each and everyone, whatever his place of birth.

Not Sanskrit on a scholarly level, but a Sanskrit ... (how should I put it?) which opens the door to all languages of India. I think it's indispensable. The ideal would be to have in a few years a modernized Sanskrit, that is to say, a spoken Sanskrit, like the Sanskrit you find behind all languages of India. That was an idea of Sri Aurobindo, we spoke about it. Because now, of course, English is the language of the country as a whole, but that's abnormal. It's very good to facilitate relations with the rest of the world, but just as every country has its own language, India should ... But then here, the minute one wants to have a language for the whole country, everybody starts quarrelling. Everybody wants his own language to be the one, which is stupid. But Sanskrit, no one would object to it, and it's a language more ancient than the others, in which you find the sounds, the "root-sounds" of many words.

That was something I studied with Sri Aurobindo, which of course is very interesting. There are even those roots that are found in all languages of the world, root-sounds that are in all languages. Well, that is what should be learned, what shoUld be the country's language. Every child born in India must know that, just as every child born in France must know French.... Even now, people get bogged down in quarrels, which is a very bad atmosphere to build anything. But I hope a day will come when that is possible.

As for women, in principle women are the power of execution. We should never forget that.... For execution, you are the ones who have the power of execution in every detail, along with the whole power of organization. I am at present inculcating that in our women members of Parliament—you know that we have women in the Parliament, and I am teaching that to them: Do not be subjected to men. You are the ones who have the power of execution.

On Education: 11 November 1967