Ashwini M Sripad By

Express News Service

BENGALURU: At a time when a nationwide debate on whether to impose Hindi or not on non-Hindi-speaking states rages, here is the world’s oldest — and most likely the only — Sanskrit newspaper, which is seeking attention from the government for its very survival in its golden jubilee year. The ‘Sudharma’ newspaper published from Mysuru will turn 50 next year.

Pandit Varadaraja Iyengar, a Sanskrit scholar, had started his printing business in 1945, where books, government gazettes, question papers in Sanskrit and Kannada were printed. In 1963, he started a school for girls and stressed on girls’ education. There he organised Sanskrit workshops. In 1970, to popularise the language and reach out to people in Sanskrit every day, he started Sudharma. It started with 1,000 copies per day, which has now crossed 3,500.

Sudharma is an A3 size, two-page, five-column newspaper. In 2009, they started its e-paper which is accessed worldwide. K V Sampath Kumar, Iyengar’s son who is the editor of the newspaper now, recalls that his father started this newspaper with the sole aim of popularising the Sanskrit language.

The management is now looking for financial assistance from the government as well as looking for subscribers. Pankaj Kumar Pandey, Secretary, Information Department, said: “Let them write a letter along with other details to us; we can assist them.’’

‘We’ve subscribers from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, we send papers by post’

“Earlier, the language was restricted to one section of society. But this is not true, anyone can learn this language which is part of our culture. That’s when it started with one rupee monthly subscription,’’ Sampath Kumar said. At present, they charge just Rs 500 per year. “We have subscribers from Kashmir to Kanyakumari. We send the newspaper by post,’’ Jayalakshmi KS, Sampath’s wife, told The New Indian Express. They also send the newspaper to district libraries and a few educational institutions. She said that at present she, her husband, six scholars and a couple of staff of the printing press run the newspaper.

These scholars are doing the job free of cost. They need one-and-a-half paper rim, which cost more than Rs 1,000, to bring out one edition. Although they are not paying the scholars, they have to pay for the printing staff. They also spend money on maintaining the machines. On average they spend Rs 4,000 a day for paper, ink and printing.

“We use Srilipi to compose news. We are registered with news agencies from where we get news from different places, which will be translated into Sanskrit. We need six to seven hours to bring out the issue, composing to printing,’’ Jayalakshmi said. After she got married, she cleared Sanskrit exams to have a good command of the language. Since then, she has been part of the managing team.To mark the golden jubilee, they are bringing a 200-page souvenir, and plan a year-long programmes related to popularising the Sanskrit language.