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Between 2014-15 and 2024-25, the central government spent Rs 2,532.59 crore on promoting Sanskrit, a figure 17 times higher than the total Rs 147.56 crore allocated for the promotion of the other five classical Indian languages: Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, and Odia.

This data was accessed by Hindustan Times through a Right to Information (RTI) request and public records.

Rs 230 cr for Sanskrit, Rs 13 cr for 5 languages combined

According to a Hindustan Times report, on average, this translates to an annual spending of Rs 230.24 crore on Sanskrit, while the five other classical languages collectively received Rs 13.41 crore per year.

Among them, Tamil, the first language to be declared classical in 2004, received the highest allocation at Rs 113.48 crore under the Grants for Promotion of Indian Languages (GPIL) scheme. This is still 22 times less than the allocation for Sanskrit, which received classical status in 2005.

The remaining four languages, including Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, and Odia, all of which received classical status between 2008 and 2014, together received only Rs 34.08 crore. Kannada and Telugu each got less than 0.5 percent of Sanskrit’s funding, while Malayalam and Odia received under 0.2 percent.

The spending on Sanskrit also surpassed that of non-classical languages like Hindi, Urdu, and Sindhi. Combined, these three languages received Rs 1,317.96 crore approximately 52 percent of what was spent on Sanskrit alone. Individually, Urdu received Rs 837.94 crore, Hindi Rs 426.99 crore, and Sindhi Rs 53.03 crore.

Despite the massive funding, Sanskrit speakers remain negligible in number, as per the 2011 Census. In contrast, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Odia, and Kannada speakers together made up 21.99 percent of India’s 1.2 billion population.

Hindi speakers accounted for 43.63percent, and Urdu speakers 4.19 percent.

In March, Tamil Nadu chief minister MK Stalin strongly criticised the central government’s language policies. “…Rather than installing Sengol in Parliament, uninstall Hindi from Union Government offices in Tamil Nadu. Instead of hollow praise, make Tamil an official language on par with Hindi and allot more funds for Tamil than a dead language like Sanskrit,” he said.