2 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Apr 21, 2026 10:42 AM IST
India is no longer the “Vishwa Guru” (teacher of the world) it once was, and the term should not be associated with the country today, veteran Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Murli Manohar Joshi said.
He was speaking at the inauguration of the Central Office of Samskrita Bharati, an RSS-linked organisation that promotes Sanskrit.
“…on the question of whether we (India) are the Vishwa Guru, I believe that we should not use this word these days. Currently, we are not Vishwa Guru. We should be Vishwa Guru, we used to be the Vishwa Guru once but that is not how it is now,” Joshi said on the sidelines of the event in New Delhi Sunday.
Terming it the “pran (lifeblood) of India”, Joshi, one of the most prominent BJP stalwarts, also threw his weight behind the promotion of Sanskrit. Appealing to the nation’s youth to learn Sanskrit and engage with its literature, Joshi sought to underscore that it had once been envisioned as India’s national language.
“It would be an achievement for the nation if most work happens in the Sanskrit language…when the Constitution was being written, Dr Ambedkar too had tried that Sanskrit become India’s national language and many people had proposed this as well,” Joshi, who is a part of the BJP’s Margdarshak Mandal (guidance group), said.
“That proposal did not eventually go through, but, since then, the will of the people was that Sanskrit should be Bharat’s national language, but it could not…it is the language of knowledge and science, of spirituality…Sanskrit is the lifeblood of Bharat,” he added.
As the former BJP president and Union HRD minister, he promoted Sanskrit through initiatives such as short-term courses. He was also seen as a mentor to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who accompanied him as the BJP chief on a yatra to hoist the tricolour in Srinagar.
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In 2019, after he was denied a ticket, Joshi wrote an open letter to his voters, saying he would not be fielded and would have to bid them adieu.
