New Delhi:
Days after Prime Minister Narendra Modi assured German Chancellor Angela Merkel that he would look into her concerns over India's Kendriya Vidyalayas or central schools dropping German as one of the three main languages, the country's envoy is meeting Sanskrit teachers to try and change their mind.
Dinanath Batra, a veteran of the BJP's ideological mentor Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or RSS, is also attending the meeting at a school in west Delhi. Mr Batra is known for his campaign to ban American author Wendi Doniger's book "The Hindus" earlier this year.
NDTV has learnt that German Ambassador Michael Steiner asked for a meeting with the Sanskrit teachers' body that includes Dinanath Batra.
The government's decision to replace German with Sanskrit as a third language in over 500 schools has upset Germany. Smriti Irani, the union Human Resource Development Minister, said the government took the decision in national interest. German, says the government, will now be a "hobby language."
Last week, on the sidelines of a G 20 summit, Chancellor Merkel raised it with PM Modi, who promised to look into the controversy. Sources, however, say the Education ministry has not reviewed its decision.
"The envoy sought a meeting to get our views. We cannot accept German as a third language," said SK Jha, the head of the Sanskrit teachers' body, which moved court against German as a third language in schools.
With just four months to a new academic year, over 70,000 students have to switch from German to Sanskrit. The job of 700 German teachers is also at stake.
German was taught as a third language - which matters in evaluations - as part of a 2011 Memorandum of Understanding that the government says is illegal and violates the three-language formula in which schools teach Hindi, English and a modern Indian language.
The pact was signed between the Kendriya Vidyalayas and Goethe Institute-Max Mueller Bhawan and was allegedly not signed off by the education ministry.
According to the foreign ministry, PM Modi assured Chancellor Merkel that he himself is a votary of young Indian children learning other languages. "How it is best done within the confines of the Indian system, we will work it out," said spokesperson Syed Akbaruddin.