Lucknow veteran translates UN charter of human rights into Sanskrit

Dr Jitendra Kumar Tripathi from Lucknow translated it to promote the Indian language at an international level

The UN Charter — seminal treaty of the United Nations — has been translated into Sanskrit, thanks to Dr Jitendra Kumar Tripathi, 75, of Lucknow who took it upon himself to promote the Indian language at an international level.

Dr Jitendra Kumar Tripathi is secretary of Lucknow-based Akhil Bharatiya Sanskrit Parishad.(HT photo)

“It was my initiative to translate the UN Charter Universal Declaration of Human Rights into Sanskrit so that those who only speak this language may get to know more about the United Nations. I’m so happy that my hard work was finally noticed,” said Tripathi who is secretary of Lucknow-based Akhil Bharatiya Sanskrit Parishad.

“The Charter is now in Sanskrit. Thank you Dr Jitendra Kumar Tripathi for this pioneering effort,” India’s permanent representative to the UN, Ambassador Syed Akbaruddin tweeted. Akbaruddin also tweeted a photo of the Charter’s Sanskrit cover.

Kumar completed this mammoth task of translating the charter into Sanskrit more than a decade ago. It was only 2-3 years back that he decided to send the entire copy to the Untied Nations through email.

“I’m happy that Akbaruddin has tweeted the cover of the book which was re-tweeted by several others and went viral,” said Tripathi who is passionate about promotion of Sanskrit.

In a twitter message to this scribe, Syed Akbaruddin said, “Sanskrit is part of our heritage. So promotion of universal values as enshrined in the UN Charter through its Sanskrit translation promotes these norms by embedding them in the rich stream of texts available in the language. The translation is therefore a pioneering effort that needs wide acknowledgement.”

Tripathi said there was a misconception among people regarding Sanskrit – they felt the language had become obsolete. In a chat with HT, he said: “Sanskrit was the main language used by our ancestors but with the passage of time, this language lost its significance.”

“However, much work is being done at the moment to make it popular among the masses,” he said. According to him, there was a trend that indicated students had started showing interest in this language which kindled new hope among scholars.

The UN Charter was signed on June 26, 1945 in San Francisco, at the conclusion of the United Nations Conference on International Organisation, and came into force on October 24, 1945. The Charter is available in all six official languages of the UN.

Efforts on to popularise Sanskrit

*Tripathi said there was a misconception among people regarding Sanskrit – they felt the language had become obsolete.

*He said: “Sanskrit was the main language of our ancestors but with the passage of time, the language lost significance.”

*“However, much work is being done to make it popular among the masses,” he said. According to him, there is a trend that indicates students have started showing interest in this language which kindled new hope among scholars.