If you are channel surfing and suddenly come across something that sounds like the news in Sanskrit, don't be surprised - for it is the news in Sanskrit. Doordarshan has a current affairs programme in Sanskrit for those who like the ancient language. And if all goes according to plan, there may be a Sanskrit channel on television, too.

Quietly, Sanskrit has been entering the living room, classrooms and offices. The Centre and states where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is in power have found various ways to promote the language - the mother language of many Indian tongues but hardly spoken in India.

They have given Sanskritised names and acronyms to government programmes, emphasised on the greater use of the language in education and earmarked slots for Sanskrit on government-run radio and television.

Programmes launched by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government have a "distinct" Sanskrit influence, stresses Brijesh Gautam, president, Sanskrit Shikshak Sangh, a Delhi-based organisation of Sanskrit teachers. "It is an indication that the government is serious about promoting the language."

Indeed, Sanskrit is being given a boost in many parts of the country. Prime Minister Narendra Modi would rather describe people with physical disabilities as divyang (divine body) than viklang (disabled), though it has failed to touch activists. "Word play or changing the vocabulary will not change the state of people with disabilities," disability rights activist Javed Abidi holds.

In October, Haryana chief minister M.L. Khattar came up with the slogan Ek varsh - sarvatra harsh (One year - joy everywhere) to mark his government's first year in office. Gautam points out that many Central programmes have also been given Sanskrit names or antonyms.

Namami Gange (salutation to Ganga) is the title for a Ganga clean up project. Swayam is the short form of Study Webs of Active-Learning for Young Aspiring Minds, a government-run online platform for educational courses, and Gian is Global Initiative of Academic Networks, a government initiative to enable Indian students to interact with faculty and industry experts from across the world.

Sanskrit lovers are elated. "If more and more Sanskritised terms are used in daily life, they can lead to an attraction towards the language at a subconscious level," states Ramesh Bhardwaj, head, department of Sanskrit, Delhi University.

Many believe that behind the government's Sanskrit push is the publicity-shy Chamu Krishna Shastry, advisor on Sanskrit in the ministry of human resource development (HRD). According to a source in the ministry, Shastry, a founder of the "Speak Sanskrit Movement", believes that giving Sanskritised names to government programmes is one way of promoting the language. One of his first victories soon after his appointment in Smriti Irani's ministry was replacing German with Sanskrit as the third language in government-run Central Schools.

He is also said to have pushed for more Sanskrit programmes on Doordarshan, including a 30-minute weekly magazine show called Vartavali. The programme has participants discussing news and other developments in Sanskrit.

"We have been told that it has a select but very critical audience," a member of the team says.

Discussions are now on for a Sanskrit channel on Doordarshan. "The channel itself may go nowhere once it is launched, but it will be a nice achievement for the government to flaunt," says an official in the information and broadcasting ministry.

Clearly, the government is going all out to promote Sanskrit - one of the aims of the BJP and its parent organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

In November 2015, the HRD ministry set up a panel headed by the former chief election commissioner of India, N. Gopalaswami, to review efforts on promoting Sanskrit.

"I am hopeful that the government will implement the committee's recommendations," says Bhardwaj, who was one of its members.

Recommendations are coming in from elsewhere, too. The Delhi-based Shiksha Bachao Andolan Samiti (SBAS), affiliated to the RSS, has proposed that Sanskrit be made compulsory until Class X in all schools and mythology be taught as part of history.

"There are so many hidden gems in Sanskrit texts that the whole world can benefit from the language. Thousands of ancient texts related to maths and science are yet to be understood as there are no subject experts who are fluent in Sanskrit," SBAS all India co-convener Atul Kothari says.

According to government figures there are lakhs of students and more than 1,000 colleges and centres affiliated to Sanskrit universities across the country. But students complain that being a scholar has never been a rewarding experience.

"We learn Sanskrit with great zeal but then we realise that our job prospects are limited," laments Kamlesh Kumar Mishra, a Delhi-based PhD holder who is still to find a job. He points out that there are not enough books on literature, science and arts in the language. "What we have are mostly religious text books with a few classics from the past thrown in. These do not prepare us for a career," he says.

Some Sanskrit scholars fear that the government's moves are just token gestures. "Several educational institutions, army regiments and even public sector and private companies have their motto or slogan in Sanskrit. That hasn't meant that it has led to better understanding of the language," says scholar Purwa Bharadwaj, who is working on Sanskrit textbooks in various states.

She also believes that Sanskrit has suffered because it is identified with "saffronisation" - the BJP's pro-Hindutva programme. "We should treat it as language alone and not as some treasure trove of Hindu culture and as one through which moral and cultural values could be spread. That's not the way to spread a language. Moreover Sanskrit is far richer with texts on various subjects, not religion alone," she says.

Left historian D.N. Jha holds that the NDA government is "narrow-minded" in its approach. "Sanskrit has always been seen by the Hindutva forces as a very Hindu language and one through which cultural nationalism can be spread," he says.

Efforts were made to promote Sanskrit even by the NDA's predecessor, the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government. The UPA appointed the country's second Sanskrit Commission in December 2013, 58 years after the first one was set up. Headed by Jnanpith Award winner Satya Vrat Shastri, the commission submitted its report to the HRD ministry after the NDA came to power. The HRD ministry, however, did not accept the recommendations and appointed its own committee.

"Although the recommendations were not made public, I believe the commission was in favour of de-linking Sanskrit and religion and also inclusion of Sanskrit in the study of science and maths," says Ramesh Chandra Panda, vice-chancellor, Maharshi Panini Sanskrit University, Ujjain.

Meanwhile, the NDA government's committee recently submitted its report, and some recommendations are already being implemented. It has been decided, for instance, that Sanskrit will no longer be spelt Sanskrit, but "Samskrit", says the University Grants Commission.

"The British first used the anglicised version of Samskrit and we have been using it. Now it will be different," says Bhardwaj of DU.

Gautam says that there is already a spring in the step of Sanskrit practitioners around the country. "This time there is an alignment of the stars in Sanskrit's favour," he says.