New Zealand MP takes oath in Sanskrit; second Indian-origin person to do so

Indian-origin Member of Parliament (MP) in New Zealand Gaurav Sharma became the second such person outside India to take oath in Sanskrit.

Sharma, who belongs to New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's Labour Party, said that he believed Sanskrit paid homage to all the Indian languages.

Before Sharma, the Suriname President, Chandrikapersad Santokhi, was the only Indian-origin leader outside India to take the oath of office in Sanskrit. Santokhi did so earlier this year in July.

When asked by his followers on Twitter why he did not choose Hindi for his oath, the Hamilton West MP said that he thought of taking his oath in Hindi as well as in Pahari and Punjabi.

"To be honest I did think of that, but then there was the question of doing it in Pahari (my first language) or Punjabi. Hard to keep everyone happy. Sanskrit made sense as it pays homage to all the Indian languages (including the many I can’t speak)," he replied in a tweet.

Sharma told his followers that he spoke multiple Indian languages and wanted to choose a language that would represent a wide range of current languages spoken in India.

Sharma, who studied Sanskrit at a small school in rural India, said, "At over 3500 yrs old Sanskrit is the oldest & considered the mother language of many Indian languages that originated from it."

He also took oath in New Zealand's indigenous Maori language.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern led her Labour Party to a landslide victory in the New Zealand elections that took place in October. Gaurav Sharma, who belongs to the Hamirpur district of Himachal Pradesh, won from Hamilton West electorate as a Labour candidate.