Shahtaz Khan / Pune

Pandit Ghulam Dastgir of Pune is no more. He died at the age of 87.

Pandit Ghulam Dastagir Birjdar was a native of Akkalkot Taluka of Solapur, Maharashtra. He was the secretary of the World Sanskrit Foundation of Varanasi and the chairman of the Maharashtra Sanskrit Language Text Book Committee.

A staunch Muslim by faith, he earned the title Pandit after becoming a scholar of Sanskrit. He was officially allowed to carry out all the responsibilities of a Pandit, like interpreting Vedas and other religious texts, commonly done by a Hindu.

Dastgir had dedicated his life to the study of Sanskrit. He taught Sanskrit in various places and also lectured about his experiences in the Banaras Hindu University. He said he was never dissuaded by anyone from learning and teaching Sanskrit just because of his religion.

Invitation card for wedding of his son

He said that Sanskrit scholars always cheered him on his work. Pandit Birjdar was an officially declared pundit. He received a citation from former President KR Narayan. He was among the few Muslim Sanskrit scholars in the country and therefore also a trendsetter.

Pandit Birjdar had also printed the invitation for the wedding of his three children in Sanskrit. He made headlines in 2019 when he published the lagan, antecedents based on the position of stars at the times of one’s birth, of his family’s third generation in the Sanskrit language. Lagan is used for matchmaking by Hindus for weddings.

Panditji however, was always humble and said he is a small propagator of Sanskrit. After retiring, he used to preach Sanskrit and the concept of Sarvadharma Sambhav (equality of all paths leading to divinity) around the country.