A day after it was announced that President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi would meet for talks over the weekend in Wuhan, capital of Central China's Hubei province, India's External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj emphasized the importance of learning Hindi to Chinese college students in Beijing.
Hindi, India's official language alongside English at the national level, is being promoted at home and abroad by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
Dozens of other languages are used by Indians across the states, making India perhaps the most linguistically diverse country in the world.
"The relations between India and China are strengthening, trade is increasing and we are working together at international forums - it is becoming increasingly important that you learn Hindi and Indians learn Chinese," Swaraj told the Chinese students in Hindi at the event organized by the Indian embassy in a Beijing hotel.
She said direct communication might be more effective for the two countries rather than through translators because the emotions behind words can't often be conveyed in translation.
Swaraj, who was in China mainly to attend the foreign ministers meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization on Tuesday, said on Monday that India would soon invite a batch of 25 Chinese students learning Hindi to visit the country. Students from Peking University and Yunnan Minzu University, among others, were present at the embassy event.
Some of the Chinese students recited Indian poetry and prose in fluent Hindi. Many female students wore the traditional Indian sari.
The earliest Hindi studies department on a Chinese campus was set up by Peking University in 1917, while the latest is Shenzhen University. At least 11 universities on the Chinese mainland are known to offer Hindi as a major course today.
State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi, whom she met on Sunday, mentioned to her about Hindi films that have done well in China recently, Swaraj told the students' gathering.
But there is a difference in understanding the movies between those who know the language and those who read the subtitles, she said at Monday's event.
"India is China's neighbor. Plus, it is an ancient civilization. Chinese need to understand Hindi to understand India better," Chen Lixing, an octogenarian scholar, told China Daily.
In the 1950s, there were few scholars of Hindi like him. Now, hundreds of students in China are learning Hindi, he said.
