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Waiting for Manmohan Singh

— Photo: Pallavi Aiyar

looking to India: Professor Jiang Jinkui (third from left) with his students at the Centre for India Studies, Peking University.

Harsh, northerly winds sweep across the campus of Peking University, China’s most prestigious centre for higher education. The trees are starved of leaves, and woollen-clad students scurry around with nervous energy born of ongoing examinations. In a rectangular room housed in a nondescript building by the university’s east gate, a further pall of gloom hangs over the half-a-dozen gathered students and their teacher, Professor Jiang Jinkui.

“I must say, I’m very disappointed that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh won’t be visiting our university during his visit to Beijing,” says Professor Jiang, the Vice-Director of the Centre for India Studies at Peking University, in perfectly enunciated Hindi.

The Centre, the only one of its kind in all of China, was inaugurated almost five years ago in June 2003, by the previous Indian Prime Minister to visit the Chinese capital, Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He had also addressed a gathering of students at the university.

A speech at either Peking University or its competitor Tsinghua is an activity that most visiting heads of government aspire to make part of their schedule. Dr. Singh, however, will speak at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), a body of scholars closely affiliated to the Chinese government. The reason for this decision, according to the Indian side, is that it being examination time at Chinese universities, organising an event for Dr. Singh at either Peking or Tsinghua would have been inconvenient.

But Professor Jiang is dismissive of this reasoning. “So what if there are exams? We could always pack out a hall for the Indian Prime Minister. After all, the Japanese Prime Minister was here only a few days ago and his talk went down very well.”

“Sonia Gandhi went to Tsinghua when she visited last October, so we really were hoping to have Dr. Singh here this time,” he says.

The focus of the Centre for India Studies is on teaching the languages of the Indian subcontinent, in particular Hindi, Sanskrit, Urdu and Bengali. In addition to languages, courses in religion, literature, history and culture are on offer. Currently, 60 full-time students study here, including more than a dozen PhDs.

The Centre also plays host to a few students from South Korea, Russia and Pakistan, who are attracted by the heavyweight reputation of some of the scholars. They include Professor Liu An Wu, a leading expert on the works of Premchand.

For long, Peking University was the only place for college students in this nation of 1.3 billion people to learn the languages of the 1.1 billion Indians south of the Himalayas. Over the last two years, however, the intensification of the Sino-India engagement has been accompanied by a growing demand for learning Indian languages. As a result, a few new Hindi language departments have recently been established, including one at Xian’s International Studies University and another at Beijing’s Foreign Languages University.

By 2009, two more such departments are expected to open in the cities of Guangzhou and Chongqing.

All these new departments are being set up by former students of Professor Jiang, who explains that the role of the Centre for India Studies is thus not only to teach students in Peking University but also to help spread its India-related expertise throughout China.

The Professor is, however, worried about the future of the Centre, given its strained financial resources. It has so far been dependent to a large extent on a Rs.50 lakh grant from the Indian government, announced by Mr. Vajpayee at the Centre’s inauguration. The grant was released in stages, spread out over a five-year period from 2003 to 2008.

With the grant about to run out, Professor Jiang had been hoping that Dr. Singh’s visit would lead to a renewal of financing. Now that it is unlikely that he will get to meet the Indian Prime Minister, he says the future direction of the Centre is uncertain.

“It’s such a pity that India does not spend more money and attention on developing an interest in its languages here,” he continues. “After all, if the Chinese don’t learn India’s languages they will never be able to have a really deep understanding of the country.”

In contrast to the Indian government’s attitude, for Beijing the push to teach foreigners Mandarin is an integral part of its foreign policy. According to the National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language, there are approximately 30 million people learning Chinese around the world currently, and it is the country’s stated purpose to ensure that this number grows to 100 million over the next few years. This goal is backed by government funding to the tune of nearly $25 million a year.

In order to ensure that the demand for Mandarin continues to grow, Beijing has begun to establish a series of “Confucius Institutes” aimed at promoting the teaching of the language abroad. India does not yet have a Confucius Institute, but the Chinese embassy in New Delhi holds regular events to popularise the language. These include Mandarin contests, whose winners get a chance to visit Beijing.

A common perception in China is that studying Hindi or another Indian language is ultimately pointless since English would serve those interested in India just as well.

“When I chose Hindi as my major, many friends said it was a mistake since they believed English would be more useful even in India,” recalls third year Hindi student Zhang Min Yu.

However, Zhang spent last year studying at the Wardha Hindi University in Maharashtra, an experience that left him convinced that without Hindi or another local language, a foreigner’s understanding of India would remain skin deep.

“If you speak English, you can maybe get to know south Mumbai quite well. But it is only because I speak Hindi that I was able to get to know north Mumbai and spend time with the aam admi,” he says.

Zhang is of the opinion that studying Hindi will be to his advantage in the future. He believes that as Sino-Indian ties deepen, the need for Chinese with an understanding of India will grow. “At present, there are very few people who know India, so later when the demand for these people increases, I will be at an advantage since I will have a valuable but scarce skill,” he explains.

He goes on to say how despite the fact that the majority of both Chinese and Indians feel that their countries are very different, they share a lot.

“Indians tend to think there is no freedom in China, while Chinese think India is inefficient and poor,” Zhang elaborates.

“So what do you think they have in common?” this reporter prompts.

“Well, the corruption problem in both countries is the same,” comes the reply.

The other students in the room join in the laughter that follows. These are young people who have a varied range of career goals — from journalism to academia and business. All are convinced that learning about India will enhance their career prospects.

Sino-Indian relations can only acquire real substance once the information deficit that exists across the border is overcome, says Professor Jiang. Several of the students interject to reveal that before joining Peking University, their knowledge of India was not only limited but flawed.

“I thought all Indians sing and dance every day,” says Li Cun, a third year B.A. Hindi student. Her classmate, Rong Jing, adds that she was surprised to discover that India was not primarily a Buddhist country.

“Apart from lack of information, there is also a trust deficit between our countries,” Professor Jiang continues. He says that by not speaking at Peking University, Dr. Singh will also miss out on an opportunity to help build trust amongst the Chinese people, something that can never be achieved merely through discussions between the top leadership.

“If he [Dr. Singh] came to Peking University, he could directly talk to the younger generation whose minds are still being formed. It is this future generation he should be seeking to influence rather than the scholars at CASS who are older and already set in their opinions.”

Zhang Minyu agrees, talking of how he believes the Hindi-Chini bhai bhai sentiment of the 1950s lacked real substance because even though the governments of the two nations were on good terms, there was little ground-level people-to-people contact.

As the afternoon turns to twilight, Professor Jiang indicates his resignation with a wave of his hand. “Yes, we are disappointed not to have Dr. Singh come to talk to us,” he says. “But his not coming to Peking University is a small thing. The big thing is that he is, in fact, coming to China. I only hope visits like these become more regular.”

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