Indian Army Jawans Learn Mandarin at RRU to Strengthen China Relations | Ahmedabad News – Times of India

Twenty jawans received their PG diploma in Primary Chinese Language in a ceremony held at Rashtriya Raksha University

AHMEDABAD: Twenty jawans from the Indian Army‘s Eastern Command received their postgraduate diploma in Primary Chinese Language at a ceremony held on Saturday at the Rashtriya Raksha University (RRU) near Gandhinagar.
The initiative, in collaboration with the Indian Army, aims to equip these soldiers, who are deployed along the 3,488km Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China, with the necessary language skills to participate in flag meetings, regular interactions and even troop-to-troop talks.
The development comes at a crucial time, following the recent BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia, where Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met Chinese President Xi Jinping after five years.
The two countries agreed to restore normalcy in the border areas.
Experts believe that the demand for Mandarin speakers will increase in areas near the border, as communication is expected to play a key role in maintaining peace and stability along the LAC.
Prof Bimal Patel, vice chancellor of RRU, said, “These language messengers will facilitate nuanced cross-border interactions in an era where diplomacy often hinges on effective communication. In a region marked by complex relationships, the jawans’ language skills represent a new, strategic approach to diplomacy.” He added that the jawans have the potential to build trust and facilitate mutual respect across borders.
Aparna Verma, in-charge director of the School of International Cooperation, Security and Strategic Languages (SICSSL) at RRU, said that these soldiers were selected after an entrance exam at the Indian Army’s language learning facility at Panagarh in West Bengal and were at RRU for the PG diploma.
“While the language training is imparted to the soldiers in different capacities, this engagement is unique as the soldiers are trained not just in conversational Mandarin but also prepared for the Test of Chinese as Foreign Language (TOCFL) on the lines of TOEFL for English,” she said.
“To impart the training, we have a native speaker, who is a language teacher from Taiwan. She is with us under a special MoU with the Embassy of Taiwan.”
Verma added that Chinese is one of the strategic languages taught at the university. The other strategic languages include Russian, Arabic, French and Tibetan.
University officials said there are several challenges when it comes to a language such as Chinese, which is tonal in character, and uses hanzi, a writing system composed of logograms. Thus, a user needs to learn a large number of characters and the right pronunciation, they said. Apart from holding conversations, the knowledge of the language is likely to come in handy while understanding written messages or strategic communication, they added.