Teach Hindi to PLA troops for better communication with Indian soldiers

TIL Desk/World/Beijing/China should follow India’s move to teach Mandarin to its border troops deployed along the Sino- Indian frontiers and give lessons in Hindi to them for better communication and to avoid any “unnecessary” misunderstandings with their Indian counterparts, a Chinese expert has said.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh, last week, had lauded soldiers and officers of the Indo-Tibetan Border Force (ITBP), which guards the borders with China, for introducing Mandarin during basic training of its troops in order to help them converse with PLA soldiers during face offs.

“India’s concern over China has risen since the (Dokalam) stand-off, so it has asked its soldiers to learn Mandarin to communicate with the Chinese directly to avoid ‘unnecessary’ misunderstandings,” Hu Zhiyong, a research fellow at Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of International Relations. He suggested that frontier soldiers from both sides should learn each other’s culture, language and customs.