President Patil hits the right notes in China

Yet  President Patil was the only third Indian Head of State to visit China after the May 1992 visit of President Ramaswamy Venkataraman and the June 2000 visit of President Kocheril Raman Narayanan. Similarly, Chinese President Jiang Zemin was the first Chinese Head of the State to visit India in November 1996, while the current President Hu Jintao has been the only second President to visit India approximately four years ago.

By any account, this is a low number of high level visits between the two most populous and formidable nations of the world.

Prez Patil terms her visit to China as 'great success'

Indian President was visiting China last month after a gap of exactly one decade. Yet immediately after the liberation in 1950s, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai visited India four times. Even in the ancient past, there were more frequent visits by the learned scholars, government’s missionaries and high officials.

In the first millennium, when one had to take an arduous and painful tour battling inclement weather of high mountains and hostile terrain, several thousand Chinese monks and scholars visited India, while Indian monks and scholars too made similar treks to China.

This time, the Indian President’s visit revolved around resuscitating the old, glorious ties between the two nations,  with culture and religion playing a pivotal role. Apart from meeting all the top Chinese central government leaders including top officials in Shanghai and Henan, and discussing important business and political issues with them, President Patil visited the Jade Buddha Temple in Shanghai and inaugurated the Indian style temple in Luoyang, Henan. The Jade Buddha Temple was earlier visited by the late Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and his wife, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, the President of the Indian National Congress.

The Jade Buddha Temple (Yufo Chan Si) plays a significant role in promoting and strengthening people to people and cultural relation between the two nations. It has been sending scholars to India to attend international conferences on Buddhism and has also been hosting International conferences and inviting Indian scholars to promote dialogue between the intellectuals of the two countries.

I have participated in some of the conferences hosted by this very famous temple. The Chief Abbot of the temple, Master Juexing,  led a delegation of more than 140 Buddhist scholars to India in January 2007 and had cordial discussions with several religious and political leaders of the country.

The Indian style temple in Luoyang is a "gift from Indian people to its Chinese brethren" as described by President Patil. It was India’s response to the Chinese gift—The Xuanzang Memorial Hall, which was inaugurated jointly by the Chinese Foreign Minister Mr. Li Zhaoxing and several Indian leaders in Nalanda, Bihar, on February 12, 2007.

The Hall was built at a cost of more than 25 million Yuan to commemorate the pioneering works of the greatest Chinese scholars—Xuanzang,  who studied and taught Sanskrit at Nalanda University in early 7th Century. Xuanzang’s travelogue is indispensable in understanding ancient Indian culture and society.

Both India and China dwarf other nation states as far as continuity of civilization and vigour, profundity and intenseness of cultural is concerned. President Patil struck the right notes by visiting the symbol of cultural heritages like the Jade Buddha Temple and Buddhist Grottoes at Luoyang, Henan.

Buddhism and trade played a significant role in cementing the ties between the two nations during the ancient times,  and religious fervour, business links and trade can revitalize the relations between the two countries which already seem to be moving in the right direction.

To further emphasize on the role of  culture, brotherhood, and historic connections,  President Patil insisted and invited Vatsala Kotnis to Beijing as part of her entourage. Vatsala Kotnis is the 84-year-old old sister of the Indian doctor Dwarkanath Kotnis who died at the young age of 31 while helping Chinese soldiers fight against the Japanese aggression in late 1930’s.

President Patil also attended one of the largest gatherings on Earth,  the Shanghai Expo. She visited both the Chinese and Indian pavilion and stressed further boosting of the burgeoning trade between the two countries. By visiting the Forbidden City in Beijing, Patil also demonstrated her huge appreciation for the aesthetics of the Chinese civilization.

One however, must not think that the President spent most of her time in China on touring cultural centers while ignoring the "real issues". While meeting Chinese leaders, she sought their  support for India’s attempt to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council,  and discussed several other concerns, including the border, Pakistan and Tibet.

But it is baffling to note that President Patil was all along accompanied by an Indian interpreter who seemed to have a rather limited understanding of the Chinese language. Even in the past, there have been no fluent Chinese-speaking Indian accompanying  Indian leaders while discussing issues of immense importance with their Chinese counterpart.

It is usually the Chinese interpreters who act as the main bridge in facilitating communication between the two sides, and I wonder how long it will take for the ministry of external affairs to correct this anomaly.

Problems and competition between the two largest developing nations of  the world are inevitable. The need of the hour is the eradication of qualms, suspicion, hostility and more visits at the people-to-people level.

Dr Yukteshwar Kumar is Course Director of Chinese Stream at the University of Bath, UK, and has taught Chinese and Sino-Indian Relations for several years in premier Indian universities.