Russia sees growing student interest in learning Hindi, more universities to offer courses

Three decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia is witnessing a rising interest among students in learning Hindi, prompting the government to expand the number of institutions offering the language.

Konstantin Mogilevsky, Russia’s Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education, said, “We want more of our students to learn Hindi. India is the world’s most populous country today, and more and more Indians are starting to use Hindi in their daily lives instead of English. We need to learn Hindi and other Eastern languages.”

The Ministry of Education and Science has noted the surge in interest and is taking steps to increase the availability of educational programmes teaching Hindi.

Indira Gaziyeva of the Russian State University of Humanities (RSUH) added that Russian print and electronic media “mostly reflects Indian realities through the Western narrative,” while a younger generation of Russians is seeking a deeper understanding of modern India and its ancient civilisational heritage.

The government plans to create more opportunities for students to study Oriental languages, with Hindi in particular seeing a notable rise in demand.

”Young people who want to study Hindi today have more opportunities than before. In Moscow alone, there is MGIMO School of International Relations, RSUH, the Institute of Asian and African Studies of Moscow State University and the Moscow State Linguistic University,” Mogilevsky was quoted as saying by TASS.

”Hindi is also taught at St. Petersburg State University, Kazan Federal University and other universities.The number of students enrolled in Hindi courses is increasing, and the number of groups is two to three times larger,” he added.

After the Soviet collapse, the oldest boarding school teaching Hindi in Moscow was shut down by the city government, because it found teaching Hindi redundant at a time when Radio Moscow had shut its Hindi broadcasts and ”Progress” and “Raduga” publishing houses had ceased to publish translations of Russian authors.

The Moscow International Book Fair held earlier this month had invited India as the “ Guest of Honour Country”. Local scholars of India had warmly welcomed the release of the unique “Hindi-Russian Idioms Dictionary”, a collective project of several Indian scholars and translators containing around 2000 Hindi idioms.

“Throughout our work we kept in mind that the dictionary is bilingual and is being made for those learners of Hindi whose language, traditions, geographical topology etc. are quite different from ours, and the meanings given in the dictionary should very clearly explain when and how each idiom can be used,” one of the lead compilers of the dictionary Pragati Tipnese told PTI.

She told about the immense interest in the Hindi-Russian Idioms dictionary from Russian institutions that teach Hindi and said the Indian Council of Cultural Relations (ICCR) is considering to help them to procure this dictionary.

With inputs from agencies