Once again Russia is permitting the teaching of Hindi in its schools. This move is both culturally interesting and geopolitically significant. Our Rashtra Bhasha is returning to the curriculum of the universities in Russia after being pushed out by the post-Soviet reforms. This renaissance is a mild concerto of cultural diplomacy, a soft power exercise, and a quiet proclamation of India’s civilizational allure. To appreciate the importance you should think of the context. For a long time, the Russian audience got mainly the dubbed versions of Bollywood films, through the filters of translated literature, and the news reports presented from an Anglo-American perspective. These were the main ways for the Russian........

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