ITBP personnel guarding India-China border learn Chinese
The Indo-Tibetan Border Police or ITBP is set to add another weapon in its armoury - the Chinese language. 25 personnel of the ITBP will do a one-year course in Chinese language, at the Sanchi University of Buddhist-Indic Studies in Madhya Pradesh's Raisen district. This will help soldiers posted at the Sino-Indian border to communicate with their Chinese counterparts.
"We have got the list of the personnel who will take up the course in July and the course is designed as per the needs of the ITBP," said registrar of Sanchi University, Rajesh Gupta who feels this step would be of great help to the ITBP, which has to deal with the Chinese-speaking people along the Sino-India border. Two ITBP inspectors and as many soldiers have already completed the course and are currently posted at the borders.
"In the 2016-17 academic session, four ITBP personnel had completed the one-year certificate course in the Chinese language. Subsequently, they have been performing their duties at the borders," Mr Gupta told the Press Trust of India.
The course books are in three languages - Hindi, English and Chinese - so that students can understand the text easily and same pictures alongside the texts have been used in all three languages.
In 2017, after the Doklam standoff, union home minister Rajnath Singh had said ITBP personnel who guard the borders with China will be taught basic Chinese, and "arrangements are being made to make sure that every ITBP jawan and officer knows basic Mandarin language at the training level so that they don't face language issues at the border during face-offs with the Chinese."
It was after the Doklam standoff, which saw Indian and Chinese soldiers stare down each other at the border in Sikkim for almost 70 days last year, that the ITBP decided it must train new recruits in Manadarin, to help interact with locals who move round the Line of Actual Control.