When Hindi-Chinese interpreters were left out of the game

When Hindi-Chinese interpreters were left out of the game

Sinophobes may indeed count the recent development of Chinese business delegations resorting to plain English rather than using Hindi-to-Chinese interpreters in Ludhiana as yet another unfriendly act.

This could, after all, be another insidious move by China to widen the fissures that already exist in India due to language by furthering the cause of this colonial tongue over indigenous ones.

While the only people to raise the red flag on this wily change of linguistic strategy are Hindi-Chinese interpreters, the issue deserves some introspection. After all, if the intention is not merely to cut out middlemen from business deals but to deprive scores of trained Indians of their only source of livelihood, India needs to do some plain speaking.

As the recent India-US freeze over the Devyani Khobragade case showed, much hinges on reciprocity when it comes to inter-state relations.

So, Indian delegations of all linguistic variations that visit China still courteously hire local interpreters instead of selfishly taking their own compatriots to do the needful.

But what needs to be investigated is whether the Chinese were spooked into taking this step when they sampled the local interpretation of their cuisine.

Gobi Manchurian may have spurred them to question the accuracy of Indian interpretations of anything Chinese.