ICCR's Dhaka University Exchange: Why a Hindi Classroom Could Matter More Than a Diplomatic Summit

Young scholars who study each other's literature, debate shared histories, and spend time inside each other's institutions develop perspectives that resist simplistic nationalist narratives. They return home with greater intellectual curiosity and stronger professional networks. Those connections often outlive official policy cycles because they are built on personal experience rather than diplomatic messaging.

Every language learnt is a bridge built. Every cultural exchange is a frontier quietly dismantled. Diplomacy is usually measured through summits, treaties, military partnerships or billion-dollar trade agreements. However, history stands testament that the deepest international relationships are rarely forged inside negotiating rooms. They emerge in classrooms, libraries, concert halls and university campuses where curiosity replaces suspicion and conversation outlasts politics.

The Indian Council for Cultural Relations' (ICCR's) decision to host a delegation of Hindi scholars from the University of Dhaka under its Students Visitors Programme 2026-27 reflects one of India's most enduring investments. While governments negotiate interests, institutions like the ICCR cultivate understanding. One produces agreements. The other produces trust.

When Classrooms Become Diplomatic Arenas

The nine-day visit, organised jointly by the ICCR and the High Commission of India in Dhaka, brings students and faculty from the Institute of Modern Languages at the University of Dhaka into direct engagement with India's leading centres of language and scholarship.

Their itinerary stretches from the Sahitya Akademi and Jawaharlal Nehru University to the University of Delhi, Banaras Hindu University and the Kendriya Hindi Sansthan in Agra, where they will also interact with international students studying Hindi from across the world.

This is not language instruction in the narrow sense but a profound cultural immersion. Participants encounter literature, philosophy, history, institutions and everyday social life that no textbook can fully capture. Every student returning home carries something no passport can record: a nuanced understanding of another society. Such invisible intellectual baggage often proves more durable than any diplomatic communiqué.

The Concrete Impact of Soft Power

Joseph Nye popularised the term "soft power," and countries have practised it for centuries. Civilisations have always competed through ideas as much as armies. Today's geopolitical landscape merely gives that competition a different vocabulary.

India enters this arena with unusual advantages. It possesses extraordinary linguistic diversity, classical and contemporary literary traditions, performing arts recognised across continents, philosophical schools that continue to shape global discourse and a civilisational legacy reflected in 43 UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Hindi, spoken by more than 600 million people, ranks among the world's most widely spoken languages, giving it remarkable potential as a vehicle of cultural outreach.

The ICCR exists precisely to translate those civilisational assets into international relationships. Established on 9 April 1950 by Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, it remains one of independent India's oldest institutions devoted exclusively to cultural diplomacy. Long before "nation branding" became fashionable, the Council understood that influence could be cultivated through books, scholarships, performances and intellectual exchange rather than projection alone.

ICCR has long understood what geopolitics is only beginning to appreciate. Goodwill is a national asset. Unlike infrastructure projects or defence agreements, goodwill cannot be commissioned overnight. It accumulates slowly through repeated human encounters until it becomes a reservoir that countries draw upon during moments of political uncertainty.

The Long Memory of Culture

India and Bangladesh illustrate this dynamic particularly well because their relationship predates the modern nation-state itself. While geography explains proximity, it is culture that explains resilience. Shared literary traditions, linguistic exchanges, music, cuisine, religious practices and historical experiences continue to bind societies across political borders. Those connections become especially valuable whenever bilateral politics experiences turbulence.

History offers a powerful reminder. During the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, Indian musicians, poets, writers and theatre artists organised cultural performances and fundraising campaigns across the country in solidarity with the people of Bangladesh. Songs and poetry travelled where diplomacy had not yet fully arrived. Cultural empathy prepared emotional ground that political and military cooperation would later reinforce.

Political alignments evolve. Governments change. Public sentiment fluctuates. Shared cultural memory, however, often survives these transitions because it resides not inside institutions but within societies themselves.

The Dhaka scholars' visit belongs to that longer continuum of people-to-people engagement. It is less about promoting Hindi than about expanding mutual familiarity. Language simply becomes the doorway through which broader civilisational understanding ensues.

Scholarships That Quietly Shape History

One of the ICCR's scholarship recipients was Ameenah Gurib-Fakim, who later became the President of Mauritius. She has repeatedly acknowledged the formative influence of her years in India on her intellectual development. Her story demonstrates how classrooms can eventually shape presidential offices and how educational opportunities often mature into lasting diplomatic goodwill. She is far from an isolated example.

Today, the ICCR facilitates more than 6,000 scholarships annually for students from over 180 countries, making India one of the largest providers of educational scholarships across the Global South. Over the decades, tens of thousands of international students have graduated from Indian universities under ICCR programmes, forming a global alumni network that extends into governments, academia, diplomacy, business and civil society.

Many eventually become policymakers, ministers, entrepreneurs, judges, scholars or journalists. They may not always agree with India. Nor should that be the objective. What matters is that their understanding of India is informed by lived experience rather than distant perception. Few investments deliver comparable returns.

Building Influence Without Demanding It

The ICCR's work extends far beyond scholarships. Its network of more than 35 cultural centres across nearly 30 countries functions as India's permanent cultural presence overseas. From Dhaka and Johannesburg to Tokyo, Paris and Mexico City, these centres teach Hindi, Sanskrit and yoga while hosting literary festivals, classical performances, art exhibitions, film screenings and academic lectures.

The Indira Gandhi Cultural Centre in Dhaka has become one of the most vibrant examples of this model. Throughout the year, it hosts language courses, cultural performances and intellectual exchanges that sustain dialogue regardless of fluctuations in political atmospherics.

The Council's global outreach has expanded further through the Festival of India series, organised in countries ranging from France and Japan to Russia, Indonesia and South Africa. These festivals celebrate India's diversity through music, dance, theatre, cinema, cuisine and crafts while also welcoming reciprocal cultural participation. That reciprocity matters because genuine cultural diplomacy is a conversation rather than a performance.

Yoga offers another compelling illustration. Since the United Nations adopted the International Day of Yoga in 2014, ICCR has coordinated annual celebrations across the world alongside Indian missions abroad. The Council also supports exchanges centred on Buddhism, Ayurveda, Indian philosophy and traditional knowledge systems, broadening India's intellectual footprint well beyond conventional diplomacy.

None of these initiatives seeks immediate geopolitical leverage. But they create familiarity. Familiarity reduces mistrust, and reduced mistrust expands the political space within which governments can cooperate. A nation that wins minds rarely needs to demand respect.

Why Bangladesh Matters More Than Ever

Few bilateral relationships illustrate the value of cultural diplomacy better than India and Bangladesh. The partnership already rests upon growing trade, expanding connectivity, energy cooperation, security coordination and regional integration initiatives. But these pillars alone cannot sustain long-term stability if public perceptions weaken. That is why educational exchanges deserve far greater attention than they usually receive.

Young scholars who study each other's literature, debate shared histories, and spend time inside each other's institutions develop perspectives that resist simplistic nationalist narratives. They return home with greater intellectual curiosity and stronger professional networks. Those connections often outlive official policy cycles because they are built on personal experience rather than diplomatic messaging.

The promotion of Hindi among Bangladeshi students should therefore never be viewed as a one-way exercise in cultural projection. It opens access to India's literature, cinema, media, scholarship and public discourse while simultaneously exposing Indian institutions to Bangladeshi perspectives. Healthy cultural diplomacy is reciprocal by design. It enriches both participants.

The Bridges That Outlast Governments

The most successful diplomatic initiatives rarely announce themselves with dramatic rhetoric. They reveal their significance years later when former students become ambassadors, professors, ministers, entrepreneurs or presidents who carry with them memories formed in another country. The ICCR's engagement with Dhaka University belongs precisely to that category.

Its real achievement will be measured years from now, in conversations that become easier, collaborations that emerge naturally and misunderstandings that never escalate because familiarity already exists.

In an age dominated by transactional geopolitics, there remains something quietly radical about investing in human relationships before strategic necessity demands them. Nations that understand this truth seldom need to manufacture influence because they have patiently cultivated it.

Every language learnt is a bridge built. Every bridge built reduces the distance between societies that geography alone can never explain. Long after official speeches fade from memory, those bridges often remain the strongest architecture of diplomacy.