When Narendra Modi met Xi Jinping for the first time at the BRICS Summit in Brazil in July last year, within a couple of months of becoming Prime Minister, he told the Chinese President something that was the epitome of friendliness - "India and China are two bodies with one soul." No less significantly, Xi Jinping recounted this when he visited India in September last year. "These words of Prime Minister Modi reveal the connection between us," he said.
Why is this significant? Because it shows that the heads of the two countries, both of whom are regarded as strong leaders, seem determined to keep their focus on strengthening the India-China friendship, inspite of - or perhaps because of - the considerable amount of trust deficit between our two countries. Much of the mistrust is due to the long-pending border dispute, for which there is no early resolution in sight. There is also a perception among many Indians that China supports Pakistan to the detriment of India. Therefore, it augurs well that as Modi leaves for his first Prime Ministerial visit to China on May 14, he and Xi Jinping are on the same page - namely, that both seem to regard the deep cultural-spiritual bond connecting our two great Asian civilisations as more important than the transient geo-political issues that temporarily divide us.
There is a memorable photograph from Xi Jinping's visit to India, when both he and Modi sat together at Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, and spent a few moments spinning Mahatma Gandhi's charkha. This has a profound meaning. For Gandhiji, the spinning wheel was a powerful messenger of peace and harmony in human, natural and cosmic realms, and this message echoes the teaching of Confucius and other great Chinese gurus. Gandhiji's vision for future India-China relations was articulated in a letter he wrote in 1942. "As a friend of China, I long for the day when a free India and a free China will cooperate together in friendship and brotherhood for their own good and for the good of the world."
Both Modi and Xi Jinping should use the Mahatma's words for their guidance because these have a ringing relevance for today and tomorrow.
The need for India and China to become friends and partners in shaping the destiny of Asia and the world is dictated by history, geography and the call of our civilisations. Although our historical trajectories have been different, we both have now arrived on the global stage as leading nations of the world poised to determine the course of the 21st century. China's rise, in economic terms, has certainly been more spectacular. Within the span of a single generation, China has lifted a vast majority of its population from abject poverty and backwardness. For its achievements, China deserves our respect and admiration.
My recent 12-day visit to China has convinced me that Chinese people's - and also leaders' - interest in and admiration for India has gone up substantially in recent years because of our country's rapid economic growth and achievements in technology.
Buddhism built the first major bridge across the mighty Himalayas to connect the peoples of India and China. Looking back at our shared past, we cannot but be wonderstruck by the enormous power of Buddha's teachings to overcome this forbidding physical barrier. Our hearts must bow in reverence and gratitude before all those saffron-robed monks who travelled on foot from India to spread the message of universal love and brotherhood. Along with Buddhism, Hinduism and later Sufi Islam also travelled from India to China.
Many centuries later, Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore travelled to China to reinforce the message of India-China kinship. When he established 'Cheena Bhavan' in Shantiniketan in 1937, he gave the following ringing message: "There is an ancient pledge implicit in our past... The pledge to maintain the intercourse of culture and friendship between our people and the people of China, an intercourse whose foundations were laid eighteen hundred years back by our ancestors with infinite patience and sacrifice."
In more recent times, Prof. Ji Xianlin (1911-2009), a scholar of both Buddhism and Hinduism who is regarded as a Master Teacher in China, made an enormous contribution to modern China's understanding of ancient India. The crowning glory of his life was his secret translation of the Ramayana from Sanskrit into Chinese during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), when he was badly humiliated as a counter-revolutionary and put under house arrest for ten years.
The fact that Prime Minister Modi begins his China tour from the ancient Chinese city Xi'an (most famous for the 'Terracotta Army') has immense symbolic and substantive value. Firstly, it was here that Hsuan-tsang (602-664), the famous Chinese pilgrim, brought hundreds of Buddhist scriptures from India, which he then translated.
Xi'an is also the place where another great Buddhist monk and one of the world's greatest translators, Kumarajiva (344-409), resided. Son of a Kashmiri Brahmin, he spread Buddhism in China 250 years before Hsuan-tsang. He translated from Sanskrit into Chinese 425 volumes, among them sacred masterpieces such as the Lotus Sutra, Diamond Sutra and Amitabh Sutra, which later carried Buddhism to Japan.
One hopes that Modi visits the Kumarajiva Sarira Stupa in Xi'an. Legend has it that when the monk died in the city's Straw Hut Temple at the age of seventy, his tongue was not destroyed in the cremation. Why? Because Kumarajiva had vowed that his tongue should be burnt if he made any mistakes in his translations. His pupils collected the unburnt tongue as sarira (body-part), and built an exquisite stupa in his honour. Kumarajiva's life of adventure and scholarship is so fascinating that Bollywood and a Chinese film company can collaborate to produce a global blockbuster.
Secondly, Modi will be received in Xi'an, which is in Xi Jinping's home province Shaanxi, by none other than the Chinese President himself. The meaning of Xi'an is 'Eternal Peace', and many Chinese believe that Buddhism brought the message of peace from India. Hence, when Modi and Xi Jinping shake hands for the first time in China, it will be a handshake for peace between India and China.
Thirdly, Xi'an marks the eastern end of the ancient Silk Road, which connected China, India, South Asia, Central Asia and West Asia to Europe. The Chinese president has placed before the world a bold new vision of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road, which involves building ports, airports, highways, industrial parks, etc. in as many as 67 countries in Asia, Europe and Africa. China will make huge investments in these One Belt-One Road projects, for which it has recently set up the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) to rival World Bank and IMF. In the modern history of the world, this is the grandest vision presented by any nation so far for the infrastructural and economic development of such a large part of the globe. Surely, there is a big opportunity for India and China to cooperate in many projects in a mutually beneficial manner.
As India and China expand and deepen their cooperation in cultural, spiritual, economic and other spheres, and also on multilateral forums, the trust deficit between our two countries will surely become less and less. This will also help us resolve the border issue on a mutually agreeable basis at some point in the future.
At a time when the old world order is rapidly changing, when the West is declining, and the Rest is rising, and when China and India are leading Asia's Rise, friendship between India and China is not an option. It is a mutual necessity. It is also an indispensable factor for peace and stability in Asia and the world. One hopes the Xi'an Spirit will guide Modi and Xi Jinping in all their conversations and agreements in China.
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The writer was an aide to former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Comments are welcome at sudheenkulkarni@gmail.com)
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