Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c15.s2.t64: V V Paranjpe
Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c15.s2.t64
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V V Paranjpe
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V V Paranjpe was in Foreign Service of the government of India who retired as ambassador in early 1980s. But, much more important than the various official positions that he held, he was more widely known as an Chinese language expert and a proficient interpreter to the first Prime Minister of India, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and other Indian leaders whenever the latter visited China and had interactions with the Chinese leaders like Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Chen Yun - a role which no one else could then perform so well and so efficiently in the whole of the Indian academic and governmental circle as he could.
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V V Paranjpe, was sent to China in mid 1947 to study Chinese language and culture by Prof. Tan Yunshan, founder-director of Cheena Bhavan, Santiniketan, under the auspices of the Sino-Indian Cultural Society and got himself enrolled as a student of Beijing University. He returned back to India in June 1950 after spending about three years there in Beijing University and other institutions of China. He then had the rare privilege and opportunity to learn Chinese under some of the eminent linguists like Luo Chnagpei, Li Jinxi, Wang Li and scholars like Zheng Zhenduo, Feng Youlan, Wu Xiaoling, Ren Jiyu, Chen
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Group photo of V V Paranjpe with Ji Xianlin
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Mengjia of Beijing University and Prof. Zhou Yiliang of Qinghua University. Mr. Paranjpe again went to China in October 1951, this time, as a member of the India Embassy in Beijing and served there for a longer period of time under three successive Indian Ambassadors - Panikar, Raghavan and R K Nehru. When Prime Minister Nehru visited China in 1954, Paranjape acted as the sole interpreter between Mao and the Indian prime minister.
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V.V Paranjpe will be remembered for over in the India-China diplomatic circle not only as a first-rate interpreter and but also as a well-read person of Chinese history and literature, and Chinese philosophy and culture - the ideas and knowledge, essential for a successful and skilled interpreter that becomes evident from a large number of articles and essays that he has penned on India-China relationship and other issues of Chinese tradition and culture spanning for a period of more than five decades.
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(*Arttatrana Nayak*)