Mandarin language trends gain traction in India

India has 22 official languages with Hindi and English among the most widely used.

An increasing number of young Indians are voluntarily learning Mandarin, seeing it as an advantage to their future careers.

Some academics also hope that this would present opportunities to dispel misunderstanding and improve Sino-Indian relations.

Karishma Gambhir and Sanskriti Joshi have been studying Chinese for three years and one year respectively.

They attend online classes once to twice a week, taught by teachers from Taiwan, with each class having more than ten students.

IT company staff SANSKRITI JOSHI: "Asia and, especially China because they're spearheading this AI phenomenon and I feel personally that Asia is the future, and knowing as many Asian languages as possible is definitely a great smart move career-wise."

Among their classmates is university lecturer Garima Maheshwari.

Lecturer GARIMA MAHESHWARI: "While doing my research. I came across a lot of documents like the recent policies etc which were entirely in Mandarin. So, I mean it's of course I got a translation of it, but then I realised it would also be nice to like read the original stuff."

Since its launch in 2024, the Chinese online course has attracted over 500 Indian students.

The head of this online school says at the beginning, students mainly hail from the tourism industry.

Now, the vast majority of their pupils come from different fields, with aims to beef up their career prospects.

Physical Mandarin classes are also gaining traction in India.

Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi offers a bachelor's degree in Chinese cultural studies with 60 new students this academic year.

Courses are instructed bilingually in the first semester before switching to full Chinese after students cement their language foundation.

The university says India's Interior Ministry, Ministry of National Defense and Ministry of Foreign Affairs have the language need -- and recruited many of their graduates.