Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai?

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister, along with the then Chinese leadership had coined the Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai term in the early 50s. Those were the idealistic days when Nehru, a socialist to the core, was living in the hope of a grand Indo-China alliance.

Sadly for him, this term remained just a term without any real meaning attached to it as the Chinese always looked at India with a great amount of suspicion. And that suspicion culminated in them attacking India in 1962. After that defeat at the hands of the Chinese, Nehru was devastated and he was never the same man again, which finally culminated in his rather premature death in 1964.

Since then, Indo-Chinese relations have always been rather low-key, despite the occasional visits by senior ministers from both sides. However, in the last couple of years, a new realization seems to dawning on the Chinese communist leadership that they must have better relations with India.

By all indications, the current visit by Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee to China promises to be a watershed in the Indo-Chinese relations. Both countries now seem to be seriously interested in enhancing the relations between the world's top two populated countries--both nuclear to boot.

And if both the countries become united, sky is the limit for them. Both today are the most important developing markets for all kinds of multinational corporations. United, they can dictate all kinds of terms to each and everybody. And without doubt, nobody will dare to raise a voice as between them, India and China collectively have close to 2.2 billion population--almost one-third of all mankind living on earth.

More than anybody else, the IT sector should be the biggest beneficiary as a result of the betterment of relations between the two governments. While India's expertise is software is now universally-acknowledged, Chinese are the best when it comes to hardware manufacturing. Combine the two experts and you have the perfect recipe for a great and mutually-beneficial partnership.

At the moment, this is not happening as both countries view each other as a competition. As a result, there are a lot of restrictions on Chinese companies operating in India and vice-versa. Add to that there is the issue of language barrier. If these restrictions are removed and the language barrier is overcome, there is no reason why the term Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai can't become an actual reality.