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History

Early history

Lithuania's first contact with India was through Lithuanian Christian missionaries who have traveled to India since the 16th century. Lithuanian interest in India grew in the 19th century after the similarity between Sanskrit and the Lithuanian language was discovered. Among European languages, Lithuanian is grammatically closest to Sanskrit. Lithuanians regard their language to be the oldest living Indo-European language.

Vydunas, known as the Mahatma Gandhi and Sri Aurobindo of Lithuania, was interested in Indian philosophy, and created his own philosophical system closely based on the Vedanta. Vydunas stated that Lithuanian spiritual culture, prior to the introduction of Christianity, shared similarities with Hinduism, including the concept of Trinity.

India recognized Lithuania on 9 September 1991,</ref> and established diplomatic relations on 25 February 1992.

Jagannath Doddamani served as the first Ambassador of India to Lithuania (residing in Poland) from 1992 to 1994. The first Ambassador of Lithuania to India was Petras Šimeliūnas who served from 2011 to 2012.

The Indian embassy in Warsaw, Poland is jointly accredited to Lithuania. Lithuania opened an embassy in New Delhi in 2008. In 2005, Indian Foreign Minister K. Natwar Singh stated that India would open an embassy in Lithuania. In July 2014, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Linas Linkevicius urged India to open an embassy in Vilnius. India has not yet opened an embassy in the country, although it opened an honorary consulate in Vilinus on 6 February 2015.

In October 2015, India and Lithuania signed a bilateral agreement on co-operation in agriculture. They also agreed to increase their co-operation in sectors such as food and dairy processing.

Cultural relations

There is growing interest in Lithuania for ayurveda and the works of Rabindranath Tagore. The number of Lithuania academics and scholars visiting India has increased in the 2010s. As of 2014, around 3000 Lithuanian citizens visit India annually.

German-Jewish architect Hermann Kallenbach, who was born in the western Lithuanian town of Rusne, was a close friend and associate of Mahatma Gandhi. The two met in 1904 in South Africa. Kallenbach accompanied Gandhi in his first fast, and their final voyage from South Africa to London in 1914. Kallenbach also donated 1,000 acres of land that would later become Tolstoy Farm for satyagrahis in Transvaal. On 2 October 2015, Gandhi's 146th birth anniversary, Lithuanian Prime Minister Algirdas Butkevicius and Indian Minister of State for Agriculture Mohanbhai Kundariya unveiled a statue of Kallenbach and Gandhi in Rusne. Lithuanian ambassador to India Laimonas Talat-Kelpša remarked, "The monument comes as a testimony to Indo-Lithuanian friendship. Above the many things that connect our two nations, the monument to Gandhi and Kallenbach will tower as a symbol epitomising a single individual's impact on the larger history of mankind. While Gandhi gave the world the concept of non-violent resistance, which Lithuania also successfully employed during its struggle with the Soviet oppression, Kallenbach was pivotal in shaping Gandhi’s ideas and testing them in practice. We believe this monument in Rusne will serve as a powerful reminder that one man also matters in history."

Education

The number of Indians studying in Lithuania increased from 37 in 2011, to 57 in 2012, 224 in 2013 and 357 in 2014. It is expected to cross 500 students in 2015. In 2014, the two most popular colleges for Indian students were Kaunas University of Technology and Vilnius Gediminas Technical University which 248 and 36 Indian students on their rolls respectively.

Since 30 July 2014, Indian and Lithuanian diplomatic passport holders can visit each other's countries without a visa for a maximum period of 90 days.

• Burundi Comoros Eritrea Malawi Mozambique Somalia Sudan Tunisia Swaziland Botswana
• Angola Cameroon Central African Republic Chad Democratic Republic of the Congo Republic of the Congo Equatorial Guinea Gabon São Tomé and Príncipe
• Burkina Faso Cape Verde The Gambia Guinea Guinea-Bissau Mauritania Niger Sierra Leone Togo
• Aruba Barbados Cayman Islands Dominica Dominican Republic Grenada Haiti St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Vincent and the Grenadines
• Costa Rica El Salvador Honduras Nicaragua Bermuda
• Bolivia Ecuador Peru Suriname Venezuela
• East Timor Armenia Azerbaijan Cyprus
• Liechtenstein Luxembourg Monaco Switzerland
• Italy Kosovo Macedonia San Marino Slovenia
• Finland Lithuania Norway Sweden
• Belarus Bulgaria Czech Republic Moldova Romania Slovakia
• Kiribati Marshall Islands Micronesia Palau Papua New Guinea Samoa Solomon Islands Tonga Tuvalu

other

Visit of Prime Minister of India to Islamabad (for SAARC summit) 3-6 January 2004 Visit of Prime Minister of India to Bangkok for First BIMST-EC Summit 29-31 July 2004 Visit of Prime Minister of India to London, New York and Geneva 19-27 September 2004 Visit of Prime Minister of India to The Netherlands (for Fifth India-EU Summit) 7-10 November 2004 Visit of Prime Minister of India to Vientiane (Laos) 28-30 November 2004

• Annual Reports of the Ministry of External Affairs

November 2004 on the sidelines of the 3rd India-ASEAN Summit in Vientiane, Laos. 29-30 November 2004

BIMSTEC Summit in Bangkok from 29-31 July 2004

Myanmar between24 and 28 November 2004.

London on 19-20September 2004,

5th India-EU Summit – the latest in the series of the annual institutionalized political dialogue at the highest level between India and the EU – was held on 8 November 2004 at The Hague

Cambodia in April2002

Atal Bihari Vajpayee (1998–2004)

Country	Areas visited	Date(s)	Purpose(s)	Notes
Sri Lanka	Colombo	28–31 July 1998	10th SAARC Summit

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