India–Lithuania relations

India–Lithuania relations

India	Lithuania

India recognized Lithuania (along with the other Baltic States, Latvia, and Estonia) on September 7, 1991, after independence.  Diplomatic relations between India and Lithuania were established on 25 February 1992.

Lithuania opened its Embassy in New Delhi on July 1, 2008, and has three honorary consulates in India, i.e., in Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Kolkata. The Embassy of India in Warsaw was concurrently accredited to Lithuania till March 2023 with an honorary consulate in Vilnius since 2015.

Indian Embassy was established in Vilnius in March 2023.

Early history

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

Vydūnas, 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 trimūrti.

Modern history

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 first Ambassador of India to Lithuania (resident in Vilnius) was Devesh Uttam.

The Hon'ble Vice President of India, Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu, paid an official visit to Lithuania from 17 to 19 August 2019, leading a high-level delegation including Shri Sanjay Dhotre, Minister of State for HRD, Communications, Electronics, and IT, and three Members of Parliament. This was the first high-level visit from India to Lithuania since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1992. During the visit, Vice President held delegation-level talks with President Nauseda and met the Prime Minister and the Speaker of the Lithuanian Parliament (Seimas). Vice President addressed the Indo-Lithuanian Business Meeting and members of the Indian community.  Vice President also visited Kaunas, which is the second-largest city in Lithuania. Aside from a meeting with the Mayor, he paid a visit to Kaunas Technical University. Three MOUs, namely the Cultural Exchange Program (CEP), Agricultural Work Plan, and exchange of protocols for implementing the Extradition Treaty, were signed during the visit.

A delegation led by the Minister of State for External Affairs, Shri M.J. Akbar, visited Lithuania in May 2017 in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of bilateral relations. The Minister addressed the ASEM Conference on Women's Empowerment in Vilnius, held bilateral discussions with the Foreign Minister of Lithuania, chaired a meeting of business leaders of Lithuania, unveiled two plaques in Hindi and Sanskrit at Uzupis in the Vilnius old town, delivered a lecture at the Institute of International Relations and Political Science of the Vilnius University.

Indian Minister of State for Agriculture Shri Mohanbhai Kundariya visited Lithuania in October, 2015.  He along with PM of Lithuania jointly unveiled a sculptural composition of Mahatma Gandhi and his Lithuanian friend, Hermann Kallenbach at Kallenbach's birthplace, Rusne, on October 2, 2015.

The Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis visited India to participate in the Seventh Raisina Dialogue in April 2022.  During the visit, he also called upon Prime Minister Narendra Modi and had bilateral meeting with External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar.   The then  Lithuanian Foreign Minister, Linas Linkevicius, visited New Delhi in October 2017, in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations.  

President Valdas Adamkussit paid a State Visit to India in February 2001, accompanied by his wife, Foreign Minister Antanas Valionis and a delegation of Lithuanian businessmen. President Adamkus met the President of India, Shri K.R. Narayanan; Vice President, Shri Krishna Kant; Prime Minister, Shri A.B. Vajpayee; External Affairs Minister Shri Jaswant Singh; and, Leader of the Opposition, Smt. Sonia Gandhi. He also addressed a business meeting jointly hosted by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) in New Delhi and Mumbai. During the visit, three bilateral agreements were signed.

Prime Minister of Lithuania Adolfas Slezevicius visited India in September 1995.

Economic relations

In 2022-23, the bilateral trade between India and Lithuania stood at US$ 471.68 million. India's top export products to Lithuania include: pharmaceutical products, electrical machinery & equipment, fish & other seafood, plastic products and textiles. India's top import products from Lithuania include: Iron & Steel, Misc. chemical products, rubber and articles thereof, animal & vegetable fats and oils, wood products, electrical machinery and equipment, etc.

Cultural relations

There is growing interest in Lithuania for Indian dance and music, Bollywood, yoga, ayurveda, and the works of Rabindranath Tagore. The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) is present in Lithuania.

India and Lithuania have possible ancient links reflected through similarity between the Lithuanian and Sanskrit languages.  More than 108 root words (and 10,000 derivatives) are common between the two languages. Sanskrit became part of the academic curricula of the Vilnius University in the 1970s, when Prof. Ricardas Mironas started teaching the language in the Department of Philology.

Indology: Study of Indian languages (mainly Hindi and Sanskrit) has been carried out at the Vilnius University for several decades. A separate center of Indian studies, under the Department of Oriental Studies, was set up in the Vilnius University in 1996. Vilnius University also hosted the 2nd Regional Conference of Central & Eastern Europe on Indian Studies (CEEIS) in August 2006 under the auspices of ICCR. A compilation of 108 common words of Sanskrit in Lithuanian languages has been brought out by the Oriental Centre of the Vilnius University jointly with the Lithuanian Embassy in New Delhi.   Lithuanian Scholar in Sanskrit, Prof. Vytis Vidunas of Vilnius University's Institute of Asian and Transcultural Studies visited India in October 2023 and delivered a series of lectures on Sanskrit and Lithuanian linguistic similarities in various fora and universities.  His lectures were well attended by linguistic experts, academia and members of civil societies besides a large number of students.

Centre for Baltic Studies in Haridwar: A Centre for Baltic Culture and Studies was inaugurated at the Dev Sanskriti Vishwavidyalaya in Haridwar in August 2016 by the Hon’ble Governor of Uttarakhand, Dr. Krishna Kant Paul, as Chief Guest and the Ambassadors of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia as the Guests of Honor. The Centre is pursuing the following two objectives: (i) To discover and disseminate the knowledge about the shared history, heritage and culture of India and the Baltic Nations, and (ii)  To foster and promote cultural activities of both Indian and Baltic countries in their respective nations.

Indian diaspora in Lithuania

The Indian community in Lithuania is a small but vibrant and diverse group of people comprising students, professionals, businessmen and their families.  This community has been growing steadily in recent years.  There are around 4500 Indians.  Majority of them are students pursuing higher education in Lithuania's universities especially in ICT, Engineering and Life Sciences.  

External links

• https://www.eoivilnius.gov.in/india-lithuania-relation.php
• Lithuanian-Indian Forum