Spain honors four Indian Hispanics who were pioneers of the Spanish language in India

New Delhi, March 2 Spain on Wednesday decorated four Indian Hispanics for pioneering the introduction of the Spanish language in India for the past half-century. The winner of an action at the Cervantes Institute in New Delhi was Hispanist Vipa Maurya, who received the official crucifixion of Isabella Catholic; And fellow Hispanists Shyama Prasad Ganguly, Aparajith Chattopadhyay and Anil Thingra received the Cross of the Order of Civil Merit. “This is an act of (…) celebration, a celebration of the good health of the Spanish language, which is growing more and more spread all over India (…) and you really were the pioneers of this implantation of the Spanish language in India,” said Oscar Pujol, director of the Cervantes Institute in New Delhi. Said at the beginning. Pujol, the first director of the headquarters, was inaugurated in 2009 (now serving his second phase command) and insisted that “this is an act of justice for Indian Hispanism that has been in operation for more than 60 years.” The adornment received by the first Quixote al-Hindi Maurya is “a reward for those extraordinary behaviors of a civil nature”. Hispanist, the only related scholar at the Royal Spanish Academy in India, was the author of Don Quixote’s first translation. In his award speech, Maurya acknowledged that this was “an almost bizarre path to the development of Hispanic education in India” and said he would dedicate this distinction to “hundreds of students” who have occupied his classrooms for the past 40 years. “I am in the seventh heaven,” the Hispanist assured Efe shortly before the event that his passion for Spanish was born from his parents and that he was interested in understanding international events such as the Spanish Civil War or “changes” in Latin America. . While in Moscow, Maurya, the daughter of a journalist and politician, signed up to study Cervantes almost exclusively, where she was “privileged to receive Spanish teachers deported from the Soviet Union.” Translating Don Quixote into Hindi was another great decision of his life: “We have been studying Hispanics in India for almost 30 years, and (and) there was no direct translation from Spanish to Hindi, which embarrassed me until one day I took it. I decided to do so.” Ganguly, another winner of Indian independence and the arrival of the Spanish, stressed that the award was an “extra stimulus” at the age of 76 to continue his commitment to Hispanicism. And has plans for new books. “Only through this award do I now feel part of this integrated Hispanicism. I have received numerous awards from Latin America, and now it comes from Spain, which puts me in Hispanicism on both sides of the Atlantic,” Ganguly told Ephe before the ceremony. Like many other events, the relationship between Hispanic and Spaniard arose by accident: after graduating with a master’s degree in economics, he wanted to make a comparative study of the underdeveloped problem between India and the four Latin American countries. But Ganguly explains, “I do not know Spanish, it was 1966, and one of my teachers, the best professor and Nobel laureate (for economics), Amartya Sen (…) suggested that I also study something in Spanish.” , Who says he was given four months to begin to understand the language and began a half-century-long relationship with it. However, Hispanist promised that the beginnings of the Spanish language in India would not be easy because of the influence of Spain during British colonial rule, so it was necessary to wait for independence in the second half of the 20th century. The century came at the instigation of the Indian and Spanish governments. “But a big stimulus is needed and Spain needs to think about how to integrate it into countries like ours,” he noted, for example, despite being dedicated to “Hispanics for more than 50 years” and given only to them. Two scholarships to go to Spain. In his closing remarks, Spanish Ambassador to New Delhi Jose Maria Ridavo also spoke about the new movement in India. To them in the future. Ridao revealed that Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albarez had planned to attend the ceremony, but was forced to cancel his trip due to the outbreak of war in Ukraine. “In a way, his absence today and the fact that we have carried out this act is an act of peace, an act of preserving dialogue, an act of resolving dialogue and disputes peacefully,” the ambassador stressed. In addition, he concluded, “We respect precisely those who, from outside the Hispanic realm, are first and foremost passionate and diligent in trying to understand a culture and language such as Spanish. They owe us to you, indebted India, because we must express an equal interest in what is happening in this vast country.” . EFE mt / pddp (Photo)