On Indo-Czech relations…

Relations between India and Czechia are deep rooted. According to the Czech Indologist, Miloslav Krasa, “if not earlier, then surely as early as the 9th and 10th centuries A.D., there existed both land and maritime trade routes from Asian markets to the Czech lands, along which precious goods from the East, including rare Indian spices, reached this country”. Relations between the two countries continued to strengthen in coming centuries with frequent exchange of visits by academicians, artists, businessmen and political leaders. By making the knowledge of India available and accessible, the scholars in the Czech Republic are continuing the long tradition of the founders of the Czech Indology, dating back to the period before and particularly after the creation of independent Czechoslovakia in 1918. The comprehensive process of learning about India and of establishing contacts between Czechoslovakia and India was facilitated and accelerated by frequent visits of prominent Indian scholars, journalists, politicians and artists in Prague and other cities of Czechoslovakia.

On the historical ties cemented by Gurudev Tagore and Netaji…

India’s relations with the former Czechoslovakia, and with the Czech Republic, have always been warm and friendly. Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore visited Czechoslovakia in 1921 and 1926. A bust of Tagore is installed in an exclusive residential area in Prague named after him. The Indian leader who visited Czechoslovakia the most times between 1933 and1938 was Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. He founded the Indo-Czech Association in Prague in 1934 and met Edvard Benes several times as Foreign Minister and President. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru accompanied by his daughter Indira Gandhi visited Prague in 1938, and subsequently influenced the strong condemnation of the 1938 Munich Pact by the Indian nationalist movement.