Estonia–India relations
Encyclopedia
Estonia–India relations refers to the interstate relations of Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...

 and India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. India's first recognition of Estonia came on 22 September 1921 when the former had just acquired membership in the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...

. India re-recognised Estonia on September 9, 1991 and diplomatic relations were established on December 2 of the same year in Helsinki
Helsinki
Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...

. Neither country has a resident ambassador. Estonia is represented in India by 2 honorary consulates (in Mumbai
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...

 and New Delhi
New Delhi
New Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...

). India is represented in Estonia through its embassy in Helsinki (Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

) and through an honorary consulate in Tallinn
Tallinn
Tallinn is the capital and largest city of Estonia. It occupies an area of with a population of 414,940. It is situated on the northern coast of the country, on the banks of the Gulf of Finland, south of Helsinki, east of Stockholm and west of Saint Petersburg. Tallinn's Old Town is in the list...

.

Official visits

To India:
  • October 1993 – Trivimi Velliste
    Trivimi Velliste
    Trivimi Velliste is an Estonian politician who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1992 to 1994 and as the Estonian Ambassador to the United Nations from 1994 to 1998...

    , the Foreign Minister
    Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs
    The Minister of Foreign Affairs is the senior minister at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the Estonian Government. The Minister is one of the most important members of the Estonian government, with responsibility for the relations between Estonia and foreign states.The Foreign Minister is...

  • February 1999 - State visit of Lennart Meri
    Lennart Meri
    Lennart Georg Meri was a writer, film director and statesman who served as the second President of Estonia from 1992 to 2001. Meri was a leader of the Estonian independence movement.-Early life:...

    , the President
    President of Estonia
    The President of the Republic is the head of state of the Republic of Estonia.Estonia is a parliamentary republic, therefore President is mainly a symbolic figure and holds no executive power. The President has to suspend his membership in any political party for his term in office...

  • November 2008 - Urmas Paet
    Urmas Paet
    Urmas Paet is an Estonian politician who has been Minister of Foreign Affairs of Estonia since 2005. He is a member of the Estonian Reform Party. As of September 2010, Paet has been the longest serving minister since the re-establishment of Estonian independence.-Biography:Paet was born in Tallinn...

    , the Foreign Minister


To Estonia:
  • August 1995 - Salman Khurshid
    Salman Khurshid
    Salman Khurshid is an Indian politician belonging to the Indian National Congress, a lawyer, and a writer who has been elected from Farrukhabad Lok Sabha constituency in the General Election of 2009. He belongs to Farrukhabad. He is presently the Cabinet Minister of the Ministry of Law and Justice...

    , the Minister of State for External Affairs
    Indian Foreign Minister
    The External Affairs Minister or the Indian Foreign Minister is a position of office at cabinet level within the Government of India. The chief responsibility of the External Affairs Minister is to represent India and its government in the international community...

  • 2001 - Minister of External Affairs, Ranjit Singh Kalha, and Estonia's Foreign Minister Toomas Hendrik Ilves
    Toomas Hendrik Ilves
    Toomas Hendrik Ilves is the fourth and current President of Estonia. He is a former diplomat and journalist, was the leader of the Social Democratic Party in the 1990s and later a member of the European Parliament...

     meet to discuss cooperation in combating terrorism.
  • November 2003 - Digvijay Singh
    Digvijay Singh
    Digvijay Singh is an Indian politician, a former Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh and a senior leader of the Indian National Congress political party. He has been the Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh state for two five-year terms...

    , the Minister of State for External Affairs

Trade

In 2007, India was Estonia’s 34th import partner and 37th export partner. Imports into Estonia doubled in 2006. The total value of trade between the countries in 2007 was 30.8m Euros.

While Indian investment in Estonia is small-scale and is in the commercial and food sector, Estonia has no direct investment in India. However, Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Paet has expressed desire to improve economic ties and appoint a non-resident ambassador and open its own embassy besides two existing honorary embassies.

India has signed the Joint Business Council Agreement with the Estonian Chamber of Commerce.

Cultural

The first person from Estonia to visit India at the end of the 17th century was the cleric Eberhard Eckhold (Eckholz) who was born in Tallinn
Tallinn
Tallinn is the capital and largest city of Estonia. It occupies an area of with a population of 414,940. It is situated on the northern coast of the country, on the banks of the Gulf of Finland, south of Helsinki, east of Stockholm and west of Saint Petersburg. Tallinn's Old Town is in the list...

 and had studied in the Academia Gustaviana
University of Tartu
The University of Tartu is a classical university in the city of Tartu, Estonia. University of Tartu is the national university of Estonia; it is the biggest and highest-ranked university in Estonia...

of Tartu
Tartu
Tartu is the second largest city of Estonia. In contrast to Estonia's political and financial capital Tallinn, Tartu is often considered the intellectual and cultural hub, especially since it is home to Estonia's oldest and most renowned university. Situated 186 km southeast of Tallinn, the...

. Nothing particular is known about her visit. Adam Johann von Krusenstern
Adam Johann von Krusenstern
Adam Johann Ritter von Krusenstern , was an admiral and explorer, who led the first Russian circumnavigation of the globe.- Life :...

's expedition visited India on his way to China in 1797–1798 during the first Russian circumnavigation
Circumnavigation
Circumnavigation – literally, "navigation of a circumference" – refers to travelling all the way around an island, a continent, or the entire planet Earth.- Global circumnavigation :...

. He stayed for short whiles in Madras and Calcutta, acquainted with the commercial and administrative activity of the East India Company
East India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...

 and made a two-month journey on board HMS Orpheus in the Bay of Bengal
Bay of Bengal
The Bay of Bengal , the largest bay in the world, forms the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean. It resembles a triangle in shape, and is bordered mostly by the Eastern Coast of India, southern coast of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka to the west and Burma and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to the...

. The fact that Krusenstern's library contained around forty items on the history and geography of India and on the Sanskrit literature
Sanskrit literature
Literature in Sanskrit begins with the Vedas, and continues with the Sanskrit Epics of Iron Age India; the golden age of Classical Sanskrit literature dates to late Antiquity . Literary production saw a late bloom in the 11th century before declining after 1100 AD...

 shows his great interest towards the country.

The first Estonian textbooks to mention India were written by Georg Gottfried Marpurg (1805) and Karl Ernst Berg (1811).
The first Estonian publication to arrive in India was Pühhapäiwa Wahhe-luggemissed (Sunday Intermediary Readings) of Otto Wilhelm Masing
Otto Wilhelm Masing
Otto Wilhelm Masing was an early Livonian Estophile and a major advocate of peasant rights, especially regarding education....

 (1818). The book contained a hundred-page description of the nature and society of India. Sanskrit
Sanskrit
Sanskrit , is a historical Indo-Aryan language and the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.Buddhism: besides Pali, see Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Today, it is listed as one of the 22 scheduled languages of India and is an official language of the state of Uttarakhand...

 language publications were printed at the University of Tartu
University of Tartu
The University of Tartu is a classical university in the city of Tartu, Estonia. University of Tartu is the national university of Estonia; it is the biggest and highest-ranked university in Estonia...

 and from 1837, Sanskrit teaching classes commenced, taught by professor Karl Friedrich Keil. One of his successors Leopold Alexander von Schroeder became an outstanding indologist, known for his translations and original studies on the early Indian literature
Indian literature
Indian literature refers to the literature produced on the Indian subcontinent until 1947 and in the Republic of India thereafter. The Republic of India has 22 officially recognized languages....

.

Several papers on the missionary
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...

 work in India, especially among the Tamil
Tamil people
Tamil people , also called Tamils or Tamilians, are an ethnic group native to Tamil Nadu, India and the north-eastern region of Sri Lanka. Historic and post 15th century emigrant communities are also found across the world, notably Malaysia, Singapore, Mauritius, South Africa, Australia, Canada,...

s were published in the middle of the 19th century. "Maailma maade õpetus" (Lesson on Countries of the World) by Berend Gildenmann gave a short systematic overview of the geography of India, improved by the editions of 1854 and 1868. Johann Voldemar Jannsen
Johann Voldemar Jannsen
Johann Voldemar Jannsen was an Estonian journalist and poet active in Livonia....

's articles on India which were widely popular contributed further to the Estonians' knowledge on the country as he published up-to-date information on the course of the Indian Rebellion of 1857
Indian Rebellion of 1857
The Indian Rebellion of 1857 began as a mutiny of sepoys of the British East India Company's army on 10 May 1857, in the town of Meerut, and soon escalated into other mutinies and civilian rebellions largely in the upper Gangetic plain and central India, with the major hostilities confined to...

. Further impact in the knowledge was made by the intellectuals Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald
Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald
Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald was an Estonian writer, who is considered to be the father of the national literature for the country.-Life:Friedrich's parents were serfs at the Jõepere estate, Virumaa. His father worked as a granary keeper and his mother was a chambermaid...

, Voldemar Hansen, Eduard Friedrich Lossius and others. The first atlas in Estonian "Maakaardi raamat", published in 1857, contained a map of India under the title of Indo-Brittia Riik (Indo-Britain State), populated by toponyms from Masing's and Jannsen's publications.

Several protestant missionaries from Estonia contributed in India. The first one was Arnold Nerling who worked among the Tamils in 1862–1872. Born in Reval, Franz Mathissen studied in the school of the Basel Mission
Basel Mission
The Basel Mission is a Christian missionary society active from 1815 to 2001, when it was merged into Mission 21, the successor organization of Kooperation Evangelischer Kirchen und Missione founded in 2001....

, was sent to work in Calcutta in 1867 and stayed there for the rest of his life. His schoolmate Johannes Hesse from Weissenstein
Weissenstein
The Weissenstein is a mountain of the Jura range near Solothurn, Switzerland.There is a chairlift from Oberdorf to the spa hotel on top of the mountain . The tunnel of the railway line Solothurn-Moutier from Oberdorf to Gänsbrunnen on the other side was opened in 1908...

 was sent to work in the mountains by Nilagiri
Nilagiri
Nilagiri is a town and a notified area committee in Balasore district in the Indian state of Orissa.-History:Orissa Freedom Fighters like Banamali Das, Baishnab Patnaik and Nanda Kishore Patnaik violently fought against the local prince and forced him to surrender to newly formed Indian National...

 in 1869–1874. Albert Grubert from Ahrensburg
Kuressaare
Kuressaare is a town and a municipality on Saaremaa island in Estonia. It is the capital of Saare County. The current population is about 14,706 Kuressaare is a town and a municipality on Saaremaa island in Estonia. It is the capital of Saare County. The current population is about 14,706...

 who had studied in Leipzig
Leipzig
Leipzig Leipzig has always been a trade city, situated during the time of the Holy Roman Empire at the intersection of the Via Regia and Via Imperii, two important trade routes. At one time, Leipzig was one of the major European centres of learning and culture in fields such as music and publishing...

, worked in 1871–1876 in Nagapatnam. While they were Baltic Germans, the only missionary of Estonian ethnicity was Christoph Bransfeld from Kärdla
Kärdla
Kärdla is the largest town on the Estonian island of Hiiumaa and the capital of Hiiu County.-Geography:Kärdla is located on the north-eastern coast of Hiiumaa, by the Gulf of Tareste . Southeast of the town is the Kärdla meteorite crater, which is 455 million years old.Several small rivers flow...

 who worked with the Gossner Theological College
Gossner Theological College
'Gossner Theological College' is the only Theological Seminary of Jharkhand affiliated to Serampore College. It is owned by Gossner Evangelical Lutheran Church in Chotanagpur and Assam.The German missionaries sent by Fr...

 in 1880–1896.

By the late 19th century, India was widely known to Estonians. In addition to the textbooks and the press, brochures were issued on the mission, the Rebellion of 1857, Nana Sahib
Nana Sahib
Nana Sahib , born as Dhondu Pant, was an Indian leader during the Rebellion of 1857. As the adopted son of the exiled Maratha Peshwa Baji Rao II, he sought to restore the Maratha confederacy and the Peshwa tradition....

 (1884), the Great Famine of 1876–78
Great Famine of 1876–78
The Great Famine of 1876–1878 was a famine in India that began in 1876 and affected south and southwestern India for a period of two years...

 (1892), the hinduism
Hinduism
Hinduism is the predominant and indigenous religious tradition of the Indian Subcontinent. Hinduism is known to its followers as , amongst many other expressions...

 (1892), the British Raj
British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...

 (1895) and more. These were supported by the letters of the missionaries in India published by the Estonian press.

Playing Indian music
Music of India
The music of India includes multiple varieties of folk, popular, pop, classical music and R&B. India's classical music tradition, including Carnatic and Hindustani music, has a history spanning millennia and developed over several eras. It remains fundamental to the lives of Indians today as...

 has become a tradition in the Estonian film festival Orient. Veena
Veena
Veena may refer to one of several Indian plucked instruments:With frets*Rudra veena, plucked string instrument used in Hindustani music*Saraswati veena, plucked string instrument used in Carnatic musicFretless...

 player Mustafa Raza
Mustafa Raza Khan
Mustafa Raza Khan, commonly known among the Muslims of South Asia as Mufti e Azam e Hind, was born in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, India in 1892. His father, Ahmed Raza Khan was the founder of the Barelvi school of Sunni Islam in South Asia.. His grandfather, Moulana Naqi Ali Khan Mustafa Raza Khan,...

 has performed in the festival three times.

The Estonian-Indian Cultural Society was established in 2004 and since then has made regular donations to the Estonian Institute of Humanities, the National Library of Estonia
National Library of Estonia
The National Library of Estonia is a national public institution in Estonia, which operates pursuant to the National Library of Estonia Act...

 and the University of Tartu.

Political

The Estonian–Indian Parliament Group was established in the Riigikogu
Riigikogu
The Riigikogu is the unicameral parliament of Estonia. All important state-related questions pass through the Riigikogu...

 in 2004. Estonia has supported India's bid for a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council
United Nations Security Council
The United Nations Security Council is one of the principal organs of the United Nations and is charged with the maintenance of international peace and security. Its powers, outlined in the United Nations Charter, include the establishment of peacekeeping operations, the establishment of...

. Estonia also supports the Indian draft on Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) in the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

.

Agreements

Estonia and India have several agreements on co-operations on subjects varying from Science and Technology to Culture, Education, Science, Sports, Arts, Mass Media, Tourism and Youth Affairs. In 1999 India and Estonia signed a joint business council agreement to increase investment and trade between the two countries.
  • Declaration of Principles and Directions of Co-operation between the Republic of Estonia and the Republic of India which came into force October 15, 1993
  • Agreement on Co-operation in the Fields of Science and Technology which came into force on August 6, 1999
  • Agreement on Co-operation in the Spheres of Culture, Education, Science, Sports, Arts, Mass Media, Tourism and Youth Affairs which came into force November 11, 1999
  • Agreement on Economic and Technical Co-operation which came into force March 13, 2000
  • Agreement on Trade and Economic Co-operation which came into force August 24, 2004

External links

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