Fluency in Hindi recently became an unexpected topic of contention on the other side of the planet when Guyana’s agriculture minister Vikash Ramkissoon defended his proficiency in the language in parliament. Last month, Somalia’s Deputy Prime Minister Salah Ahmed Jama sprang a surprise by breaking into polished Hindi in Davos. While waging language battles at home, we ignore the global bridge-building potential of some of the world’s largest languages. Apart from Hindi, Tamil and Bangla are officially recognised in several countries. We can revive linguistic outreach efforts by the mothballed Indian Council for Cultural Relations and give more support to Delhi’s South Asian University and Bihar’s Nalanda University, institutions set up with transnational cooperation in mind. Cultural diplomacy can win hearts and minds at a time geopolitical alignments are getting redefi ned.