When Dr Liudmila Khokhlova learnt that India had chosen her for the Padma Shri, the Russian scholar says she felt both happiness and a sense of responsibility. For someone who has spent decades studying Indian languages and teaching them to Russian students, the honour was deeply personal- but she says she still wondered whether she had done enough to deserve it.“When I came to know that I had received such a big award, of course I was very happy. I felt very proud. But I feel that I have not done such a big thing that I should receive such a big award,” she said in Hindi. “So I will try my best to do something that makes me truly worthy of this award.”That promise, in many ways, captures the journey that brought her to one of India’s highest civilian honours.Khokhlova, a Russian national and an Indologist, was conferred the Padma Shri by President Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhavan on June 23, 2026, in the Literature and Education category. The official Padma Awards citation describes her as an Associate Professor in the Department of Indian Philology at the Institute of Asian and African Studies, Moscow State University, and recognises her contribution to Indological studies.She is also among the small number of foreign nationals to have received the Padma Shri. As per a previous TOI report, fewer than 10 Russian scholars had received the honour since the Padma Awards were instituted in 1954.But the award is perhaps best understood not as a single achievement, but as the culmination of more than five decades spent studying, researching and teaching Indian languages.
From Moscow to Hindi
Born in Russia on October 31, 1945, Khokhlova chose Hindi as her academic field at Moscow State University. She completed her MA in Hindi language and literature in 1970. Four years later, she earned a PhD in Indian linguistics from the Institute of Linguistics at the Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Her doctoral research focused on a comparative study of Hindi and Rajasthani.What began as the study of a language eventually became a much wider engagement with Indian civilisation.Today, her academic work spans Hindi, Punjabi and other New Indo-Aryan languages. At Moscow State University, she has taught Hindi and Punjabi at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, along with courses on the historical development of Western New Indo-Aryan languages, Hindi-Urdu grammar, syntactic typology and general linguistics. She also guides students researching Indian linguistics.Her own academic record reflects the depth of that engagement. According to the Government of India’s Padma Awards citation, she has authored six books and 92 papers in Russian, English and Hindi, with research covering phonetics, phonology, morphology, lexical typology and historical linguistics.But her work was not confined to classrooms or academic papers.
She wanted Russian students to understand India
Khokhlova has spent years encouraging Russian students to look at India beyond the language itself. In her words, she tries to tell her students more about India and “awaken love for India in their hearts”. She says many of her students now study India seriously- including its language, history and economics.Her observation about Hindi is particularly revealing. Students who want to learn the language sometimes hear from friends or parents that there is little point in studying Hindi because “everyone in India speaks English”.But, she says, that perception is changing.“I see that there has been a lot of change,” she said, recalling her experiences of coming to India over the years. People who earlier spoke English, she observed, are increasingly speaking Hindi as well. For students learning the language in Russia, she believes, such changes can become an additional source of motivation.Her work has also taken her to India repeatedly for academic engagements. Research records show that she undertook academic visits and training at Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2007 and 2013, and at the University of Hyderabad in 2016. JNU records also document her lectures and academic participation at the university.
From Hindi grammar to Sikh texts
Khokhlova’s scholarship eventually extended well beyond Hindi. The Padma Awards citation notes her research into the origin and development of Sikhism and her translations of important Sikh texts. She translated Guru Nanak’s Jap Ji from Punjabi into Russian and also translated Jap Sahib, associated with the 10th Sikh Guru, Gobind Singh.For Russian readers, such work created a bridge to Indian religious and philosophical traditions in their own language.Her interest in Punjabi has also been recognised outside India. In 2005, she received an award from Punjabi Sath in London for her contribution to Punjabi studies in Russia. In 2007, she was honoured by the Government of India for her contribution to Hindi studies in Russia.Her academic engagement continues even now. Moscow State University’s Department of Indian Philology lists her as an Associate Professor, while recent academic programmes and conferences continue to feature her work on Indian languages and linguistics.
‘I will try to become worthy of the award’
For Khokhlova, however, the Padma Shri appears less like a culmination than another reason to continue the work.After receiving the honour, she spoke about wanting to do more so that she could genuinely become worthy of it. Her focus remains the same: encouraging students to learn about India, its languages and its culture.And perhaps that is what makes her journey unusual. She was born thousands of kilometres away from India and built her academic career in Russia. Yet Hindi became the subject of her master’s degree, Indian linguistics the subject of her doctorate, and Indian languages and culture the focus of a career spanning more than five decades.The Padma Shri may have brought renewed attention to her work. But for Khokhlova, the larger story is one that began long before the award- with a Russian student choosing Hindi, and eventually devoting her professional life to helping others discover India through its languages.
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