Projecting India’s soft power

Harsha Kakar
The Prime Minister’s visit to the UAE this week and his address to the Indian diaspora there, which was the highlight of the visit, was just another step in projecting our soft power across the globe. The International Yoga Day conducted in June with its immense publicity blitz, international participation and attention projected the impact of our ancient teachings. At the commencement of the event the Prime Minister had stated, “The world will have to accept the importance of Yoga in training the human body and mind to scale new peaks.” It sold one aspect of India’s ancient culture, values and teachings, which have been quietly spreading worldwide. India is now being seen as a power house of meditation and Yogic teachings. We are at present selling our soft power across the seven seas, even to those, who do not consider themselves to be our friends or allies.
In international relations a nation’s power plays a major role. A nation is adjudged by the nature and type of national power it possesses and projects. National power has two components, hard and soft. Hard power comprises of military, political and economicelements and is the ability of a nation to compel an adversarial nation to change their views or stance by the application or threat of application of force which could be one element or a combination of the elements given above.
Soft power, on the other hand, is the ability of doing the same through impact of a nation’s culture or ideology. It is by projecting soft power that a nation convinces the international community or the nation it is in discussion with of its intentions and national objectives. After all a nation’s views, opinions and intentions flow from its culture, values, ethics and history. Soft power therefore flows from a combination of a nation’s ideas, image, culture, values and policies. The main proponents of soft power are media, national language and culture.
Real Politick considers International relations to be a game of power projection between adversarial nations. A nation can and would achieve more by the employment of soft power as it results in cooperation and understanding, than by the application of hard power, which is a threat of coercion and force and which has on many occasions either failed or only partially succeeded. Soft power also enables better and closer understanding than hard power.
The schedule of all recent international visits undertaken bythe Prime Minister, to a country where there was a significant Indian diaspora always included an address to them. These made headlines as they were major events choreographed exceedingly well. They, in addition to creating awareness of business opportunities and growth in India were also showcasing our culture, unity and strength and simultaneously projecting our soft power. These events wereconducted as carnivals albeit with an Indian flavour, which projected to the host country that Indians, irrespective of their location, are and would be Indians first.
Films always represent the culture and values of a nation and thus are an important proponent of soft power. Bollywood therefore plays a major role. Bollywood conducts its IIFA awards in a different country every year. The last IIFA award ceremony washeld in Malaysia in June this year.Bollywood through the ages has always been in the forefront in projecting India’s culture and values and along with it our soft power. We all remember the impact Raj Kapoor’s films had in the erstwhile USSR.Today, Bollywood films are translated into a host of languages. On the converse for most Indians the understanding of western culture is largely derived from the combined impact of Hollywood movies, English serials on TV, MTV, KFC and McDonalds.
An addition in our casealone has been our International and jet setting Guru’s, teaching and practising meditation and Yoga across the world. They alongwith the rapidly spreading Krishna Consciousness movement and many such similar groups have only contributed to spreading our way of life. It has helped project us as a peace loving nation and deeply religious with minimum worldly desires. It has projected us as a nation with a deep and value based culture. Namaste, our traditional greeting, is now a form which one can see almost anywhere in the world.At the same time there is no ashram or major religious institution here, which does not have followers from across the globe, studying and living there.
Indian diaspora exists in every country. Along with them has moved the famed Indian Curry, Bollywood and the Indian way of life, which carries the heady mixture of religion, Yoga and meditation. Shashi Tharoor,  in an article on ‘Making the most of India’s soft power’ states, that in England today, Indian curry houses employ more people than the iron and steel, coal and ship building industries combined. In large parts of the west, the Hare Krishna movement brings forth its own group of followers.
Historically, if we assess our relations with South and South East Asia, we are linked by religion, exchanges through history, and commonality in culture. Buddhism spread from here, Indian temples existed in Vietnam and Cambodia from centuries and Indian religious festivals are celebrated across the region from Myanmar to Cambodia and Vietnam.
The Middle East has always had a large Indian diaspora, and thus this area would continue to be affected by our soft power. This was very evident from the success of the recent visit of the Prime Minister there.
Africa has had Indian settlers for generations. Indians have traditionally been involved in establishing businesses and industry. Bollywood movies have always been popular. During my tenure with the United Nations in Mozambique in the early nineties, I came to realize that the most popular movie star in those days there (from both Hollywood and Bollywood) was Mithun Chakraborthy, mainly due to his dancing. They understood India, Indians and our culture and values from our films.
In the western world, Indians have settled in every country. We have done well in most places and have always maintained our traditions and way of life.
The world is today waking up to the Indian dream. In fact there is a now a reverse brain drain, with an increasing number of graduates from universities abroad coming to work in India. We also have people of all ages coming to learn meditation, yoga and the Hindu way of life. They come to learn and then continue to practice and stay here.
We now need to tap onto our soft power and project ourselves strongly. By doing sowe would gain our rightful respect and place in the comity of nations and our international standing would only enhance. Joseph Nye, a major proponent of soft power stated in an article titled ‘The Rising Soft Power of China and India,’ “When a country gets very popular with the American public, it gets somewhat harder for Washington to follow a hard line against them. We live in an information world and information depends on its credibility. Countries that are more credible are more likely to be believed.” This issue is common for all countries.
Developed nations across the globe are investing in projecting their soft power basically to enhance their image and standing. The UK has the British Council, the Swiss have Pro Helvetia, Germany has the Goethe, Spain has the Cervantes, Italy has Dante Alighieri and Portugal has the Gulbenkian.  China has established ‘Confucius Institutes’ to promote Chinese culture internationally. In contrast, India has limited cultural centres functioning under its embassies abroad. We have conducted Indian festivals abroad, but continuous projection is still slow. By enhancing the spread of our soft power, we would be encouraging investment in our country, as also increase our international standing and value as a nation.
If the aim is to project the ‘make in India’ option, based on enhanced foreign direct investment, as the Prime Minister desires as also to enhance our country’s intangible standing in international eyes, then there is a need to enhance India’s soft power projection. The Government needs to invest more in this field, and where required bring in experts and obtain the direct involvement of our diaspora settled across the globe.
(The author is former  Major General)
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