India’s Soft Power Potential

On June 21, the world will observe International Day of Yoga for the first time ever. A United Nations resolution to this effect that India moved in the General Assembly last year was co-sponsored by an unprecedented 170 countries. It “reflected yoga’s immense popularity worldwide, underscoring its richness as a soft power resource,” an official from India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) told The Diplomat.

Yoga is among the themes that figured during the recent visit of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi to China, Mongolia, and South Korea. Clearly, India is dipping into its ample soft power resources in its diplomatic engagements abroad.

But first, what is soft power and why are countries looking to it in their conduct of diplomacy? According to Harvard political scientist, who coined the term, soft power is the ability of a country to persuade others to do what it wants without resorting to force or coercion. Soft power, he said, lies in a country’s attractiveness and comes from three resources: its culture (in places where it is attractive to others), its political values (when it lives up to them at home and abroad), and its foreign policies (when they are seen as legitimate and having moral authority). Though slower to yield results, soft power is a less expensive means than military force or economic inducements to get others to do what we want.

India boasts an amazing variety and wealth of soft power resources. Its spiritualism, yoga, movies and television soaps, classical and popular dance and music, its principles of non-violence, democratic institutions, plural society, and cuisine have all attracted people across the world. Indian foreign policy analyst C Raja Mohan observed that India holds “strong cards in the arena of soft power” to further its foreign policy goals.

It is only over the past decade or so that India has begun to play its soft power cards more systematically. Besides setting up a public diplomacy division within the Ministry of External Affairs in 2006 and expanding the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) worldwide, it has roped in the Ministry of Tourism, which is behind the “Incredible India” campaign, and the Ministry for Overseas Indians “to showcase its social, political, and cultural assets abroad,” Rohan Mukherjee, a research scholar at the Department of Politics in Princeton University told The Diplomat. These government actors are working to leverage India’s soft power “by using it to support larger foreign policy initiatives such as the Look East Policy (now Act East), the Connect Central Asia policy, and developing strategic aid and trade partnerships in Africa,” he said, adding that in each of these initiatives, “official diplomacy has been buttressed by cultural exchange and efforts at increasing public knowledge and appreciation of India in foreign countries.”   

The Indian government is using soft power in a big way in its outreach to East, Southeast, and Central Asia. Buddhism is at the heart of its diplomacy here. It has put in place several Buddhism-related initiatives to woo the large Buddhist populations of these regions. Among these is the Nalanda University project, a major soft power initiative of the Indian government that envisages the revival of a renowned center of Buddhist learning that flourished in Nalanda in India between the 5th and 12th centuries of the Christian Era. Japan, South Korea, Thailand, and China are among several countries collaborating with India on this project, providing funds, expertise, and infrastructure support. According to S D Muni, a former professor at the Jawaharalal Nehru University in New Delhi and Indian ambassador to Laos, Nalanda University could “emerge as a strong instrument of soft power at two levels; for the rising Asia in relation to the West and for India in relation to Asia.”

Bollywood

But it is not just the government that is shaping perceptions of India abroad. India’s private sector, especially its entertainment industry, is doing its bit too by producing soft power resources. As Mohan observes, “Bollywood has done more for Indian influence abroad than the bureaucratic efforts of the government.”  

In Afghanistan, for instance, Bollywood and Indian soap operas have a massive following. “Several generations of Afghans have grown up watching and listening to movies and music of Indian artistes. The most prominent of them, such as the Khans of Bollywood, hail from Afghanistan or trace their ancestry to the country,” Afghanistan’s Deputy Ambassador to India, M Ashraf Haidari told The Diplomat. The warm hospitality that ordinary Afghans extend to visiting Indians is often attributed to the “Bollywood effect.” Indeed, so “wildly popular” is Bollywood in Afghanistan that U.S. diplomats reportedly suggested roping in Indian actors to “bring attention to social issues there,” cables sent by the U.S. embassy in Delhi in 2007 disclosed by Wikileaks revealed.

Bollywood movies are hugely popular in Africa as well, not only among the large Indian diaspora but among local Muslim communities in North Africa and Northern Nigeria, who are at ease with its family and community-oriented themes and limited sexual content (compared to Hollywood movies), and who identify with the gender representations in its movies.

Limitations?

While there is general consensus over the variety of India’s soft power resources, opinion is divided on its capacity to further India’s foreign policy objectives. Kanwal Sibal, a former foreign secretary, doubts soft power’s capacity to act as “a diplomatic force multiplier.” He draws attention to the failure of India’s soft power to achieve foreign policy goals in the neighborhood, despite the enormous appeal of its soft power here. “Bollywood, which is loved by the Pakistani public, hasn’t reduced Pakistan’s hostility towards India, just as the fondness of some here for Pakistani plays and affection for sufi music does not change negative thinking about Pakistan in India,” he points out. Besides, India’s “putative soft power as a democracy” seems to have repelled rather than attracted its neighbors, he says, pointing out that “countries like Nepal have actually viewed Indian democracy in the past as a threat.”

Mukherjee argues that at best one can say that “the government’s soft power efforts have not hurt India’s foreign policy objectives.” However, we cannot claim with equal confidence that “they have helped, because often straightforward economic incentives or security imperatives drive relationships far more than softer factors.”  

The MEA official argued that soft power’s value must be assessed not in terms of what favorable decisions it achieved but in the enabling environment it creates to further India’s foreign policy objectives. In Nigeria, for instance, Bollywood movies and actors have enjoyed popularity for many decades. This eased India’s economic engagement with Nigeria. “Where India’s soft power impact has been felt for a while, India has not had to work very hard to gain access or further its objectives, the official claimed.

Throwing light on India’s relations with Nigeria, he pointed out that it occupies an important space on diplomatic radar; the oil-rich country meets 8-12 per cent of India’s crude requirement and in 2013, India emerged its largest buyer of crude.

“While the appeal of Bollywood movies may not clinched oil deals for India in Nigeria, its popularity among Nigerians together with India’s less exploitative aid and investment ties have muted public antagonism to its economic role in the country,” the official observed. India’s soft power has contributed “in some way to building India’s energy security.” India’s support to Nigeria developing its own film industry and its offer of a $100 million line of credit for setting up a film city there reflect the importance India accords soft power in its dealings with Nigeria, he said.

Putting Soft Power to Work

Analysts point out that for a country with such a vast pool of soft power resources, India’s success in leveraging it is disappointing. While it did organize cultural events overseas in the past, it is only over the past decade that India “is putting its soft power to work for foreign policy goals,” the MEA official said.

But these efforts pale in comparison with those of Germany’s Goethe Institutes, China’s Confucius Institutes, or the British Council. “India has had trouble bringing the disparate elements of the country’s appeal together in the service of its foreign policy. Its soft power resources have not been able to translate into the levels of foreign investment the country would like to see, it has benefitted little from the global Yoga boom, and it attracts far fewer foreign tourists than China or other comparable countries,” writes Peter Martin in Foreign Affairs.

Mukherjee says that India needs to “systematically identify gaps, errors, and biases in the perceptions others have of India” and then “design strategies that address these specific deficiencies.” Drawing attention to India’s “supply-driven, one-size-fits-all approach” to promoting its soft power, he points out that blanketing “foreign airwaves with ‘Incredible India’ advertisements” is not going to address the “specific negative perceptions that broad sections of Bangladesh’s or Nepal’s populations have of India.”

“We are yet to see evidence of this type of strategic thinking with regard to leveraging India’s soft power in South Asia,” he says.

“Setting up cultural institutes abroad can inform others of India’s culture, institutions, and policies but it is domestic efforts that will ultimately determine the attractiveness of these attributes to others,” observes Mukherjee. If India is keen on “tapping the full potential of its soft power” it must “make the Indian way of life one that others around the world would want for themselves. To create an Indian equivalent of the American Dream is ultimately the task of India’s policymakers if they wish someday to exercise the cultural hegemony that the U.S. exercises today.”

India’s cuisine, music, and movies may appeal to people abroad but for them to aspire to the Indian way of life, its values and principles in a way that will expand India’s influence meaningfully, India will have to fix things at home.

Poverty, social and economic inequality, gender violence, riots, injustice, and other issues do not paint a pretty picture. India’s image as a country of non-violence that can be a world leader in peace will convince nobody so long as violence remains pervasive at home. No cultural institute, yoga delegation, or propaganda blitz will attract people if the reality on the ground is ugly.

In other words, to reap the benefits of soft power abroad India must first address issues at home.