Question: India’s choice should be more on becoming a soft power rather than a hard power. Analyse this statement in the light of relative advantages India enjoys in cultural, spiritual and knowledge spheres and suggest ways of leveraging that advantage.
Answer direction
What is a hard power?
A country that exercises its power, influence, and voercion through the use of military might and economy and clout as a muscle to manipulate itself towards the people can be called as hard power.
What is a soft power?
Soft power is a concept developed by Joseph Nye of Harvard University to describe the ability to attract and co-opt rather than by coercion (hard power), using force or giving money as a means of persuasion. Soft power is the ability to shape the preferences of others through appeal and attraction. A defining feature of soft power is that it is noncoercive; the currency of soft power is culture, political values, and foreign policies. Recently, the term has also been used in changing and influencing social and public opinion through relatively less transparent channels and lobbying through powerful political and non-political organizations.
India becoming a hard power through use of military might, coercion and manipulating public opinion has some inherent limitations
Very high Expenditure
Diplomatic manipulations are understood
Being in centre of conflict generator weans people away and then requires resolution
Soviet experience to be a hard power not very productive
Forced application of country’s influence doesn’t change people and mindset
It is very difficult to catch up with the developed west in the hard power arena.
Can actually drive people away
Relative advantage of India as soft power
In today’s world, it’s not the size of army that wins; it’s the country that tells a better story. Hard power can actually drive people away, but soft power almost always brings them closer.. The perception of India being a soft state stems from the past continues through the present era and holds immense promise for the future. There are certain inherent limitations, which restrain the chances of India from being a hard power, and it is in the advantage of India to accept the same. With nearly 1/6th population of the world being Indian, the presence of Indian Diaspora all over the world and with a massive working age population, India stands at the brink of being an impending soft power, provided all the stated advantages are leveraged judiciously. The components that make India’s chances of leveraging its soft power include.
The potential offered by Indian culture, ranges from from Mumbai’s film industry to performing arts, from Ayurveda to yoga, from cuisine to cricket, from festivals to lifestyles, from fabric and garments to painting and sculpture, from knowledge to spirituality, and from entrepreneurship skills to software all of which can be leveraged for India’s advantage at the global stage.
How to leverage such an advantage
(a) Identify key Indian items for cultural export such as yoga now an international craze ,cinema and Ayurveda.
(b) Open Indian cultural centres in every major capitals like the French capital
(c) Offer subsidized courses in foreign capitals to teach appreciation of Indian culture
(d) Use globalization as tool to incorporate and showcase the diversity through organized channels of technology and satellite communications
(e) Use knowledge, analytical skills based on observational and intuitive learning that is completely Indian in nature to infuse learning, create teachers of world arena with enhanced mentoring skills among the new generation Indian students and diffuse them through the whole world to spread the message that they have inculcated.
Conclusion
It is widely being acknowledged in the world that Indian ethos; values have to be preserved for the overall benefit of mankind. As Dr Arnold Toynbee, British Historian wrote, “It is already becoming clear that a chapter which had a Western beginning will have to have an Indian ending if it is not to end in the self-destruction of the human race. At this supremely dangerous moment in history, the only way of salvation for mankind is the Indian way.”
Here is a video discussing the issue.
Answer direction
What is a hard power?
A country that exercises its power, influence, and voercion through the use of military might and economy and clout as a muscle to manipulate itself towards the people can be called as hard power.
What is a soft power?
Soft power is a concept developed by Joseph Nye of Harvard University to describe the ability to attract and co-opt rather than by coercion (hard power), using force or giving money as a means of persuasion. Soft power is the ability to shape the preferences of others through appeal and attraction. A defining feature of soft power is that it is noncoercive; the currency of soft power is culture, political values, and foreign policies. Recently, the term has also been used in changing and influencing social and public opinion through relatively less transparent channels and lobbying through powerful political and non-political organizations.
India becoming a hard power through use of military might, coercion and manipulating public opinion has some inherent limitations
Very high Expenditure
Diplomatic manipulations are understood
Being in centre of conflict generator weans people away and then requires resolution
Soviet experience to be a hard power not very productive
Forced application of country’s influence doesn’t change people and mindset
It is very difficult to catch up with the developed west in the hard power arena.
Can actually drive people away
Relative advantage of India as soft power
In today’s world, it’s not the size of army that wins; it’s the country that tells a better story. Hard power can actually drive people away, but soft power almost always brings them closer.. The perception of India being a soft state stems from the past continues through the present era and holds immense promise for the future. There are certain inherent limitations, which restrain the chances of India from being a hard power, and it is in the advantage of India to accept the same. With nearly 1/6th population of the world being Indian, the presence of Indian Diaspora all over the world and with a massive working age population, India stands at the brink of being an impending soft power, provided all the stated advantages are leveraged judiciously. The components that make India’s chances of leveraging its soft power include.
The potential offered by Indian culture, ranges from from Mumbai’s film industry to performing arts, from Ayurveda to yoga, from cuisine to cricket, from festivals to lifestyles, from fabric and garments to painting and sculpture, from knowledge to spirituality, and from entrepreneurship skills to software all of which can be leveraged for India’s advantage at the global stage.
How to leverage such an advantage
(a) Identify key Indian items for cultural export such as yoga now an international craze ,cinema and Ayurveda.
(b) Open Indian cultural centres in every major capitals like the French capital
(c) Offer subsidized courses in foreign capitals to teach appreciation of Indian culture
(d) Use globalization as tool to incorporate and showcase the diversity through organized channels of technology and satellite communications
(e) Use knowledge, analytical skills based on observational and intuitive learning that is completely Indian in nature to infuse learning, create teachers of world arena with enhanced mentoring skills among the new generation Indian students and diffuse them through the whole world to spread the message that they have inculcated.
Conclusion
It is widely being acknowledged in the world that Indian ethos; values have to be preserved for the overall benefit of mankind. As Dr Arnold Toynbee, British Historian wrote, “It is already becoming clear that a chapter which had a Western beginning will have to have an Indian ending if it is not to end in the self-destruction of the human race. At this supremely dangerous moment in history, the only way of salvation for mankind is the Indian way.”
Here is a video discussing the issue.
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