Soft Power and India

Content of the Talk:

[FfT] Should India become a Soft power- Dr. Shashi Tharoor

1. Soft Power:
2. What is soft Power
3. Political Pluralism
4. MY Conclusions from this 19 minute video
5. Basics 
6. About the Speaker

Soft Power:

                The speaker Dr. Shashi Tharoor here starts with the question of India’s place in 21^st century.  All want India be a super power, what is super power?

• Military capability- now obviously our’s 4^th largest force, or
• Population force- a massive force 2^nd largest and fighting hard to be the number one,
• Economic capability- already  known for our resilience during global financial crisis- 5^th largest in terms of purchasing power parity, or
• Nuclear weapons- oh! sure world is quizzed and deterred about our capability.

But according to the speaker something allied must add to all these, which he calls soft power.

What is soft Power?

• Ability of a nation to attract other nations, especially its people through its culture, foreign policy, art, architecture.
•  The capacity of nations to tell best stories, the stories that prevail, influence, attracts.
•  Some of the world nations have displayed their soft power prowess:

o   China- Beijing Olympics, Lines of credit to African nations etc.,

o   US- Lots of grants across continents, Hollywood, Mcdonalds etc.,

o   Britain- LOCOG, world media empires like the murdochs etc.,

• All nations have inherent capability to do these, also as is India having its advantages:

o   Our rich culture, civilization, ancient history.

o   Power of Indian media especially now our Bollywood doing international rounds.

o   Education- IITs, IIMs have now earned international reputations.

o  Even Indian Cuisine- Speaker sites one example in England where our restaurants are the largest employment providers.

o   Communication era- India the most connected country, can teach the world art of establishing telecommunications.  

 

Political Pluralism:

• One more unique feature he admires most about India is its plural governance and vast tolerance.
• India has learnt to arrive at consensus on how to survive without consensus on all issues.
• Here he quotes 2009 elections- election of a party led by woman of Italian origin, Placing a Sikh in the chair of PM, who is sworn in by Muslim president, for a country 80% Hindus.
• He takes pride in India’s long history without any major incidents of anti-Semitism, Xenophobia and the like.

MY Conclusions from this 19 minute video:

• India should excel in all these arenas still more.
• This is not a self-propaganda, and we cannot bask on our laurels, time for reality check
• Incidents of Assam exodus, Maharashtra violence, attacks on srilankan pilgrims are not moments to cherish for us.
• Let us join hands, put our best efforts to develop humanity, guide our neighbor along our paths. 

After all we gave Gandhi to the world, he gave us an identity in World stage.

Basics:

Now let’s get some hard core words deciphered:

Soft Power:

• A concept developed by Mr. Joseph Nye, ‘who says is the ability to attract, to co-opt than coerce others’.
• It is getting desired outcomes not by threatening with military or economic sanctions (can remember hard core tactics of US on Iran) but by international institutions, policies, culture, friendship.

Anti semetism:

• A form of racisim in which jews are targets- aform of ethnic violence against group of people for the sole reason of being Jews.

Xenophobia:

• Xenophobia is a hatred for foreigners or foreign things.
• Essentially stems from fear to protect one’s cultural ethnic purity, preserve identity
• Mostly designated irrational, but this fear most say is due to fear of economic loss, competition for resource, employment.

About the Speaker:

• Dr.Tharoor United Nations peace-keeper, refugee worker, human rights activist, a former Minister of State for External Affairs and now an elected member of the Indian Parliament from the Thiruvananthapuram constituency in Kerala
• Dr Tharoor is also the award-winning author of twelve books, as well as hundreds of articles, op-eds and book reviews in a wide range of publications,
• He is the recipient of several awards, including a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, and was named to India’s highest honour for Overseas Indians, the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, in 2004. Amongst his many awards, Dr. Tharoor has also received the Pride of India Award from the Zakir Husain Memorial Foundation, and the Hakim Khan Sur Award for National Integration.

Reference:

• TED talks on ‘Should India become a soft power’.
• Wikipedia