India's Soft Power Advantage.

The meteoric rise of both India and China must have become the most discussed geopolitical trend of the past decade. And now, at a time when most economies are still floundering in the wake of the global economic crisis and both Asian states project almost insolent growth rates of 7 to 8 % for the coming fiscal year; at a time when a steady stream of media reports indicate an upsurge in Sino-Indian border tensions along the Himalayas, it appears ever more obvious that the XXIst century will be increasingly defined not only by how Delhi and Beijing interact with the rest of the world, but also by how they choose to interact with each other.

All too often, India and China are somewhat summarily lumped together as Asia’s “rising powers”. In reality, however, India and China are at two very different stages in their development and are quite simply not yet boxing in the same category. In terms of pure hard, conventional military power, China is leagues ahead of its transhimalayan neighbor. This is due, in no small part to the fact that India’s steadily growing military budget, which accounted for 26.8 billion dollars in 2008-2009, is still nowhere near that of the PRC, which some Pentagon analysts estimate to be close to 140 billion dollars.
(China is notoriously opaque when it comes to the detailing of its military budget) Diplomatically speaking, China is a permanent member of the UNSC, India, despite all its lobbying in favor of a reform of the Security Council, is not. Finally, in terms of economic power, China which reaps the rewards of a 20 years head start over India in the domain of economic liberalization, can boast a GDP, which, at 4.2 trillion dollars, is about three times and a half that of India (1.2 trillion dollars).

There is however one area where the playing field is more level: Soft Power.
Soft power is frequently simply conflated with economic power. If that was the case, Beijing would once again be far ahead. In reality though, as Joseph Nye famously pointed out, a nation’s soft power is far more than a simple panorama of its achievements in terms of exports, FTAs and sustained growth rates. Soft power, he says, is “the influence and attractiveness a nation acquires when others are drawn to its culture and ideas.” In the information world we live in, the “image branding” of nations, as well as their “likeability factor” have acquired greater significance, especially so for two states that are not only countries, but also civilizational states struggling to let the rest of the world come to terms with their relatively recent rise.

While both states are acutely aware of the importance of soft power and cultural attractivity, India seems to hold a sizeable advantage in that, unlike China, it needs to do little to render its culture appealing to the rest of the world. The process is natural, almost organic. This is consistent with India’s long history as both a birthplace of ideas, and of peaceful cultural diffusion. Whereas China invaded and occupied Vietnam for more than a thousand years, India spread Buddhism and the Hindu concept of sacred kingship to Southeast Asia not by sword and flame, but via trade and itinerant missionaries. The fact that ancient India never engaged in long-term occupation or widespread forcible conversion in Southeast Asia is not without significance. The peaceful propagation of Buddhism is a multi-millennia old bond that India shares with the rest of the Asian continent that acts as a testament to the power of its civilizational pull. In stark contrast, Chinese Confucianism, deemed too elitist and Sino-centric, was only adopted by certain other countries’ leading classes (as in Vietnam) but never by their peasantry.



When it comes to defining India’s more modern ‘soft power’ Bollywood is often cited, and with reason, as a prime example. The glittering, flamboyant films churned out by Mumbai’s gargantuan film industry have long been popular in certain regions of the world such as the Middle East. Over the past decade, however, Bollywood has been making inroads elsewhere. One of the most popular current viral videos in India shows a man in the depths of Tajikistan passionately humming and singing a Bollywood theme song to his bemused Indian visitors-all in perfectly memorized Hindi. When the Indian TV soap opera ‘Kynunki Saas Bhi’ was dubbed in Dari and aired on Afghanistan’s Tolo TV it was such an astounding success that it became a national obsession. 90% of television-owning Afghan families would follow the show, sometimes incurring the wrath of mullahs who viewed it as being responsible for the desertion of mosques during evening prayers. In certain African countries, such as Senegal and Mali, villagers often trek out miles to the closest projection room just to be able to watch one of the latest Bollywood films. Little does it matter that they do not understand the dialogue or that it is set in a distant land; the themes of love, family and marriage they evoke are universal, and the sparkling opulence of the dances, costumes and songs have the gift of enchanting the minds of moviegoers far less jaded than those in the West.


(An Arab Cable TV advert advertising Bollywood films)

India’s cultural influence is not only being felt in the developing world, however. Books by Indian English-speaking writers such as Vikram Seth, Amitav Ghosh and Arundhati Roy have wooed critics across the world and become instant modern classics. Films by progressive female Indian directors such as Mira Nair and Deepa Mehta have revealed that Indian films are more than escapist fantasies, and can be simultaneously contemplative and entertaining. The triumph of Slumdog Millionnaire at last year’s Academy Awards was not only that of a slick, elegantly crafted melodrama, but also that of a certain depiction of contemporary India, warts and all, which nevertheless swayed the hearts of the jury.



This positive image of India is actively reinforced in the West by the increasingly affluent and politically self-confident Indian diaspora. This is particularly the case in the US, where families of Indian origin earn on average twice as much as their standard American counterparts, and where the Indian business lobby has gained such political clout that Hillary Clinton was derisively nicknamed the ‘Senator from Punjab’ during the 2008 election. In contrast, Chinese overseas communities, traditionally wealthy in Southeast Asia, do not fare as well in the West. While the average revenue of a Chinese American family is above that of their White American counterparts, the Chinese community registers very strong income disparities, and its members tend to be overqualified for their jobs. They also have not, as yet, manifested the same political activism in Congress as their South Asian counterparts.
In Great Britain, curry has now replaced fish and chips as the national dish of choice, and it is said that curry houses in the UK now employ more people than the mining and shipbuilding industries combined. Mumbai has now become one of the fashion capitals of the world, and fashion aficionados of the world no longer only stalk the runways of Milan, Paris and New York.

All this seems to indicate that the flow of information in-between India and the world is no longer unidirectional, as in the past, when India would only attract pampered Western youths trawling the subcontinent in search of a hypothetical spiritual redemption. India is gradually regaining its place as a historical trendsetter, and the influence it is having on the rest of the world, and particularly on the West, is far more profound and extends beyond simple pop subculture.



What now of China? As the perfectly choreographed spectacles of the 2008 Olympics and the recent 60th anniversary of the PLA seem to display, no other country in the world devotes as much time and energy into projecting a positive image as China. Why then, does it not seem to be catching on?
Part of the reason may be that China’s cultural diplomacy, unlike India’s, is more didactic than dialectic, and focuses more on an officially sanctioned discourse than on an open exchange of ideas. Take China’s growing global network of Confucius Institutes, which are designed to provide instruction in Chinese language and culture, and which work to create partnerships in-between Chinese universities and foreign universities in their host countries. The Institutes also operate under the tutelage of the ‘Chinese Language Council’ a government body, which has issued strict guidelines stipulating that the Institutes, as well as their host universities, must comply with political directives on issues deemed by Beijing to be ‘sensitive’, such as the international status of Taiwan or Tibet, or any form of historical investigation pertaining to ethnic minorities.

All in all, Chinese public diplomacy has been highly selective in nature. If cultural diplomacy is, as some have claimed, a form of ‘elaborate storytelling to the world’, then China is only telling half the story. One interesting case study is that of the famous mariner Zheng He who plied the waters of the South China Sea and of the Indian Ocean, and maybe even beyond with a fleet of 28 000 men, and who is now being held up as an emblem of China’s great seafaring past, as well as a symbol of the PRC’s supposedly peaceful maritime intent. Conveniently left out of the historically sanctioned narrative is the fact that Zheng He’s expeditions, were not only economic and pacifist in nature, as it is claimed, but were also a political extension of the Imperial tributary system. When a ruler, such as the Sri Lankan king Alakeswara, refused to pay tribute and thus recognize himself as the Chinese Emperor’s vassal, he was promptly deposed and ferried back to the Ming Court in chains. (Another fact that is frequently glossed over is that Zheng He was a Hui Muslim, and could probably never have risen to such preeminence in today’s Han dominated China)
Even Chinese international blockbusters, such as ‘Hero’ or ‘House of Flying Daggers’, while entertaining and often beautifully shot, invariably deal with a recurring theme: the photogenic and ethnically Han heroes, battling through pristine landscapes, end up by sacrificing themselves for the good of the nation. This may explain why such films, which have known some success in Western movie theatres, leave audiences in the developing world cold. An African villager or Central Asian goat tender has little time for the lofty ideal of national self-preservation in the face of fissiparous tendencies. He wants to watch something he can relate to, and whistle a catchy tune on his way home.



The main reason underlying India’s Soft Power Advantage over China, however, is undoubtedly related to the nature of their respective regimes and societies. India’s tradition of tolerance for diversity and of religious syncretism, when combined with its pluralist democratic system, vibrant mass media, and English-speaking elite, render it an infinitely more inspiring model. China’s slightly Orwellian PR efforts cannot hide the deeply unattractive nature of its regime. Its soothing discourses on its harmonious society collapse in on themselves each time a blood-soaked repression of Tibetan or Uighur protestors is caught on film, and its insistence on its peaceful rise is put into doubt when reports surface of Chinese warships harassing US vessels in international waters. Beijing’s habit of nurturing close ties with unsavory regimes such as Sudan, Myanmar and North Korea does little to improve matters. Indeed, while China’s non-interference policy in the domestic affairs of human right trampling states may earn it some degree of appreciation abroad, of a state respectful of national sovereignty; it only adds to its image, particularly in democratic societies, of an unscrupulous, amoralistic entity.

This is something that China, for all its flawlessly orchestrated displays and declarations of good intent, is powerless to prevent. India, for its part, is far from perfect. Its relations with its neighbors in South Asia, who tend to view it as a regional bully, are deplorable, and in its quest for energy security and its need to hedge against either Pakistan or China it has been forced to cozy up to some pretty shady regimes as well, thus running the risk in the long term of casting a shadow over its shiny democratic visage. The Bollywood films that have elicited such an enthusiastic response abroad showcase all too often a clean, pale-skinned bourgeois India disconnected from everyday reality. But as far as Rising Asia’s PR war is concerned, for India the battle is already won.