India's soft power in the age of hard Hindutva

Last week, when India’s bear hug of the US president, designed to display our rising soft power was tempered by deaths in Delhi, a new study captured the mixed results of India’s hard-at-home and soft-abroad power strategy.
 
While this is the first time India has broken into the top 30, the Brand Finance Global Soft-Power Index 2020 highlighted that India punches well below its weight —  ranked 27th — below China (5),the UAE (18) and even Saudi Arabia (26), a country whose leadership was found complicit in the murder of a US-based journalist. The top four nations leading the list were the US, Germany, the UK (despite Brexit) and Japan.

 
Donald Trump’s visit boosted our soft power — driving familiarity on global platforms abuzz with POTUS’ tweets and memes, including Ivanka Trump’s tongue-in-cheek responses. But our reputation and influence were also dented as images of violence in the capital spread equally virally, inviting commentary from all-comers.
 

Brand Finance concludes that India clearly underperforms, given the size of its population, economy and its rich heritage. The rankings relative to gross domestic product (GDP) underscores that India’s economic size and clout should enable it to figure among the top 10 most powerful in the world, like Russia (10).
 
The index takes into account three parameters — familiarity, reputation and influence — based on a survey of over 55,000 respondents. We score high on familiarity index with 6.8, comparable to Switzerland and South Korea. This is driven by tourism, India’s overseas cultural centres, Modi government’s extensive global outreach, and is supplemented by our diaspora, Bollywood, music, cricket and yoga. But all this needs to be scaled up quickly. An Observer Research Foundation paper highlights that while we have 36 India Cultural Centres (ICC), China has over 500 such centres with many tied to host-country universities to drive familiarity and influence. Plus, India’s ICCs are still aimed at the diaspora (there are three ICCs in the Caribbean, two in South Africa), ignoring strategic and growing relationships in the Nordics and Latin America that need to be nourished.

 
Another identified problem is that unlike China, much of our global familiarity  comes from our private firms, often not readily correlated to India. Jaguar Land Rover, for instance, has done very little to boost India’s (or Tata’s) soft power because of a lack of association. Similarly, the IT sector’s influence on Western innovation and talent is unsurpassed, but its reputation is often dented by attention on use of H1B visas or complaints of discrimination. Other soft power ambassadors such as Air India have let the side down for decades, while the jury is still out on how unicorns such as Oyo, which are hitting serious bumps while pursuing fast growth in influential markets like the US, the UK, China and Japan, will impact India’s brand going forward. Could their failure hurt us as much as Softbank?

 
Hence, boosting our reputation needs immediate focus: We score worse for reputation than Brazil, Qatar and Malaysia that are ranked below India overall and at a par with tiny countries such as Greece and Thailand. The research highlights our low scores in categories such as media and communications — worse than Turkey, Qatar and Thailand and comparable to countries such as Egypt and the Philippines — as well as in governance, where we are at the same level as Egypt and a shade better than Brazil and South Africa.
 
The report notes: “Following the controversial revocation of autonomy for Kashmiris by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government, India must build upon its soft power strengths instead of turning to more hard power initiatives.” One can only estimate how much the Citizenship Amendment Act controversies will impact brand India.

 
The study showed that with high overall rankings, China and Russia have disturbed the liberal, Western power status quo. While non-liberal policies at home and the neighbourhood have lowered their reputations (ranked 24th and 26th, respectively), it is more than made up through their outsized influence (second only to the US and seventh, respectively) fuelled by trade, education as well as outward investments — China’s $100 billion Belt and Road initiative, for instance. 
 
Our biggest issue is that despite rising economic clout and market size, our influence ranking continues to lag below much smaller economies like the UAE and Israel. Creating a balance between hard nationalism at home and driving soft power globally is a fine line that the ministry of external affairs has to tread carefully as it redefines India’s global positioning. 

 
High familiarity through our history and culture, and rising visitors give us a good platform on which to build. The key is not to replicate China — growing investment influence can fast turn into a negative hegemonic reputation — but leverage the new meta-drivers of soft power — communities, platforms and social change. Cities will be the hub of new communities, driven by economic growth and migration; by 2025, 10 of the world’s fastest growing cities will be in India. These give us 21st century arenas to drive India’s reputation among the global influencers. The power of platforms is now well established but no government has really understood how to use it (apart from learning how to troll) to build global influence, like an Amazon or Uber have. Lastly, in an age where environmental issues are driving consumer choices and bolstering reputations of those leading the change — India needs to show urgent leadership through impact. After all, the town halls, Taj Mahal and yoga can only take us so far.

 
The writer is a communications strategist. bagchip@gmail.com; @bagchips on Twitter