Indian Narrative in International Politics

 What is soft power and how relevant is it? Soft power is the ability to influence perceptions of your own country in a person’s mind, who is not aware of the various aspects of your national life. It is a modern approach in the information age to influence the undecided and the neutrals. While beneficial to sectors like tourism, arts and culture, Soft power is essentially a citizen concept. The govt can invest, organize and encourage but it cannot direct and interfere in the exercise of soft power. True soft power lies in the standards and discourse that citizens and society hold themselves to. The core of India’s soft power is that it is an ancient civilization but a young modern, diverse and world’s largest democracy. 

India is also perceived to be a moral and political power with a history of tension between idealism and realism and a preference for the middle of the road. The Kashmir conflict has raised questions of heavy-handedness, Human rights and AFSPA; there are internal inequalities and injustices of caste, tribal rights, gender equality, regional disparities, poverty, corruption and inefficiency. The Indian state has failed in preventing or prosecuting the culprits in certain individual cases and communal cases of violence but there is no evidence to suggest that Indian people have systematically condoned such performance in the long arc of history. The independent judiciary, the Indian executive and the Indian legislature has progressed albeit with slow pace. The Indian political spectrum has largely catered to the lowest common denominator voter and therefore susceptible to propaganda, authoritarianism and violence. The institutions on the other hand have managed to come together in different crises to lift the country out of a hole and nudge it along its slow arduous path of progress. The Indian case of democratic progress has been a case of one step forward and one step back with the length of the strides of the forward steps decidedly better than steps backward. India therefore is a unique political, social and national experiment of the 21^st century.

In terms of narratives, the only constant in Indian life is an individual choice to be Indian. Everything else about Indian nationalism is arguable in the court of public and legal opinion. There are dominant social groups but fundamental rights are enshrined in the constitution. The State is powerful because it is the only organization which, while infested with parochial interests is accountable to the entire Indian citizenry. Society also suffers with deep rooted problems of injustice but is not beyond the capabilities of the state to govern. Unfortunately, proactive governance by the state is only seen in times of crises or in the aftermath. There is no shared identity apart from the identity of ‘Indian’ sanctioned in the constitution. Caste identity is a source of injustice, Religious identity is a source of Conflict and Indianness is a source of Unity. Indian diversity is an offshoot of her geography more than a shared commitment. Indian constitution being a written document is surprisingly agile, flexible and resilient to the intensity of Indian politics and life. Indian soft power is therefore conflicted between modernity and tradition on a scale and spectrum like no other country. This essential feature is the true soft power aspect of India. It cannot be advertised or hidden but can only be thought about, watched and experienced.

No one can point out what makes India work but the legacy of the freedom struggle and the discussions of the enlightened constituent assembly the only agreed hagiographies. These two events along with the Partition have shaped modern India more than any event in the past. Many values have intensified and many have withered away at different periods but a sharp break from the Nehruvian consensus is still to prove itself stable and tenable in post-independent India. Nehru whose family migrated from their original place of birth seven generations ago is regarded as the proverbial banyan tree in terms of the limits of politics and governance in India. Ends don’t justify the means in India is his quintessential legacy. There is an Indian way of doing things and it is primarily based on argumentation and thought. Indian citizens and state do resort to illegal unconstitutional violent measures in rare cases but these are aberrations/injustices to be corrected rather than condoned. The existence and genuine legacy of cases of injustice are the true roadblocks to the advancement of Indian progress and soft power. But to mistake these as features of an outdated notion of India is to make the far graver mistake of negating the impact of seminal events such as the freedom struggle, constituent assembly and the partition. The constituent assembly provides the single largest exercise of political self-determination in the history of the world. It is an event that marks the starting point in the history of modern India encompassing all aspects and disciplines of Indian national life. This article also argues that the most important manifestation of Indian Soft power comes from the first Indian PM’s tryst with destiny speech delivered at the moment of Indian independence.

India is a going through a phase of radical politics domestically. There have been many controversial political events such as ghar wapsi, cow politics violence; ‘Anti-national’ witch hunting, anti-romeo squads, and attack on dalits, violence and crimes against women. Political  violence adds to the problematic history of naked communal violence which manifested itself in events such as 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Assassination of PM Indira Gandhi by Khalistani supporters, Babri Masjid demolition, Mandal politics, 2002 Gujarat riots, 1993 Bombay riots and Bomb explosions. India’s soft power may never be able to recover from events such as these as long as identity politics remains. The Communist violence in the form of Maoist violence in red-corridor, cadre violence in West Bengal and parts of Kerala is another manifestation where subliminal issues of Indian society boil to the surface. Cases of State sponsored violence in the interior and certain Border States and myriad cases of injustice have pushed the Indian system to its limits. The Institutions have held against increasing pressure from societal pathologies, morphologies and unequal power relations. The pre-independence norm of non-violence is a feature among the educated but that is precisely what makes education the biggest priority area in terms of governmental service provision. Noted writer Arundhati Roy has argued that Identity politics in India has been mobilized on all sides of the spectrum with even poverty, class, caste, religion, gender all being reduced to a form of identity. Democracy is a flawed system but the hegemony of monetary incentive in all activities of Indian life has to be removed. Capital cannot decide all forms of human emotion and activity. State regulation of capitalism is important. It is as important a political goal as economic growth, development and redistribution. Systemic inequality, corporate interests, social identities and certain instances of unconstitutional State based violence or political violence cannot be justified in the name of democracy. While democracy is indispensable, it needs to be expanded from Democracy of the few to full citizen participation. The word ‘marginalized’ has to be gradually and eventually removed from Indian political lexicon by realizing the full potential of the democratic process for all Indians. Education and Representation thus form the bedrock of any Indian narrative.