Firstly, Just because you donated money for Nalanda University doesn't mean anything. Did we ask you for the money in the first place? I think not. If we could have built Nalanda once, we can do it again.
The fact is you didn't! Then what do you think those foreign buddism followers would think about india: a country which just leave their holy place in shit?
Secondly, do you even mean what soft power is? Does China have any soft power? The only power which China has now is Money Power which is completely different. Does anyone outside of China and the Chinese Diaspora watch Chinese movies.The only thing famous from China is Chinese Cuisine (which I might add I love, but that's a different issue).
For the matter of fact, yes, the chinese in overseas watch Chinese movies a lot because I am one of them.
For the matter of fact, yes, there a lot of Japaneses, Koreans, taiwaneses and souther east asians watching Chinese movies.
Whether we Indian practice Buddhism widely or not is not the question here. You can't deny the fact that the religion itself was born in India.
It is a question, you want to gain your soft power from it and you are not doing anything good to this religion since it is not your own, then what is the influence you want to have as a country full of infidel?
On a different note, could you enlighten me on how the Chinese are expanding their clout across the world without the use of money and without buying everything up.
More and more people start to learn Chinese;
China towns in almost all the major cities of the world;
More and more westerns come to talk about confucius, YinYang, TaiJi, etc;
More and more western politicians give their bless to their Chinese voters in Spring Festival, etc.
As Chinese members here always pointed out, MONEY is the source of soft power.