India as a World Soft Power

hit&run

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ejazr

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Oppenheimer misquotes the verse. It should be " now I am Time, the destroyer of worlds " . Whats funny is that many educated Indians are familiar with the misquoted verse !
Can you give me a link to the exact quote?
 

ejazr

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Like the FP article says, soft power is not just Bollywood although it plays a role in shaping India's image

Its the developmental works and training that we increasingly provide to the developing world. And India has been more efficient in getting a greater bang for its buck when it comes to the money it spends.

India has had historical interactions with countries around the Indian ocean rim and central Asia. This when coupled with developmental dollars and training means the target countries have a better experience than say with the US or China. These trained students, bureacrats, officers will hopefully maintain a relation with India. Just like we saw with Karzai for example or the Iranian foreign minister who studied in Bangalore. The US has taken advantage of these free training programs extensively to build up relations with other countries historically and India would do well to do the same.
 

LurkerBaba

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Can you give me a link to the exact quote?
An authoritative source http://www.amphilsoc.org/sites/default/files/Hijiya.pdf

"I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."
References are present in Wikipedia too
^ a b Oppenheimer spoke these words in the television documentary The Decision to Drop the Bomb (1965).[5] In the literature, the quote normally appears in the form shatterer of worlds, because this was the form in which it first appeared in print, in Time magazine on November 8, 1948.[6] It later appeared in Robert Jungk's Brighter than a Thousand Suns: A Personal History of the Atomic Scientists (1958),[7] which was based on an interview with Oppenheimer.[8]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Robert_Oppenheimer
 

hit&run

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Excellent article by civfanatic

The Future of Indian Power: Hard vs. Soft

Some extracts
There has been considerable talk over the past few years about India as a "global soft power".
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I view Indian soft power as virtually non-existent in its current state, and I also feel that it is unlikely for India to become a true global soft power anytime soon (though it does have the potential to become one). Instead, India's rise to global power status – if and when it happens – will be due to its increasing hard power, and India for the foreseeable future will have to rely on hard power to project its influence abroad.

In order to analyze hard vs. soft power in the Indian context, it is first important to understand what "hard" and "soft" power exactly refer to, and how they differ. "Hard" power refers to the use of military and/or economic means to exert one's influence upon another. In practice, the application of "hard" power tends to be fundamentally coercive in nature. The Indian covert support of the Mukti Bahini and later the overt military intervention into Bangladesh, the Soviet threat to use nuclear weapons against Britain and France during the Suez Crisis, and the imposition of economic sanctions on socialist Cuba by the United States are all examples of the utilization of "hard" power. "Soft" power, on the other hand, refers to the ability to attract and "seduce" (as opposed to coerce) other parties. The American political scientist Joseph Nye, who first coined the terms "hard" and "soft power, identified three categories of soft power: culture, political values, and policies. The utility of each of the three elements depends on their ability to attractExamples of "soft" power may include the extensive Wahhabi influence throughout the Islamic world due to Saudi state sponsorship, the emergence of Marxist-Leninist states in Africa, Asia, and Latin America based on the model of the Soviet Union, and the ability of the United States to historically attract large numbers of immigrants because of its sociopolitical values and free, democratic society.

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It would be virtually impossible for a country like Pakistan to exercise any meaningful soft power based on ideology, since Pakistan's ideology is based on Islamic 'nationalism' where it views itself as part of a greater 'Ummah', but is certainly not recognized by the members of the 'Ummah' as its leader. In other words, Pakistan does not have native ownership over its own ideology, which inevitably leads to Pakistan associating itself with other, more influential members of the 'Ummah' like Saudi Arabia and Iran, at the obvious expense of its own subcontinental origins.

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Another important condition in developing soft power is to have a universal ideology whose values can cut cross national, cultural, and ethnic borders and attract a diverse array of peoples.
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In addition to the ideological and political aspects of soft power, it is also important to look at the nature of cultural soft power. Many aspects of American "culture", such as Hollywood, MTV, Coca-Cola, and brand-name jeans are often touted as being elements of American "soft power". Fundamentally, however, such superficial, materialistic aspects of American "culture" cannot and do not promote pro-American attitudes among foreigners. It would not be totally uncommon to find that some of the most virulent anti-American protestors in Pakistan, Iran, and elsewhere may also be avid fans of Hollywood flicks or regularly drink Coke. Although these aspects of American culture may be popular throughout the world, they cannot be considered to be aspects of "soft power". Instead, meaningful cultural soft power would be able to significantly influence the paradigm of other cultures, as the major religions of Christianity and Islam have influenced numerous cultures around the globe.
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Nor does Bollywood, the supposed "holy grail" of Indian soft power, provide the necessary "muscle" for such power projection, since Bollywood only depicts the abovementioned superficial aspects of Indian culture. The immense popularity of Bollywood in Pakistan and Afghanistan, for example, has not turned Pakistan into a pro-Indian country, nor does it prevent Afghans (including the educated elite) from spitting on the floor whenever a Hindu idol is shown on TV.

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The fact is that the Indian entertainment industry has virtually no ability to influence the paradigm of its viewers, and can only bombard them with superficial trash. Perhaps if Bollywood placed less emphasis on petty song-and-dance numbers and focused more on producing movies that depict India's history, culture, and values in a more profound fashion, such paradigm shifts can take place among international audiences. But Bollywood in its current state is far from being a true vehicle for exercising Indian soft power.
Full article: The Future of Indian Power: Hard vs. Soft
 

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my comment on the above article---

our soft power consists of vegetarian food and as far as hard power is concerned we have none of it—because we are vegetarians and vegetarians are mildees meekies and cowards.
 

ani82v

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my comment on the above article---

our soft power consists of vegetarian food and as far as hard power is concerned we have none of it—because we are vegetarians and vegetarians are mildees meekies and cowards.
Again! :facepalm:
 

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my comment on the above article---

our soft power consists of vegetarian food and as far as hard power is concerned we have none of it—because we are vegetarians and vegetarians are mildees meekies and cowards.
Two vegetarians have won us one silver and one bronze medal in Olympics Wrestling :rolleyes:
 

ani82v

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Two vegetarians have won us one silver and one bronze medal in Olympics Wrestling :rolleyes:
If there were non vegetarian, they would probably have won gold!
Most of the gold medalists are non vegetarians and most of the bronzies are bloody vegetarians. :taunt:
 

Daredevil

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If there were non vegetarian, they would probably have won gold!
Most of the gold medalists are non vegetarians and most of the bronzies are bloody vegetarians. :taunt:
The point is these vegetarians have defeated non-vegetarian champions in wrestling. :taunt:
 

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If we do not get our act together, Africans will loose whatever respect they have left for us. I think this topic is actually related to how we Indians perceive ourselves. The preference for white skin in India is perhaps becoming a very perverse problem. It has racist undertones and it is inherently related to the Aryan Invasion theory. Some Indians who may be fair think they have inherent superiority and it is portrayed in the media as such. Read the article below but do check the comments on the website. Very hard hitting.

allAfrica.com: Nigeria: India and Her Afro-Indians



Nigeria: India and Her Afro-Indians
Tagged: Business, External Relations, Middle East and Africa, Nigeria, Transport, West Africa
BY OKELLO OCULI, 14 JUNE 2012

ANALYSIS

A glimpse of the African side of India shows people with severe psychotic problems apparently related to their poverty and intense subjection to racist contempt.

June 3, 2012 brought much grief in the awareness of Nigerians about India. An Indian- owned aircraft carrying 153 passengers and crew fell from the sky, only eleven kilometres from the runway. About twenty minutes after it had hit a tree and a house and dove into the ground below, it burst into flames. All those inside the plane died from injuries and the fire. Although these deaths came after a series of bomb blasts by urban guerrilla units known as "Boko Haram" (or education has not ensured us employment), had killed over one thousand victims blown up in churches, mosques, markets, and along roads, across northern Nigeria, the vulnerability and speed of air travel gave it high visibility and immediacy. Profiles of passengers such as the family of nine who died on their way to a wedding; a top executive mother who died with a son she was accompanying to sit a university entry examination; a mother who died holding on to her baby, have fanned pain in the hearts and minds of the general public.

This tragic crash has come just as Nigeria's media has moved away from reporting a war by the National Drug agency against a flood of fake pharmaceutical drugs coming into Nigeria from India, Pakistan and China. That association of India with a chemical invasion on the lives of Nigerians has competed with the massive arrival of three-wheeled scooter motor cycles with tarpaulin shelters from rain, sun and wind-which poor urban trekkers find most valuable as a cheap means for getting around. A torrent of angry accusations about the technical raggedness of the aircraft that crashed and wasted so many lives has echoes of India being a land of criminal pharmaceutical trade with Nigeria.

On 6 June, I went to commiserate with a man who has lost his wife and a teenage son. On entering the compound, I was met by a raucous group seated under a mango tree, bantering away. They were all men in their mid-forties; almost certainly members of what the Igbo people call an "age grade" to which the man belonged. Such groups spring into a mutual aid team to support one of their own emotionally and with financial support during moments of grief, marriages and business needs. The man himself sat in the middle of his sitting room surrounded by a brother-in-law, women who are close family relations. A Quantity Surveyor who had left government work to do personal business, he looked emotionally drained but not wrapped in a shawl of self-pity. His age-mates walked in a spirit of "life-must-go-on and we must all be strong and face the task of building the future". An elderly man who sat to my left focused his look on the bereaved man's face and seemed to be looking for signs of strength and possible bending. He had no time for showing grief. A clergyman who had left from an all-night prayer vigil over this family tragedy and travelled by road for over seven hours from Ekiti State in the southwest of the country, read from sections of the Bible to give guidance. I liked the part where he said that in times like this the best form of communication was sitting in silence.

The following day I went to sit with a friend whose unmarried daughter had died while rushing to attend a meeting of a company that had recently employed her after graduating as a Quantity Surveyor. She was a twin. Her grieving mother would say that they should have known that danger lay ahead when her twin sister would not drive her to the airport, pleading a fatigue. In despair the young lady had considered travelling by taxi. The Guardian newspaper would carry scores of faces of lively young career women like her. As I sat with other friends who had come to show solidarity and call up regular Muslim prayers, I came upon a reflection.

It went back to my attendance of a Rockefeller Foundation residence fellowship in Bellagio Castle above Lake Como in Italy. I had asked a military general from Pakistan why of three countries (India, Nigeria and Pakistan) who shared a common British colonial memory, a rich population diversity and a strong Muslim religious culture, Pakistan and Nigeria had known pandemics of military coups, while India had enjoyed uninterrupted democratically elected governments and generations of military officers proud to live, swagger and fight wars inside their uniforms. His answer was telling. India, he said, was benefitting from its ancient caste system which gives the military their historic honour as warriors for the state for whom assuming the role of "philosopher kings" would be a historic abomination. As he talked I recalled crowds of Baganda carrying away equipments from government offices after the fall of Milton Obote's government. Like the times of Ancient Pharaohs in Egypt, prosperity by individuals comes from the power of the reining ruler. When he or she dies, that wealth must also be spread out to all. They were bringing their world view to modern governance. Pakistan and Nigeria had no equivalent native ideology to keep at bay colonial military conquest of power.

In section 2.8 (d) of a 2009 February Draft White Paper on a report by an electoral committee in Nigeria, there is a call to emulate India's "requisite professionalism, decency, honesty and neutrality in the management of elections". India seems to be working well. Yet in 1975 a series of 14 documentaries filmed by a French crew had also shown another India. With each episode lasting three hours, the series had, among other wonders of India, shown the vast numbers of black African Diaspora that may have either broken away from the African continent's landmass or, like Chinese and Portuguese travellers, sailed with monsoon winds to the Indian sub-continent. For those familiar with East Africa, similarities of ethnic types was clear. As Charles Drekmeire suggests in his book on India's civilization and polity, the Aryan minority group in northern India had, like later racist rulers of apartheid South Africa, invented a belief system which denigrated the black colour of the African majority in order to make them weak in mind and will to seize political power.

In 2008, a series of imaginative documentaries on India by the BBC followed the Aryan line. A glimpse of the African side of India showed people with severe psychotic problems apparently related to their poverty and intense subjection to racist contempt. That episode recalled a brutal lyricism in a novel by an Indian author on the untouchable individual whose mission in life is to clean public toilets. He is in perpetual risk of being physically beaten to death for an act that makes a higher caste person and location unclean. India's film industry, Bollywood, totally excludes the black Indian -of whatever hue - from presence, let alone stardom from the horizons of camera lenses. It is a clear case of cinematographic cultural genocide.

As Nigerians grieved from a disaster brought upon them by an airline owned and managed by citizens of India, I came to wonder if their pain could be comprehensible to a people from a culture of political and economic power that rests on the non-humanity of black skinned people. During a post-Cold War moment when Brazil, China, Russia and India are perceived as alternative hands for shaking in global economic diplomacy, it is deeply incongruous that a vast festering wound at the heart of India's population of one billion remains untreated. South Africa's rulers are struggling to overcome the economic costs of impoverishing their black majority. Former President Lula of Brazil touched on the matter under his programme of taking income to the poor. The diplomacy of the African Union has been derailed by a terrorism invented and fed by the Republic Party under the two George Bush's as anti-Islamism. Accordingly it has taken pressure off the drive against colonialism and racism. The fate of the African Diaspora in India, Australia, the United States, the Caribbean and South America remains untouched, and like history, waits. As Nigerians weep and curse Danna Airways, her foreign policy warriors and "human rights activists" should also lift their eyes and ears to see and hear groans of hundreds of millions of the wretched of India's earth or Afro-Indians.

And as Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem would say, do not agonise overt it, take action about it.
 

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Re: More Indian cultural centres to showcase soft power: PM

more-Hindi-cultural-centres-to-showcase-soft-power-pm-news-nri-lbiokhjefij.html]More Indian cultural centres to showcase soft power: PM.


Correction made in red. Reason clarity
 

tony4562

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India is unfortunately not a power, not even a soft power, and not even a soft regional power. Reality check:

Russia has fallen from her peak glory during the cold war, but is still a world power by 3 reasons: land, oil and nukes.

China is a rising world power bcause China is world's 2nd largest economy and the so-called world factory. Anything happening in China now has a direct impact on the individual lives in the west.

And not forget that both China and Russia are permanent members of the UN security council.

Japan is true soft world power. They have a small yet powerful armed force, but their real strength lies in the technologies and money they have.

Then, you have US, the daddy of all powers.

Compared to the heavy weights India has little money, little technologies, only a huge but impovelished population, is situated in an isolated corner surrounded by even poorer neighbors, has little resources (relative to her huge population) and her economy, despite of all teh growth in recent years, is still largely irrelevant to the outside world. And spiritually contrary to what many indians believe, india is a light weight too. Outside the indian dispora few practice hinduism, indian food is still more exotic than mainstream, and beyond s.asia Bollywood comes up only when people make fun of India, and still very very few westeners visit India.
 
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India is unfortunately not a power, not even a soft power, and not even a soft regional power. Reality check:

Russia has fallen from her peak glory during the cold war, but is still a world power by 3 reasons: land, oil and nukes.

China is a rising world power bcause China is world's 2nd largest economy and the so-called world factory. Anything happening in China now has a direct impact on the individual lives in the west.

And not forget that both China and Russia are permanent members of the UN security council.

Japan is true soft world power. They have a small yet powerful armed force, but their real strength lies in the technologies and money they have.

Then, you have US, the daddy of all powers.

Compared to the heavy weights India has little money, little technologies, only a huge but impovelished population, is situated in an isolated corner surrounded by even poorer neighbors, has little resources (relative to her huge population) and her economy, despite of all teh growth in recent years, is still largely irrelevant to the outside world. And spiritually contrary to what many indians believe, india is a light weight too. Outside the indian dispora few practice hinduism, indian food is still more exotic than mainstream, and beyond s.asia Bollywood comes up only when people make fun of India, and still very very few westeners visit India.
Japan which has no military is a soft power while India 3rd largest military is not even a regional power
and China who reverse engineers out dated russian weapons has high technology while india India buying
the latest technology from the west is behind in technology. India had an aircraft carrier 40 years before China
No credibility in your arguments. China has a direct impact on the lives on people in the west how?? If cheap chinese goods were not available i don't think the western world would be ruined. You have an agenda in all your posts but lack any credible points.
 
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tony4562

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Japan which has no military is a soft power while India 3rd largest military is not even a regional power
and China who reverse engineers out dated russian weapons has high technology while india India buying
the latest technology from the west is behind in technology. India had an aircraft carrier 40 years before China
No credibility in your arguments. China has a direct impact on the lives on people in the west how?? If cheap chinese goods were not available i don't think the western world would be ruined. You have an agenda in all your posts but lack any credible points.

Japn is 10 times the power India is. Anyone could go 10 years without buying one india-made product (I've never got one til this day), can you do the same to japan? not even in japan-hostile 'world-factory' china. Its the money that counts. India's economy has a very funny make-up, unusual for a developing country the so-called service sector makes up 70% of the economy which means much of India's GDP is made up things like haircuts, things that go right up in smoke.

If you compare China's military hardware with India's, even 3rd graders understand there is nothing to compare with. China has mastered cyrogenic upper stage for good 30 years whereas India has exactly one, an imported russian one, left in stock. Also, look at modern PLAN ships like 054A/052C/052D, every damn thing on the ship including the gas turbine is made in China, on the rusting-away Kolkutta ships its just the contrary, everything is imported, and the ships are not even half ready 5-7 years after the launch. That tells the difference. I also could go on to compile a long list of things China has done, which Russia has not. But there is no point doing that. China exports 2 trillions dollars worth of good, from cheap match sticks to huge machinery like airplanes, construction equipment and LNG carriers that cost several times more than a jumbo jet. India outside the information out-sourcing sector, has done squally nothing. Much of the india's on-going infrastructure projects are dependent on chinese equipments, from the dehli-airport to the mumbai subway, from power plants to the telecom networks.

members here repeatedly use india's 60 year old british carrier as a counter argument, that's hilarilous. It's a museum-grade 2nd-hand british carrier, which India can certainly use to intimidate countries up to the size of Sri Lanka, don't think Bangladesh or Pakistan really pay much attention to it. India also operated carrier before Russia did, would you say India has a leg up the russian as well?
India's military is powerful, that is compared to her economy and her status as one of world's absolute poorest nations, but beyond her immediate neighbors India's military prowess is largely irrelevant.
 

Apollyon

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Most of the Chinese civilian tech is 2nd grade western tech acquired from JV with foreign manufacturers. You have a 3rd grade automobile industry and your "indigenous" high speed rails are just redesigned foreign ones.

Chinese Crash Test Failures - Business Insider
Chinese Copy Japanese High Speed Train Technology | Japan News Today

In 2004 and 2005, Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd., and five other domestic companies in cooperation with a Chinese firm jointly produced 960 train cars for 120 trains modeled on Japan's Hayate (E2 Series) bullet train, and supplied them to China.

China has filed patents for a train that is very similar to the E2 series Hayate. In the case of the CRH2 shown above it is an exact duplicate of the Japanese Hayate E2 Series with a different paint job.


Copied Chinese CRH2



Japanese E2 Series Hayate Shinkansen


If you compare China's military hardware with India's, even 3rd graders understand there is nothing to compare with. China has mastered cyrogenic upper stage for good 30 years whereas India has exactly one, an imported russian one, left in stock. Also, look at modern PLAN ships like 054A/052C/052D, every damn thing on the ship including the gas turbine is made in China, on the rusting-away Kolkutta ships its just the contrary, everything is imported, and the ships are not even half ready 5-7 years after the launch.
Most of the Chinese weapons are reversed engineered Russian tech of late cold war era. Has any Chinese SSBN gone on a deterrent patrol yet ?
Chinese Hardware :rofl:
Indigenous Gas Turbine :rofl:. UGT-25000 ring any bell ?
 

tony4562

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The indians just don't get it. You can mock china all day long for being the copy cat, but it doesn't help your cause at all when you yourself is a solid zero. india can't even copy a damn rifle, that's a factum. A beggar can tell a guy that he is not as rich as he seems, that guy's response would typically be: so what!
 

Apollyon

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Rich Chinese are exploiting SLAVE Chinese Labor Force of millions to feed their luxury ambitions and guess what they all want to leave the Chinese paradise for a better life in western democracies :rofl:
Top of Chinese wealthy's wish list? To leave China - Yahoo! News

Slavery: A 21st Century Evil
Prison slaves
China is the world's factory, but does a dark secret lurk behind this apparent success story?

Once an isolationist communist state, over the last 20 years China has become the world's biggest exporter of consumer goods. But behind this apparent success story is a dark secret - millions of men and women locked up in prisons and forced into intensive manual labour.

Prison slaves - Slavery: A 21st Century Evil - Al Jazeera English
:(:(

The real price of an Apple iPhone: Foxconn workers reveal life of hell inside the iPhone factory

Apple iPhone investigation: Foxconn workers reveal life of hell inside the iPhone factory - Mirror Online
:( :(
 
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