Spirituality is India's soft power

Abstract

The concept of soft power was developed by Joseph Nye from Harvard University. It essentially refers to the ability to persuade and co-operate rather than using money or muscle power to secure desirable outcomes from others: “Seduction is always more effective than coercion, and many values like democracy, human rights, and individual opportunities are deeply seductive.” In his book, Nye outlines three categories of soft power, including culture, political values and policies. He may have well added a fourth category: spirituality. Spirituality is at the core of India’s soft power. “If India is to die,” said Swami Vivekananda, “religion might be wiped off from the face of the earth and with it Truth.” Consider these lines: “We have yet something to teach to the world. This the very reason, the raison d'être, that this nation has lived on, in spite of hundreds of years of persecution, in spite of nearly a thousand years of foreign rule and foreign oppression.

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