APDS Blogger: Rajesh Mirchandani

For anyone who is Indian-born, as I am, the chance to see Ravi Shankar perform is akin to an audience with the Pope for Catholics – and perhaps even harder to accomplish. This one-off show at the Disney Hall had been scheduled for October last year and postponed twice - due, the press release said, to “illness and visa complications” (a public diplomacy blunder for U.S. immigration?).

Australia should grasp the chance to play a critical role in fostering so-called soft power connections between India and China, thereby boosting its international standing as well as regional harmony. That is the rationale behind the new Soft Power Advocacy and Research Centre at Macquarie University, launched last week.

A bronze bust of Mahatma Gandhi, gifted to the people of Egypt by India in recognition of their peaceful pro-democracy revolution, has been unveiled in Cairo to mark the fifth international day of non-violence.

Evidently, China has cultivated a delicate foreign policy toward the Southeast Asian region over the years. It initially followed soft-power diplomacy by providing economic aid to various infrastructure projects and opening its domestic market for Southeast Asian manufactured products without antagonizing the region politically.

Bollywood is an industry that employs many, and is an important source of India's soft power. It is the government's responsi-bility to ensure that Bollywood is not put out of business by rampaging Hollywood moguls keen to capture the Indian market.

India's soft power in Afghanistan is omnipresent. Bollywood films, film stars, TV serials and cricket players are a national obsession...New Delhi's role in providing humanitarian support... has also helped build the groundswell of goodwill.

Our diplomatic resources will need to be expanded and strengthened. More diplomats, more training, and more synergy with resources outside the government will be needed. Diplomacy will need to include diverse interests. Public diplomacy will be an integral component of diplomacy.

To fill the vacuum, China and lately India were only eager to replace the U.S. as the main partner of Africa. And instead of their American counterparts and competitors, the method used by the two emerging powers was that of “soft power” rather than blunt military pressure.