Buddhism: India's Soft Power Diplomacy

Abstract

Looking at the nature of religiosity in the international politics especially the dichotomy of western v/s non-western ideology based on the 'securitization thesis', religion appears as dysfunctional and destructive entity in some cases. However, on its positive aspect, religion has strong and constructive potentials in generating "a powerful sense of social solidarity, connecting people to one another at a thick or deep level, as opposed to the thin connectedness that is conventional in modern societies”.  Significantly, religion as a cultural soft power has optimum capability to maintain healthy relations with the other states. Soft power is considered as one of the crucial means to ensure the accomplishment of desired objectives/interests without applying force/ hard power. According to Joseph Nye, "this soft power - getting others to want the outcomes that you want - co-opts people rather than coerces them." In other words, soft power as "the ability to affect others to obtain the outcomes one wants through attraction rather than coercion or payment" . He emphasized three major sources of soft power; culture, political values and foreign policy, through which host country set the priorities of its foreign policy towards other nations. While interpreting America's foreign policy, he integrated culture as a mode of soft power that indicates the ability to manipulate the other state's behaviour. Therefore, soft power is an ability to upsurge the requisite conduct and renovate it into the outcomes. Further, Nye said, "if a state can make its power seem legitimate in the eyes of others, it will encounter less resistance to its wishes, if its culture and ideology are attractive, others will more willingly follow." Moreover, Gallarotti (2011) stated that soft power fetching significant and the useful power in world affairs, which depicted as the prerequisite to target to willingly do what soft state would want them to do, therefore, there is minimum frictions and clashes of interest in the procedure of soft power.