Critical Analysis of India’s Soft Power Capability

There is an evolving unanimity in the academic literature that because of its universal culture, democracy, political values and tradition of leadership among developing nations India has a significant amount of soft power assets. In the middle of the 21st century, India initiated efforts to materialize the above-mentioned resources into creating soft power at the global level that might yield desirable foreign policy outcomes. However, some scholars are sceptical about India’s soft power. They argue that the resources of Indian soft power resources have not been up to the mark and have not yielded the fruitful results. Besides, they argue that India has failed to wield soft power and its soft power resources have been overestimated. Furthermore, India’s military capabilities (hard power) have not advanced to a sufficient level to have an evident influence on India’s foreign policy. Likewise, India is still battling with ethnic, religious and caste issues. The primary focus of this chapter is to critically evaluate the Indian soft power. The methodology used in this study is primarily analytical and explanatory. The study relied on the pool of articles, journals, and unclassified research papers that are available.