Author Archives: a_daws

Citizens in Action

Posted on January 13, 2012 | 1 Comment

By Anna Dawson

As mentioned in the recent article by fellow India: Inside Out teammate Aparajitha V., one of the main problems with India’s government public diplomacy efforts is the lack of manpower. Citizen efforts can have the ability and potential to meet the government’s needs. One area in particular where citizen diplomacy can have a huge impact is in India-Pakistan relations.

While in India, our team had the opportunity to meet with many groups conducting citizen diplomacy to help improve India-Pakistan relations. These groups varied in their scope of approaches from being deeply involved in conflict transformation, to not directly taking a stance on the issue at all. The following are some of the organizations we met with and their efforts in citizen diplomacy:  Continue reading →

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The Portrayal of Islam in Indian Mass Media

Posted on December 12, 2011 | 1 Comment

By Anna Dawson

NEW DELHI – After meeting today with Navdeep Suri, Joint Secretary & Head of the Public Diplomacy Division in India, we learned that in the context of the Arab Spring, India is promoting Islam as an important aspect of Indian history and culture. One way to look at how well this is being done in India is to look at the way Indian mass media portrays Islam. It appears that Islam is often under- and mis-represented in the Indian media in both the Hindi and Urdu languages. This is important for public diplomacy because what India projects to the rest of the world has to accurately reflect what is happening internally to gain credibility. Because of the disconnect between a democracy that supports all people and a media that doesn’t reflect this, India should reexamine the way that people in-country see themselves and their own identities before projecting an image abroad.

The Indian sub-continent is known for its ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity. With this diversity comes the conflict of competing ideologies, and the debate plays out in the mass media.

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The Role of Citizen Diplomacy in India-Pakistan Relations

Posted on November 15, 2011 | 3 Comments

By Anna Dawson

LOS ANGELES – For decades, the relationship between the governments of India and Pakistan has been characterized by mutual distrust– pursuing a devastating arms race and fomenting one crisis after another, leaving little room for strong bilateral relations. Official diplomacy between the two governments has resulted in vague resolutions with no concrete statements. While the governments have been unable to find common ground, unofficial people-to-people dialogue has emerged between Pakistanis and Indians working to promote peace and mutual understanding where the government has not. Subsequently, citizen diplomacy has gained prominence as more citizens from both countries seem more inclined to build a peaceful future than their respective governments.

India-Pakistan border. Photograph by Krupa Asher.

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