Six months after the launch of the India: Inside Out project, the results are in. Indian Public Diplomacy: A Strategic Future is the report produced by our team. It assesses six core areas of Indian public diplomacy, and offers four strategic recommendations for the future.
On behalf of the India: Inside Out research team, I invite your comments, questions, and feedback.
By Maya Babla
In November 2010, President Obama said on his inaugural visit to New Delhi, “India is not simply emerging, it has emerged.” In many ways, of course, this is true. India endured the economic collapse with resiliency, hovering between seven and nine percent GDP growth in 2011; it is speculated that the country has a chance at permanent-member status on the United Nations Security Council; and with its young population, India is perfectly poised on a trajectory to world leadership. On the other hand, India still lags behind on several key human development indices, ranking 134 of 187 in the most recent UN report, a challenge compounded by rapid urbanization.
For all these reasons and complexities—and a few more—India makes for a fascinating case study in public diplomacy, and in December 2011, six of my colleagues and I journeyed to New Delhi, Vishakapatnam, and Mumbai with the goal of appraising India’s public diplomacy strategy. Over the course of two weeks, we met with Indian government and civil society leaders, explored the culture, and experienced the sights, sounds, and smells of two of India’s largest cities. And along the way, we shared our conversations with people from around the world through this website. Our key deliverable will be a report that summarized our findings in six key areas: government public diplomacy, development, urbanization, citizen diplomacy, media, and Indo-Arab relations. The report will be available on this site in the coming weeks.
In approaching this project, my core question was one that required reconciliation, rather than an answer. How can India boast such high levels of economic growth, yet sustain some of the worst rates of child malnutrition, poverty, and gender inequity in the developing world? It’s a question that media coverage of India is beginning to ask: http://www.newstatesman.com/asia/2012/01/pilger-india-land-advertising”>is India’s rise as a “new world power” both true and a “false reality”? Development was a key research area for us, and yielded a clear finding: Indians are hands-on when it comes to addressing the development challenges the country faces. They are engaged and invested in their own development, and this message was palpable in our conversations with a host of NGOs, social justice activists, and graduate students. Yet these groups may not be representative of all Indians; one of our Indian interviewees proposed that Indians’ “cultural tolerance of inequality is tremendous.”
Thus, while we found that India has a robust civil society that in many ways is filling in the gaps that the government cannot due to a shortage of manpower, the Government of India could be doing much more to engage its own citizens in development, and for that matter, in public diplomacy.
By seeing a large population as an opportunity—a strength to be leveraged—India would achieve both its internal and external public diplomacy objectives. In our conversation with Anita Rajan, who is a part of the office that advises the Prime Minister on the National Council on Skill Development (NCSD), she described India as being “on the brink,” and ready to excel in the next decade, provided that India’s youth population is equipped with the right skills. NCSD uses a public-private partnership model to provide vocational training, with the goal of skilling 500 million people by 2022, and these partnerships, it became clear, are paramount in enabling large-scale change.
We found that many Indians unknowingly act as citizen diplomats; take, for example, the leadership team at Women in Security, Conflict Management and Peace (WISCOMP), an organization that trains women community leaders—from entrepreneurs to lawyers—in conflict transformation. They take on the challenging process of tough relationships like Kashmir and Pakistan: areas many people cast aside as too touchy. One aspect of their programs is facilitating dialogue between these women leaders, the military, and government bureaucrats. WISCOMP’s approach is another model that can be replicated, and the more these types of collaborations happen, the closer India comes to achieving its public diplomacy objectives.
One challenge the Government of India will face along the way is the diluted citizen trustin its activities. A recent Times of India poll found that http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-01-25/india/30662530_1_biggest-threat-youth-power-cities”>60% of Indians feel that corruption is the country’s biggest weakness, up nearly 20% from a Hindu Times poll conducted in February 2011. This is a critical problem because if India is perceived as corrupt on international indices as well as amongst its own people, then her credibility is damaged, and her ability to conduct public diplomacy is diminished, if not demolished. The government gets this, as evidenced by the comprehensive e-governance plan produced under the leadership of Abhishek Singh in the Ministry of Communications & Information Technology. India’s e-governance initiatives are promising on two fronts: first, the plan is accelerating the rate at which rural India becomes Internet-connected, and further accelerates the debate India must now face over Internet freedom; second, India’s expertise in e-governance creates an opportunity to share its expertise with other countries facing similar issues.
India’s relationship with the Arab world was an interesting case study for understanding the country’s foreign relations, and where public diplomacy fits in—or doesn’t. On the surface, Indo-Arab relations can be characterized as a strong business partnership. Given the many cultural and religious ties and a large Indian diaspora community in many Gulf countries, not expanding on this is a missed opportunity. But what is more promising, and more quietly pursued, is India’s engagement with countries working to re-build their governments post-revolution; here, India can offer its expertise as the world’s largest democracy, which will perhaps be more warmly welcomed than the American variety.
It became clear to us that India has much to offer the world besides its economic prowess. Indians’ work towards solving their country’s challenges is promising; the next step for India is in leveraging both the work of government and Indian civil society to do international knowledge sharing and capacity building. In doing so, India will rightly find its role in world leadership.
This piece was originally published for the USC Center on Public Diplomacy’s December 2011/January 2012 issue of PDiN Monitor.
By Maya Babla
NEW DELHI – Yesterday the Lok Sabha, India’s lower house of parliament passed the Lokpal bill by a voice vote. This high-profile piece of legislation has been advocated by Anna Hazare, a social activist whose movement has recently come to symbolize Indian citizens frustration with government corruption. India ranks 87 out of 178 in Transparency International’s 2010 Corruption Perception Index, which measures the perceived levels of public sector corruption, and 134/183 in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business survey.
Recently, a series of scandals have ravaged the country: a telecommunications scandal, a housing loan scam, and the disastrous Commonwealth Games. Amplified by a feisty media, the result was a tarnishing of India’s reputation abroad and a disheartening of Indians at home. Not surprisingly, then, in February 2011, a public opinion poll carried out by the Hindu Times found that 41% of Indians thought corruption was the biggest problem facing the country.
By Maya Babla
LOS ANGELES – After months of planning, the India: Inside Out team is finally off to India. We’re arriving in Delhi this weekend! Next week will be jam-packed, and we’re thrilled for the adventure ahead. I’ve highlighted some of the meetings we will be attending below, and encourage you, our readers, to submit any questions you might have for these organizations in the Comments section. We’ll be blogging as much as possible over the next two weeks, and tweeting, too, so stay tuned (or Subscribe on the right).
Our research will kick off with discussions at the Public Diplomacy Division in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), where we’ll talk with Navdeep Suri, the Joint Secretary and Head of the Public Diplomacy Division, and Abhay Kumar, the Under Secretary. Later in the week, we’ll talk with Dr. Shashi Tharoor, a Member of Parliament and thought-leader on public diplomacy. We’re interested in India’s push towards a more transparent and connected government, and will be meeting with the Director of E-Governance, Abhishek Singh, at the Department of Information Technology. We’ll also be meeting with Amit Shahi and Sudhir Horo, the team at theIdeaWorks who are behind India! Future of Change, which functions as part of a public-private partnership model in India’s public diplomacy. Funded entirely through seed money and theIdeaWorks, IFC “promises to take India to the world” through contests and collaborative projects focused on young people.
I see India’s ability to manage its development– education and gender equity, in particular– as a key challenge for its public diplomacy. We’ll be meeting with nonprofit organizations that are doing some compelling work in these arenas, in particular, the head of Sesame Workshop India, Sashwati Banerjee, and Harsh Mander and Rachel Firestone at the Centre for Equity Studies. The Centre for Equity Studies is an interesting model in that it does both research and advocacy on social justice issues, and we’re eager to hear how these areas intersect. Our meeting with Women in Security, Conflict Management and Peace (WISCOMP) also brings together many of our interest areas, as WISCOMP seeks to “enhance the role of women as peacebuilders.” There, we’ll be talking with Manjri Sewak, who works on programs that train women to work in areas like conflict transformation between India and Pakistan.
Finally, we’ll be looking at how other countries conduct public diplomacy in India, and how effective their efforts are. We’re looking forward to speaking with the team at the United States Embassy, including PAO Michael Pelletier, Greg Aurit, Adele Rupe, and Kathryn Viguerie from USAID.
Let the Delhi adventure begin!
By Maya Babla
LOS ANGELES – Sesame Workshop has 30 international co-productions with 120 other localized versions of the program. Episodes of the local Sesame Street are broadcast around the world, addressing issues ranging from religious tolerance in Pakistan to health and hygiene in Bangladesh. Sesame Workshop provides a top-notch creative model for addressing the Millennium Development Goals, and for conducting public diplomacy. But the real significance of this program is that it appropriates the power of citizen diplomacy to the youngest of the youth population.
In a country like India, with 160 million children under the age of six, this is no small feat, and it’s a unique means of empowering a new generation of citizen diplomats. Continue reading
By Maya Babla
LOS ANGELES – Indians represent the largest group of foreign students in Australia, but in June 2009, tensions flared after a series of brutal attacks on Indian students. Students and other Indian-Australians began speaking up, alleging that these attacks were racially motivated and had been happening at a tremendous rate since 2004. Protests ensued, and Australian authorities were criticized for not taking a strong enough stance towards law enforcement officials who were perhaps turning a blind eye to racism.
In addition to straining bilateral relations, this controversy had the potential to be disastrous to the Australian economy, which benefits enormously from the high tuition rates foreign students pay, as well as the robust trade between the countries. The Indian government issued a travel warning to those headed to the continent, a clear sign that Australia’s reputation had been impacted.
Indian media coverage went wild, producing images of Australia as racist and reminding the world of its White Australia Immigration policy, which was in effect from 1901-1966. In particular, a political cartoon published in Delhi’s Mail Today depicted an Australian police officer as a member of the Ku Klux Klan, further depicting the pressure on diplomatic ties. 
Bollywood represents a powerful cultural institution to be reckoned with on the international stage; the use of Bollywood to shift public opinion worked both ways. On the one hand, superstars like Aamir Khan condemn the racism and call for Australian authorities to do more to prevent these attacks; Amitabh Bachan similarly sent a strong message by rejecting an honorary doctorate by Queensland University in Brisbane; finally, Bollywood unions boycotted Australia by refusing to work on major film productions scheduled later in summer 2009. These actions all added fuel to the fire burning Australia’s once-positive image in India.
By Maya Babla
Welcome to INDIA: INSIDE OUT. To learn more about what this project is all about, please click here.
This project conceives of public diplomacy as being conducted by governments, but also by NGOs and the private sector. That said, “official” definitions offered by governments provide a useful starting place for discussion.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) writes in its Mission Statement that,
“The Public Diplomacy Division seeks to create a better understanding of India and its foreign policy concerns. We intend to put in place a system that enables us to engage more effectively with our citizens in India and with global audiences that have an interest in foreign policy issues.”
As defined by the Department of State, the mission of American public diplomacy is:
“to support the achievement of U.S. foreign policy goals and objectives, advance national interests, and enhance national security by informing and influencing foreign publics and by expanding and strengthening the relationship between the people and government of the United States and citizens of the rest of the world.”
There are two key differences between these definitions:
1. While the US definition privileges the achievement of US foreign policy goals, Indian public diplomacy is primarily focused on articulating who India is, and what her role is on the global stage. This is what Indian MP Shashi Tharoor called for last year: “a positive and forward-looking strategy that projects a vision of India in the world, that helps define and shape what is increasingly being called Brand India.”
2. Secondly, the MEA definition includes both foreign and domestic audiences, a signal of what Tharoor cited as the “need for an informed, engaged citizenry to face up to the responsibilities of being a global player in the 21st century.”
Nirupama Rao, when she was Foreign Secretary, suggested that as an emergent power, and as the world’s largest democracy, India must be heard—and if it does not communicate itself in a compelling and clarion way, it will be drowned out by other voices. The first few minutes of her remarks, below, are worth watching:
In advancing that “public diplomacy is a public good, for the public good,” she gets towards the definition that I will use in approaching this project.
