NEW DELHI – Who would think that India could have a problem with finding enough people? When you look at India, a shortage of people seems impossible. As the world’s second most populous nation, India has grown in leaps and bounds in the last 30 years with millions of skilled workers in every industry imaginable. But at home, in the government, India just doesn’t have the manpower it needs to execute effective public diplomacy.
Running a government, a working democracy, requires manpower composed of steadfast, trustworthy, knowledgeable, and concerned citizens committed to serving their fellow citizen. Unfortunately entering the civil service is impeded by the constraints of hiring policies, budget restraints, and exams and procedures with limited intake and numerous qualified candidates. Complications in the traditional route to government employment lead to public-private partnerships and concerned citizens supporting civil service action by non-profits. Continue reading →
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.
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.”
“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.
