If there is one attribute of independent India to which increasing attention is now being paid around the globe, it is the quality which we would do well to cherish and develop in today’s world: our “soft power.’’ It means giving attention, encouragement and active support to the aspects and products of our society that the world would find attractive — not in order directly to persuade others to support India, but rather to enhance our country’s intangible standing in their eyes.

Bollywood is already doing this by bringing its brand of glitzy entertainment not just to the Indian diaspora in the US or UK but to the screens of Syrians and Senegalese who may not understand the Hindi dialogue but catch the spirit of the films, and look at India with stars in their eyes as a result. (An Indian diplomat friend in Damascus a few years ago told me that the only publicly-displayed portraits that were as big as those of then-President Hafez al-Assad were those of Amitabh Bachchan). Indian art, classical music and dance have the same effect. So does the work of Indian fashion designers, which not long ago dominated the show windows of New York’s chic Lord and Taylor department store. Indian cuisine, spreading around the world, raises our culture higher in people’s reckoning; the way to foreigners’ hearts is through their palates.

In the information age, Joseph Nye has argued, it is often the side which has the better story that wins. India must remain the “land of the better story.’’ As a society with a free press and a thriving mass media, with a people whose creative energies are daily encouraged to express themselves in a variety of appealing ways, India has an extraordinary ability to tell stories that are more persuasive and attractive than those of its rivals. This is not about propaganda; indeed, it will not work if it is directed from above, least of all by government.

... contd.