India’s Soft Power Engagement: Case of Indo-Afghan Development Partnership

Soft power as defined by Joseph Nye includes power of ideas and culture. The concept of soft power has come into being in order to understand not only the significance of culture in influencing but also exerting power. As far as India and Afghanistan are concerned, India has lately focused on its soft power policy towards Afghanistan. In view of this, this paper tries to examine how India’s soft power and development policy can be successful in peace building in unstable countries like Afghanistan. Strategically, Afghanistan is very crucial from Indian prospective. However, India is unable to achieve her goals without the prerequisites of stability, peace and development in Afghanistan. Hence, India adopted soft power policy and development measures having a number of things such as development assistance, extending line of credit, extending help in rescue and relief in times of disasters, leveraging the popularity of Indian films and actors, and developing people to people contacts, etc. Based on this, the present paper tries to focus on how soft power policy and development measures would help develop stability, peace and development in Afghanistan. Recently India’s developmental partnership with Afghanistan has been noted for the amount of goodwill created among Afghans for Indians. The developmental partnership includes construction of Zaranj-Delaram road that connects Afghanistan with Iran border, construction of Chimtala substation and Salma Dam, and sanitation project (Sulabh international toilets for women). Similarly, India has provided hospital facilities, food assistance, and higher education capacity development programmes. Thus, this paper argues that India’s active involvement in the developmental programmes is instrumental in the reconstruction of Afghanistan and has ensured that India gets noticed for its constructive activities in times of instability in Afghanistan. The fact that India is militarily absent in combat roles and is not allied with any western power has also helped India in creating goodwill for itself. This paper analyses that these developmental programmes, cultural relations, history, stories and tales in literature (the Kabuliwallah story), and present popularity of Indians films have built on to shape India’s soft power in Afghanistan. This soft power has enabled India to create a brand that focuses on cooperation and constructive role. The paper seeks to invent India’s soft power as a case of Indo-Afghan development partnership, the impact of Indian foreign policy for the Afghans, and the way forward.