E2009050-Vaibhav Kunkolienkar L&M Assignment on Soft Power

Lord Macaulay’s speech in the British Parliament aptly describes the strengths, weaknesses of this
great nation and its people: “I have travelled across the length and breadth of India and I have not
seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high
moral values, people of such calibre, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless
we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and,
therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the
Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose
their self-esteem, their native self-culture and they will become what we want them, a truly
dominated nation."

Certain words in this speech can distinguish between the Indian and British Intentions too, not that
one is better than the other but what is more striking is that the Indian way has always been the
spiritual and more complete way of looking at life while the western has always been more
materialistic and in a sense more aggressive and dominant way. That is precisely the reason that the
Indian people have moulded themselves time and again, have accepted religions and have been
conquered by foreign forces and in the bargain the subcontinent has been left divided. We have
been left separated and divided from our own people, our land and also our history.

The most striking and permanent damage that this occupation did to us was the creation of the
divide between our present from our past. The change in the education system that Macaulay talks
about in his speech above was the primary method adopted by the British to create this divide and
if we really give it a thought even today, the architecture of our education system is not good
enough to propel our economy to its peak potential.

It is important to stay connected with the current technology and trends through education but it is
imperative to condition our minds to sustain the development and growth which are a fall out of a
good technical education system. And this is exactly that is missing in our whole education system
wherein there is no concrete effort seen to create and nourish healthy minds because of which our
country has been time and again put to shame by the corruption and unethical practices adopted
time and again by our political and business leaders. The recent CWG scam, the Adarsh Scam and the
Satyam Scam are examples of why moral values and healthy conditioned minds are important for
our country to flourish and come out in flying colours. This is the only limitation to our growth and
the only factor that has the potential to act as a threat to our being a super power and more
importantly sustaining that position in the years that follow.

Songs have had a profound effect on the minds and hearts of people around the world because they
propagate an idea through a mixture of poetry and music which help in establishing contact with the
hearts of the people who in totality make up the states and the nation and if we look at the situation
more closely, poets and musicians have time and again rendered compositions that are always
closely related to the prevailing conditions of the people and their lands. And when they are able to
connect to the heart, they arouse the emotions of the people and cause a shift in the psyche of the
society as a whole and have the power to alter the beliefs of the people. Hence time and again songs
have been effective media of communication during challenging situations to align the masses with
respect to a idea and resulted in social movements and revolutions or have strengthened them at
critical junctures.
We also may say that songs operate at the thought level of the human mind which forms the base of
the destiny pyramid, since thoughts result into actions which lead to habits which in turn form
characters and personalities which determine the destiny of individuals and of the nation and in turn
of the globe. Global Issues like AIDS, global warming, terrorism require to be handled with soft
power.

If we observe the social movements in India or anywhere around the world, the leaders who have
led these movements have done so more with Influence rather than motivation. Entire masses have
got influenced by such leaders like Subhash Chandra Bose,Bhagat Singh and Mahtma Gandhi who
have never held positions of authority but have commanded respect by choice and not by fear.
People have worked willingly and have been ready to lay down their lives for these leaders who have
effectively used soft power. But another important issue is that all these leaders were authentic
leaders who walked the talk and have been people with personal power. Therefore another pre-
requisite for effective use of soft power is that the leadership has to be authentic.

Soft power works on an A-B-C principle. It is about making masses Aware about the situation at
hand, create a sense of belongingness amongst them because this will result in uniting the masses
and will give rise to Commitment. These are the three factors that are mainly responsible for the
success of any social movement or cause.

We also need to understand the difference between Wisdom arising out of knowledge that our rich
culture and tradition holds for every aspect of human life versus the Ignorance of the present
generation caught up in a string of rituals and misunderstandings about India’s rich past. The
Bhagwad Gita talks about castes with a purpose to keep society in order but it never says that a son
born to a potter must be a potter. This is gross misinterpretation. The Upanishads never talk about
any religion for that matter they state that all religions have a single purpose of Self Transcendence
which is acknowledged by Maslow in his hierarchy of human needs above Self actualisation as the
final goal of a human. Therefore the taste of our scriptures and of our traditions will be revealed only
by educating our children through the right forums and spreading this wisdom through the Indian
Diaspora that the paper talks about and re-create the Identity of our motherland India.

We need a movement from Independence to interdependence, we need a movement to shift from

rituals to acts which are filled with wisdom and reason which are backed by knowledge of the
superior truth that our scriptures proclaim to be supreme. Most of the Indian scriptures like the
Ramayana,the Bhagwat Gita,Srimad Bhagwad are all celestial songs even for that matter Upanishads
are nothing more than celestial songs that reveal the secrets of the creator and the
creation.Ayurveda,patanjali sutras are all full of knowledge that needs exploration and spread.

Hence it is in the hands of the youth to shape the destiny of this great nation which is poised to
shape the destiny of this globe and India has been the country which has given birth to some of the
most authentic leaders and these sons have shaped the destiny of this nation through their
authentic leadership by effective use of soft power,and there is no reason why that should not be
possible to repeat.

Jai Hind!