This document is downloaded from DR‑NTU (https://dr.ntu.edu.sg) Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. India‑Us relations : assessing India’s soft power Das, Ajaya Kumar 2015 Das, A. K. (2015). India‑Us relations : assessing India’s soft power. Doctoral thesis, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. https://hdl.handle.net/10356/65518 https://doi.org/10.32657/10356/65518 Downloaded on 04 Oct 2021 20:07:34 SGT INDIA-US RELATIONS: ASSESSING INDIA’S SOFT POWER AJAYA KUMAR DAS S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies A thesis submitted to the Nanyang Technological University in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2015 Acknowledgements This thesis marks the culmination of eight years of my life in the pursuit of the highest knowledge. I owe much to my supervisor, Professor Rajesh Basrur, for his guidance and patience and I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to him. This undertaking would, frankly, have been impossible without him. I would also like to thank Professor C. Raja Mohan, who initially supervised me. For over a decade, he has been an inspiration and influence in my educational pursuits. The candidate would like to thank the three anonymous examiners for suggestions on revisions. As always, my dearest friend Mahesh is a source of joy and support. I am indebted to my parents for giving me all their love, support and understanding. I am also indebted to my beautiful wife, Pranati, who, over these years, has always been a constant source of moral support, love and caring. I also owe a great deal to Vinod and Kyaw who have been good friends since I came to know them. Last, but not least, I wish to thank all my colleagues and friends at RSIS, with whom I have garnered great experience and memories of working together. i Table of Contents Contents Pages Acknowledgements i Table of Contents ii Summary iii-iv Chapter 1 1-23 Introduction Chapter 2 24-60 The Concept of Soft Power Chapter 3 61-93 Foundations of India‘s Soft Power Chapter 4 94-165 Soft Power Limitations: India and the United States, 1947-1964 Chapter 5 166-250 Soft Power Success: India and the United States, 1998-2013 Chapter 6 251-262 Conclusion Bibliography 263-297 ii Summary How do we think about ―soft power‖ theoretically and how do we study it empirically? What is the relationship between economic and military hard power and soft power traditionally understood as based on culture, political values and foreign policy? These questions guide this study of India‘s soft power and how it influenced India‘s relations with the United States. The puzzling question it aims to answer is why India has been able to exercise its soft power in its relations with the US more effectively in the post- 1998 period as compared to the Nehru era (1947-1964). From the power analysis standpoint, India‘s ability to affect the US in order to accomplish its preferences through attraction is its exercise of soft power. What explains the greater effectiveness of India‘s soft power in terms of its preferred outcomes in the post-1998 period when compared to that of the Nehru period? The explanation for this puzzle addresses all the questions raised above, which, although considered by some scholars including Joseph S. Nye at the conceptual level, has not been studied empirically. Even at the conceptual level, disagreements exist, especially with respect to the relationship between soft and hard power. Soft power, as this thesis demonstrates, is enabled by hard power. It can also be undermined by hard power. Its greater effectiveness, therefore, depends on a high level of economic and military hard power resources. No one has thus far systematically shown the dependence of soft power on hard power. The relationship between soft and hard power is sometimes conceptualised in the form of ―smart power‖ and ―cosmopolitan power‖ for optimisation of a state‘s influence. This study, however, does not delve into this issue. Instead, it focuses on the greater efficacy of soft power, which needs the support of hard power resources. The present study sheds light on India‘s relationship with the US by using soft power as a central explanatory variable. As far as the level of hard power required to make soft power more effective is concerned, there was a tipping point in the case of India. It was the 1998 nuclear tests iii after which the US began to give positive attention to India and to think of it as a rising strategic player. There was a gap, of course, as the US imposed sanctions after the tests, but the ―Singh-Talbott talks‖ brought about the first sign of change. The real transformation happened with the 2005 US–India Civil Nuclear Agreement. With no other ―proliferator‖ has such understanding on the part of the US happened. In India‘s case, the acceptance of it as a responsible and a democratic power reflects its soft power attraction: the nuclear breakout was a hard power (nuclear) shift accompanied by soft power attraction. So long as India was a covert nuclear power, the tipping point had not been reached and its attraction by itself was not enough to remove non- proliferation pressure. After the tests, everything changed: the US de-hyphenated India from Pakistan, ended India‘s nuclear isolation, and began defence cooperation with it in earnest. This study uses the ―process tracing‖ method to show empirically the causal processes that link India‘s relative effectiveness of soft power with low or high levels of hard power. The effectiveness of soft power is measured in terms of India‘s success in achieving preferred policy outcomes through the mechanism of attraction and persuasion. Despite increasing interest in India‘s soft power, both among scholars and diplomats, there is hardly any rigorous and systematic case study of successful projection of India‘s soft power. This study attempts to fill that gap and seeks to contribute empirically to the literature on relational soft power, while also offering policymakers guidance as to how soft power can be usefully approached and effectively utilised. iv CHAPTER 1 Introduction Is ―soft power‖ really power? What is its basis? When does it become a more effective form of state power? What is its relationship with ―hard power‖ such as economic and military power?1 These questions are central to understanding the concept of ―soft power‖, which in recent years has gained wide currency in both international relations scholarship and policy discourse. These very questions guide this study of the role of soft power in India‘s relations with the United States.2 The puzzling question this study seeks to answer is why India‘s soft power vis-à-vis the US has been more effective during the post-1998 period when compared with the Nehru era (1947–1964). From the power analysis standpoint, India‘s ability to affect the US in order to accomplish its preferences through attraction is its exercise of soft power.3 In the post-1998 period, India‘s soft power enabled it to influence the US in terms of its (a) dehyphenation from Pakistan; (b) civil nuclear cooperation; and (c) enhanced defence cooperation. These preferred outcomes fundamentally transformed the nature of its bilateral relations and have taken it to an unprecedented level. During the Nehru period, India received limited military cooperation. US economic assistance to India grew only after the mid-1950s. The US was keen to extend economic and military assistance to India so as to prevent it from collapsing under the weight of economic failure or military defeat and coming under Communism. Therefore, the overall relations between India and the US swung between cooperation and confrontation. What explains the greater effectiveness of India‘s soft power in terms of its preferred outcomes in the post-1998 period when compared to that of the Nehru 1The next chapter presents a detailed description of the concepts of soft power and hard power. 2Any research project should aim at (a) dealing ―with a real-world topic‖ and (b) being ―designed to contribute, directly or indirectly, to a specific scholarly literature‖. See Gary King, Robert O. Keohane, and Sidney Verba, Designing Social Inquiry: Scientific Inference in Qualitative Research (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994), 18. 3This relational definition of power is fleshed out in the next chapter. 1 period? The explanation for this puzzle addresses all the questions raised above, which, although considered by some scholars including Joseph S. Nye at the conceptual level, has not been studied empirically. Even at the conceptual level, disagreements exist, especially with respect to the relationship between soft and hard power. Soft power, as this thesis will demonstrate, is enabled by levels of hard power. It can also be undermined by hard power. Its greater effectiveness, therefore, depends on economic and military hard power resources. No one has thus far systematically shown the dependence of soft power on hard power. The relationship between soft and hard power is, as we shall see in Chapter 2, sometimes conceptualised in the form of ―smart power‖ and ―cosmopolitan power‖ for optimisation of a state‘s influence. This study, however, does not delve into this issue. Instead, it focuses on the greater efficacy of soft power, which needs the support of hard power resources. The present study sheds light on India‘s relationship with the US by using soft power as a central explanatory variable. The structural factors have an enabling or disabling effect on the role of India‘s soft power; hence, their role cannot be dismissed (see Chapter 2).