:: Nihal Singh

India has a worldview, now beam it worldwide

S. Nihal Singh

July.30 : China is the latest to ride piggyback on the concept of soft power, a term coined by Harvard University’s Joseph Nye in 1990 to contrast it with hard military power. Its state-run China Central Television is launching a 24-hour Arabic language channel to broadcast news and entertainment. Al-Jazeera’s Arabic language satellite television channel broadcasting out of Qatar is, of course, the greatest recent example of soft power. In fact, China’s President Hu Jintao had decreed at the 17th Party Congress in 2007 that China needed to achieve soft power.

How far China will achieve its aim is another matter because credibility in broadcast, as in other media, is an important ingredient of success. And China runs a tightly controlled media at home, inevitable in a one-party structure. But the new effort from Beijing carries the warning to India that it is not even attempting to use its soft power. Several private Indian news channels do broadcast abroad but they are attuned to the Indian diaspora, and although their entertainment programmes, including Bollywood songs, have a wider appeal, they make no attempt comprehensively to present India’s views on world developments.

Indian news channels operate on the same basis as Indian magazines in the print version, that the Indian diaspora’s interest stops at the country’s borders, stretching perhaps to such neighbours as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka. It is an India-centric view of the world, with other countries, even the United States and Russia, counting only in terms of their interactions with and impact on New Delhi.

Al-Jazeera’s great success and avid support flow from several reasons. It presents candid opinions on the Arab scene despite the tight media controls in the region, including in its home base, for which it is often banned in one Arab country or another (being state-supported, its candidness does not extend to developments in Qatar). Second, it fulfils the great need for presenting the other view in the cockpit of conflict in which Western media have traditionally held sway. And Qatar is a speck on the map and balances its Al-Jazeera cheekiness with hosting the biggest American air base in the region. US civilian and military leaders are keen to appear on the channel to get their views across to the Arab world.

Al-Jazeera’s success contrasts with the efforts of other developing countries to beat an overwhelming Western preponderance in how the world is reported and commented upon through the non-aligned news pool. The daily fare of the pool consisted of reams of ministerial speeches, the great achievements of each member country and ribbon-cutting ceremonies. Little surprise then that the pool died an unlamented death. It survives only as a curiosity.

The credibility of the BBC and, to a lesser extent, the CNN lies in their efforts to present a less biased view of developments in fraught and conflict situations through their correspondents stationed around the world. This entails the expense of stationing correspondents in different world spots and their ability to travel and cultivate local and regional leaders. They are therefore well placed to interpret and place in context a new conflict or natural calamity as soon as it occurs. In the process, they also show their partiality for their home countries by injecting interviews with the British foreign secretary or US secretary of state (the latter with greater justification, in view of Washington’s clout).

The greatest mistake India could make would be to sponsor a worldwide Doordarshan TV channel in English. We would then be treated to soporific ministerial speeches and ribbon-cutting ceremonies and, far from influencing anyone else, even members of the Indian diaspora would fall asleep watching it and would switch channels. The answer, rather, lies in India’s private television channels pooling their resources to set up a joint international satellite channel that would cover the world through Indian eyes.

Such a channel should be professionally managed and run and since it would require impressive financial resources, wealthy members of the Indian diaspora could be tapped to pitch in for a landmark national project. It would require the stationing of resident correspondents in major world capitals, instead of relying on stringers or cheap syndication arrangements with foreign outfits. There is sufficient Indian talent to exploit and a rigorous training regime could round off the rough edges of cub reporters.

It can, of course, be argued that India exercises tremendous soft power through Bollywood films. The reach of Bollywood is, indeed, impressive and reaches more countries than one can imagine. But such soft power does not reflect Indian views on such burning issues of the day as climate change and non-proliferation or the lop-sided nature of world political and economic institutions. Ministerial speeches and press notes will not make a persuasive case. Rather, candid discussions on the box can serve the cause better.

The United States probably has an ulterior motive in asking India to shoulder its responsibilities if it wants to aspire to be a world power. But surely the country’s wider policy-making elite and intelligentsia must cultivate an interest in the wider happenings in the world to conclude where India’s interests lie. To view the world only through an Indian prism is to display the traits of a small mind and small power. A serious student of world developments today must perforce rely on foreign sources or Indian diplomatic missions abroad, the latter with their limited intellectual capacity.

In real terms, India has a great advantage over China in the exercise of soft power. Such an advantage does not come from the languages in which Doordarshan broadcasts to the world. Giving the government’s point of view is legitimate but does not constitute soft power.

Al-Jazeera exercises soft power because Arabs in the region and around the world are hooked on to it for what it offers: controversial and candid views on the burning issues of the day and the breaking of taboos on what should be discussed. India has a more daunting task in that it enjoys a largely free media, but that does not obviate the need to tell the world in persuasive ways what India thinks and where it stands on the issues of the day.