Soft power is a persuasive approach to international relations, typically involving the use of economic or cultural influence. It is the ability to attract and co-opt rather than coerce through military “hard power”. India possesses a huge variety and wealth of soft power resources. Its spirituality, yoga, cuisine, cinema industry, classical and popular dance and music, its principles of non-violence, as well as its democratic institutions and pluralistic society have attracted people across the world.

Here we analyse the use of soft power by India in relation to issues and crises in the Himalayan region. India’s soft power resources, while huge in potential, are still evolving and not yet fully leveraged by the state, in contrast to China’s well-organised and centrally mandated operations (covered in our analysis of Chinese soft power). In this specific context we examine the extent to which India uses such resources to counteract China’s efforts to re-shape India’s Buddhist population (particularly the Tibetan diaspora) along its sensitive and contested Himalayan borders with China. Contrary to China, which needed to make a huge investment in soft power after the hard times of the Mao era, India is perceived from outside as a neutral and harmless power due to its non-violent, pluralistic and tolerant image. Indian policy makers wish to preserve such an image because India genuinely holds these values, as reflected in wide range of resources, however comparatively little has been done to expand and deploy them.

Tibetan Refugees

The Indian establishment recognises the huge soft power advantage of its playing host to the exile Tibetan community, whose status is well respected. India has elicited admiration from the international community for its consistent humanitarian stand on the Tibet issue, for having sheltered the Dalai Lama and his exile administration, and for facilitating the preservation of Tibetan culture and religion. The Tibetan presence in India is seen by China as a serious aggravation. By enabling Tibetans to keep their culture, religion, and institutions alive, India has represented - to some extent - an obstacle to China’s policy to assimilate Tibetans into dominant Han cultural and religious modes.

After 1950 all areas once ethnically connected with Tibet became, for Beijing, a part of the Chinese empire. Mao Zedong famously used the analogy of the palm of the China's hand (Tibet) and its five fingers (Ladakh, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, and Arunachal Pradesh). For India this remains a powerful symbolic reminder of its defeat in the 1962 war and the deeper designs of the Chinese. India is attempting to construct a narrative to neutralise this analogy through the soft power of religion and culture, for example by comparing the Indian Himalayan belt to a “skin” or outer cover of India, nourished by Buddhism.

Chinese Vs Indian soft power in border regions

The Buddhism practised both in the Indian Himalayan belt and in Tibet is a binding force. Hundreds of thousands of Buddhist followers reside in the strategic and sensitive border regions of Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, and Arunachal Pradesh. Indian authorities have become attuned to the subversive impact of Chinese strategies on the populations of these volatile regions, correctly assessing them as risks to India’s security. The presence in these areas of a number of influential religious figures in the Tibetan diaspora with established Chinese links poses issues. Several have been involved in the construction of facilities in close proximity to contested borders, and convey communities from the Tibetan ethno-cultural sphere into China’s field of influence.

After the present Dalai Lama passes away, the Tibetan exile political system may splinter and a complex power struggle seems likely to ensue. China is positioned to take advantage of this instability and exploit existing factionalism along regional, religious and political lines. No effort has been spared to gain control over Tibetan refugees via manipulation of the next generation of leaders such as Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje who is regarded with suspicion by India over his active links to mainland China. During the 17 years in which he was granted refugee status and hosted in India following his too-perilous-to-be-plausible escape at the turn of the century, he posed a security challenge which the Indian authorities had to grapple with. 

Realising that the years of close monitoring and tight control over his movements by Indian security hadn't weakened China's influence over the Tibetan figurehead, eventually an effort was made by New Delhi to exert its own influence and "engage" him within its own fledgling soft power agenda. Although he remained forbidden to enter the sensitive border state of Sikkim (despite two decades of agitation by local pressure groups) restrictions were gradually relaxed on his travel. In 2013 a strategy to "win him over" was instigated by the Vivekananda International Foundation, a think tank informing the development of India’s soft power and diplomacy founded by former Director of Intelligence Ajit Doval (who would later become National Security Advisor to the Modi administration). 

This culminated in a November 2016 exercise in the North East Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, a disputed territory which China and India went to war over in 1962 and is claimed by China as “South Tibet”. Arunachal Pradesh is located at the confluence of the international borders of China, Myanmar and Bhutan, and has strategic importance for China’s maritime ambitions in terms of access to the Myanmar coast. That year an announcement of U.S. infrastructure investment projects in the state had been met with Chinese objection. Concurrently, tensions flared in the Tawang area driven by the “Save Mon Region Federation” (SMRF), demonstrating against hydro-electric dam projects. Indian police had opened fire on SMRF protestors demanding the release of their leader, Lama Lobsang Gyatso, from custody. Gyatso had been arrested for “hurting religious sentiments” with his comments against the abbot of Tawang’s main monastery. The abbot, Guru Tulku, had prohibited monks from participation in anti-dam politics. China was further angered in August, when India cleared the deployment of advanced cruise missiles in Arunachal Pradesh.

Underscoring the strategic importance of Arunachal Pradesh to the U.S., Richard Verma became the first U.S. Ambassador to visit the state in late October 2016. His visit coincided with the announcement that the Dalai Lama had been given clearance to visit Tawang in the spring of 2017. The visit infuriated China, whose Foreign Ministry spokesman urged the U.S. to stop getting involved in the China-India territorial dispute and “do more to benefit this region’s peace and tranquillity.” It was in this context, a month later, that Ogyen Trinley Dorje was flown in via helicopter to Tawang. He was accompanied by Amitabh Mathur, a former intelligence officer serving as an advisor on Tibetan issues to India’s Ministry of Home Affairs. Ogyen Trinley Dorje was received by local high officials and Guru Tulku at his monastery, before delivering a speech to a packed stadium in which he called upon the people of the district to “maintain peace and tranquillity for a better world order”.

This strategic move served a number of objectives. The immediate effect was to calm tensions among the local population, but the more subtle agenda was to send a message to China that the U.S. was asserting its control in the Indo-Pacific region by using Ogyen Trinley Dorje (in conjunction with Indian intelligence) to accomplish its own geo-strategic interests. Furthermore, for the Indian authorities, it was a dual opportunity: to gauge China’s reaction relative to the Dalai Lama’s forthcoming visit, while simultaneously measuring the extent of Ogyen Trinley Dorje’s professed loyalty to India when placed in a conflict of interest. The PRC Foreign Ministry spokesman’s measured comment on the Karmapa visit was to express hope that India “would not take actions to complicate the boundary dispute”. It was a contrast to the “scathing attack” upon the Dalai Lama’s visit in April 2017, and concomitant with China’s understanding of the presence of one of its citizens in its own territory.

Within a year of this episode, Ogyen Trinley Dorje had permanently left India and relinquished his refugee status. Having failed to engage him in its own soft power, the Indian government finally decided to block his return altogether.

Cultivating Buddhism as soft power

Regardless of the post-Dalai Lama scenario, Buddhism itself will survive, and the Indian authorities are beginning to grasp its inherent soft power potential in the management of issues in the Himalayan belt. In contrast to China’s race to assume leadership of the Buddhist world, India has only recently started to dedicate long-term strategic thought to nurturing and then activating this spiritual and cultural power to its advantage. As such, opportunities are increasingly being grasped by the Indian government to emphasise the importance of Buddhist diplomacy to India’s relations with Asian nations that share Buddhist heritage.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's symbolic first foreign visit as after his election in 2014 was to India's contiguous neighbour, the Himalayan Buddhist kingdom of Bhutan. In 2015 he made a high profile visit to Bodhgaya, the place of Buddha's enlightenment, describing it as a "crown jewel of India" and the "spiritual capital and civilisation bond between India and the Buddhist world". 

The soft power potential of Buddhism's peaceful message and image could form India’s “first line of defence” from non-traditional threats by China, yet India has been consistently out-manoeuvred by the Chinese who have used the very same tools for their own strategic advantage for decades. In 2018 Modi inaugurated an event in New Delhi to celebrate the Birth anniversary of the Buddha. He asserted in his speech that "India has never had a history or tradition of attacking others' ideology or country. India has never been an aggressor. It has never encroached upon (the territory) of any other country". The event, organised by India's Ministry of Culture in cooperation with the International Buddhist Confederation, a vehicle for Indian Buddhist soft power diplomacy established in 2011 partially in response to China's competing World Buddhist Forum. Modi was joined on-stage by officials such as Culture Minister Mahesh Sharma, Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju, and several Buddhist dignitaries. Remarkably, among these was the Tibetan lama Tai Situ, erstwhile "persona non-grata", who spent much of the 1990s barred from India due to his closeness with mainland Chinese authorities and "anti-India activities", and monitored constantly ever since his eventual return. Observers were left to speculate about what negotiations must have been involved for this apparent rehabilitation.  

Re-institutionalisation of Buddhism

Historically, Indian influence was pivotal in the establishment of Buddhism in Tibet and the Himalayan belt through the accomplishments of Indian monks, philosophers and ascetics such as Nāgārjuna, Śāntarakṣita, Padmasambhava, Kamalaśīla, Atiśa, Tilopā, Nāropā and others. Religious wisdom originating from India has now lodged itself back in India with the Tibetans in exile. This link is too important to be ignored as a source of soft power and social capital. Ancient Indian Buddhist institutions such as Nālandā and Vikramaśilā were the centres of excellence for propagation of Buddhist values. This presents a chance for modern India to re-invigorate its historical past, rejuvenate its cultural diplomacy in the Himalayan belt, and establish itself as the epicentre of Buddhist soft power. The new Nalanda University project, an initiative of India’s “Look East” policy, represents a step in this direction, although the project has been beset with difficulties.

Buddhist Soft Power - Indian style?

Failing for so long to appreciate the great potential of Buddhism as a soft power resource in geopolitics, Indian policy makers have until recently watched in dismay while China appropriated Buddhism at India’s expense in terms of regional and international influence. India’s challenge is to manage to re-appropriate it effectively, but within an alternative paradigm to both the Chinese and Tibetan political models. Instead, India may include it in a general framework of soft power constructed within Indian identity, philosophy and history, which can reveal the Indian signature within Buddhism.  

In this regard, it should be noted that from an historical point of view, only three of the four main institutional Tibetan Buddhist schools remaining today are directly rooted in India. This is thanks to their main root masters, whose Tibetan disciples were humble enough to seek out and receive their wisdom. The Nyingma School originates with the Indian abbot Śāntarakṣita (725–788), who advised the Tibetan king Trison Detsen to invite the great tantric adept Padmasambhava to establish Buddhism in Tibet. For the Sakya School it was Virūpa, the 12^th Century Bengali yogin. The Kagyu School originates with the great Indian adept Tilopā (988–1069) and Kashmiri pandit Nāropā (1016-1100). 

The fourth "reformed" Tibetan school, the Gelug, is the only one not directly rooted in India and this lack of a bridge which is associated with the other three explains, at least partially, its hegemonic tendency which has expressed itself only by political means. The Ganden Phodrang institution which established the role of the Dalai Lama was the creation of the Mongol emperor in 1642. Subsequently, during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1912), the Gelug order assumed command of the Tibetan state with the backing of Mongolia and the Imperial Chinese. Generations of the Dalai and Panchen Lama incarnations served as tools for the Qing Empire's ambitions, extending its influence widely over the region, including the Himalayas. The history of the Gelug school is arguably more intertwined with the Chinese Empire than with any Indian antecedents, and scholars have come to regard it as a "front" for China's Imperial Court which ultimately failed the Tibetan people. 

So today, this school is the least paradigmatic of the Indian spirit, because India's richness is based on extreme diversity, freedom of thought and the multiplicity of religious traditions. And so from an Indian perspective it can't be taken as a model. By promoting the role and relevance of Buddhism within the multitude of different Indian teachers and philosophies, the richness and vastness of the Indian reference can be harnessed. In particular, effort could be made to rejuvenate the extraordinary dynamics in certain regions such as Kashmir and even beyond into the Swat Valley, before the memory of this region is definitively erased by the influence of antagonistic religious tendencies present nowadays. Rehabilitating the aforementioned root teachers would not only be a blessing for India, but also for the Tibetans. For the Tibetan institutions not rooted in India, it may serve as a reminder of what is missing.

It has become obvious that it would be a trap for India to use the Tibetan diaspora simply as a political tool, based on the erroneous idea they represent the authentic remnants of Buddhism. It would also impossible for India to mimic the Chinese model, i.e. a monolithic, fundamentally anti-religious political force using religion (particularly Buddhism) as soft power. After all, no member of the Chinese Communist Party ever travelled to India in the 8^th Century to receive Buddhist teachings. A third paradigm in which India can show that the essence of Buddhism is expressed in philosophical and spiritual diversity can even show to the Chinese that to make authentic use of it, they need to open their own political system to diversity.