How to win over Afghanistan using Soft Power

On 26 February 2015, there was dancing and wild celebration in the streets of Kandahar in Afghanistan. Afghanistan had beaten Scotland in a World Cup Cricket match and the young cricketing nation of barely 15 years had caught cricketitis, a disease which afflicts most of South Asia. Kandahar has not had too many reasons to have wild street celebrations in its long history.

Not during Taliban times, not during Russian ones, not in the British days and one suspects not even on that fateful day a few thousand years back when their princess was married off into one of the most powerful Royal Houses of Bharatavarsha, Hastinapur, in practically a meek surrender before naked power play. 

Let us look into this Power business a bit before returning to Cricket and Afghanistan.

Bheeshma, the Kuru patriarch, was power personified. He was invincible in battle but he was wrestling with a peculiar problem. Who would marry a blind prince with no chance really of becoming a king on his own? He set his spies in motion, got his answers and set off for Gandhar at the head of a huge army. On reaching there he sent the Gandhar King Subala huge gifts as ‘Bride Price’ and politely asked for his daughter Gandhari’s hand for his blind ward Dhritrashtra.  

Chanakya may have had this example in mind when he formulated his famous ‘saam (conciliation), daam (money), dand (punishment or a ruler’s might), bhed (intelligence or secret knowledge)’ dictum to define methods of exercising power to obtain favourable outcomes, all four of them can be seen in Bheeshma’s successful display of realpolitik.

The quest for finding the magic formula for ‘influencing actions of others to obtain desired outcomes’ is not new. Pandit Vishnusharma, in his ‘Panchatantra’ or 5 Principles or Techniques for Wise Worldly Conduct laid  more emphasis on Breaking and Making of Friendship. The Chinese have their own versions, including Mao’s famous, if simplistic, ‘Power flows from the barrel of the gun’. The Americans, never to be beaten by anyone where uncomplicated bullet-point philosophy is concerned, also had President Theodore Roosevelt proclaiming “If you've got them by the baxxs, their hearts and minds will follow.”

But all these formulae were only half right. These nuggets of wisdom applied only to Hard Power. Its invisible counterpart, Soft Power, has always existed but its value has begun to be formally recognised only in recent times.

Soft Power is a term developed by Joseph Nye of Harvard University in 1991 to describe the ability to attract and co-opt rather than coerce, use force or give money as a means of persuasion.  One of the reasons for such late recognition of a force which was always there is that most of its application has been in private hands. The rewards it can fetch can be monumental though, much more than what Hard Power can deliver. When Ghalib wrote ‘baazicha-e-atfal hai duniya …’, for example, had he been influenced by Shakespeare’s ‘All the world’s a stage..’ meaning much the same thing? If indeed he had, it would be an example of Soft Power at work for Great Britain through the English language, seeping into India’s DNA itself.

Reagan may be credited, in American eyes any way, with orchestrating the break-up of the Soviet Union but don’t underestimate the seductive power of  the incessant satellite TV signals beaming TVCs of everything from Cars to Cheeses. They were designed to kindle desires by experts and they worked just as well behind any iron curtain –TV signals are notoriously difficult to stop-- creating unrelenting pressure for change from below. Closer home, observers have credited Lata Mangeshkar with spreading Hindi much more effectively than all the Government backed Hindi Institutes put together. Just don’t underestimate what Soft Power can achieve.

Last few years have seen aggressive activity in our neighbourhood by China. A port here, a road or an airport there and suddenly the Chinese are everywhere. They have the money, they have the know-how and they have the muscle. If India tries to play this neighbourhood game of Power on China’s terms, odds will be against it. It simply does not have matching resources. So what should it do? Change the goal posts. Move the game to Soft Power where India holds the cards: Bollywood, Indian TV Soaps and Cricket resonate everywhere throughout the SAARC countries and China has no comparable magnets.

Two important caveats though:

A) Specific activities should be left to private players. Government should only create an enabling environment through incentives and providing financial support and giving a nudge or a push where needed

B) If budget allocations for Hard Power and Soft Power activities in specific countries today are in the ratio of 80:20, that must be reversed or at least made more equitable.

Coming to specifics, let us go back to Afghanistan and Cricket and throw Bollywood in the mix, merely as an illustration; each country in the region will of course need its own customised ‘mix’.

Picture this scenario:  

A) BCCI invites Afghanistan team for a few matches with India ‘A’

B) Some established Sports Academies like MRF or Dilip Vengsarkar’s are persuaded to start modest Coaching activities in Kabul with financial support from GoI and

C) IPL Franchisees are ‘persuaded’ to let one Afghan player each join their dugout/ nets for a season on a Sports Scholarship.

The costs involved in all three put together would be a fraction of what most traditional ‘infrastructure’ projects would entail. The goodwill generated could potentially be many multiples bigger. And who knows, one day  there may well be more dancing in the streets of Kandahar to celebrate a really substantial win.

Bollywood and Indian TV have so much to offer simply because they are massive magnets. Film songs blare from loud speakers in Afghanistan even today.  Dubbed Indian soaps are huge hits. So why wouldn’t professionally run Acting or Choreography courses with credible Bollywood names like Anupam Kher or Subhash Ghai or Farah Khan backing them not do well? There are reality shows galore on TV, why can’t they have more participation from key countries? Remember Shilpa Shetty on Big Brother, UK or Rishi Desai on MasterChef Australia? Remember the emotional connect a whole lot of Indian viewers felt? Can we reverse the roles and let other countries feel the connect? Given proper incentives, why can’t Indian Animation Academies open shops in chosen countries to create new career opportunities for locals? The hunger for self improvement recognises no  boundaries and the same urges which make ‘English speaking classes’ a hit in most Indian towns and cities exist throughout the region.

Afghan President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani was in India in the last week of April and remarked about Rabindranath Tagore’s famous short story: “Kabuliwala has contributed more to brand Afghanistan than what could be done with billions of dollars”. Bimal Roy’s eponymous masterpiece in black-and-white made in 1961 with perhaps a few lakhs is still earning India monumental goodwill five decades later.

That is the true strength of Soft Power, which other activity can give perpetual returns both in monetary and human terms?