shashi tharoor

8/2/2019 Shashi Tharoor

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Shashi Tharoor: Why nations should pursue "soft" power

As an Indian, and now as a politicianand a government minister,I've

become rather concerned aboutthe hype we're hearing about our own

country,all this talk about India becoming a world leader,even the nextsuperpower.In fact, the American publishers of my book,"The Elephant,

the Tiger and the Cell Phone,"added a gratuitous subtitle saying,

"India: The next 21st-century power."And I just don't think that's what

India's all about,or should be all about.

Indeed, what worries me is the entire notion of world leadershipseems

to me terribly archaic.It's redolent of James Bond moviesand Kipling

ballads.After all, what constitutes a world leader?If it's population,

we're on course to top the charts.We will overtake China by 2034.Is it

military strength? Well, we have the world's fourth largest army.Is it

nuclear capacity? We know we have that.The Americans have even

recognized it,in an agreement.Is it the economy? Well, we have nowthe

fifth-largest economy in the worldin purchasing power parity terms.

And we continue to grow. When the rest of the world took a beating last

year,we grew at 6.7 percent.

But, somehow, none of that adds up to me,to what I think India reallycan aim to contribute in the world,in this part of the 21st century.And

so I wondered, couldwhat the future beckons for India to be all about be

a combination of these things allied to something else,the power of

example,the attraction of India's culture,what, in other words, people

like to call "soft power."

Soft power is a concept invented by a Harvard academic, Joseph Nye, a

friend of mine.And, very simply, and I'm really cutting it short because

of the time limits here,it's essentially the ability of a country to attractothersbecause of its culture, its political values,its foreign policies.

And, you know, lots of countries do this. He was writing initially about

the States,but we know the Alliance Francaiseis all about French soft

power, the British Council.The Beijing Olympics were an exercise in

Chinese soft power.Americans have the Voice of America and the
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Fulbright scholarships.But, the fact is, in fact,that probably Hollywood

and MTV and McDonaldshave done more for American soft power

around the world than any specifically government activity.

So soft power is something that really emergespartly because ofgovernments,but partly despite governments.And in the information era

we all live in today,what we might call the TED age,I'd say that

countries are increasingly being judgedby a global public that's been

fedon an incessant diet of Internet news,of televised images,of cell

phone videos, of email gossip.In other words, all sorts of

communication devicesare telling us the stories of countries,whether or

not the countries concerned want people to hear those stories.

Now, in this age, again, countries with access to multiple channels of

communicationand information have a particular advantage.And of

course they have more influence, sometimes, about how they're seen.

India has more all-news TV channelsthan any country in the world,in

fact in most of the countries in this part of the world put together.

But, the fact still is that it's not just that.In order to have soft power, you

have to be connected.One might argue that India has becomean

astonishingly connected country.I think you've already heard thefigures.We've been selling 15 million cell phones a month.Currently

there are 509 million cell phones in Indian hands, in India.And that

makes us larger than the U.S. as a telephone market.In fact, those 15

million cell phonesare the most connections that any country,including

the U.S. and China,has ever established in the history of

telecommunications.

But, what perhaps some of you don't realizeis how far we've come to get

there.You know, when I grew up in India,telephones were a rarity.Infact, they were so rare that elected members of Parliamenthad the right

to allocate 15 telephone linesas a favor to those they deemed worthy.If

you were lucky enough to be a wealthy businessmanor an influential

journalist, or a doctor or something, you might have a telephone.But

sometimes it just sat there.
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I went to high school in Calcutta.And we would look at this instrument

sitting in the front foyer.But half the time we would pick it up with an

expectant look on our faces,there would be no dial tone.If there was a

dial tone and you dialed a number,the odds were two in three you

wouldn't get the number you were intending to reach.In fact the words"wrong number" were more popular than the word "Hello."(Laughter)

If you then wanted to connect to another city,let's say from Calcutta you

wanted to call Delhi,you'd have to book something called a trunk call,

and then sit by the phone all day, waiting for it to come through.Or you

could pay eight times the going ratefor something called a lightning

call.But, lightning struck rather slowly in our country in those days,so,

it was like about a half an hour for a lightning call to come through.

In fact, so woeful was our telephone servicethat a Member of

Parliament stood up in 1984 and complained about this.And the Then-

Communications Minister replied in a lordly mannerthat in a

developing countrycommunications are a luxury, not a right,that the

government had no obligation to provide better service,and if the

honorable Member wasn't satisfied with his telephone,could he please

return it, since there was an eight-year-long waiting listfor telephones

in India.

Now, fast-forward to today and this is what you see:the 15 million cell

phones a month.But what is most striking is who is carrying those cell

phones.You know, if you visit friends in the suburbs of Delhi,on the side

streets you will find a fellow with a cartthat looks like it was designed in

the 16th century,wielding a coal-fired steam ironthat might have been

invented in the 18th century.He's called an isthri wala. But he's

carrying a 21st-century instrument.He's carrying a cell phone because

most incoming calls are free,and that's how he gets orders from theneighborhood,to know where to collect clothes to get them ironed.

The other day I was in Kerala, my home state,at the country farm of a

friend,about 20 kilometers away from any place you'd consider urban.

And it was a hot day and he said, "Hey, would you like some fresh
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4/9

coconut water?"And it's the best thing and the most nutritious and

refreshing thing you can drinkon a hot day in the tropics, so I said sure.

And he whipped out his cell phone, dialed the number,and a voice said,

"I'm up here."And right on top of the nearest coconut tree,with a

hatchet in one hand and a cell phone in the other,was a local toddytapper,who proceeded to bring down the coconuts for us to drink.

Fishermen are going out to sea and carrying their cell phones.When

they catch the fish they call all the market towns along the coastto find

out where they get the best possible prices.Farmers now, who used to

have to spend half a day of backbreaking laborto find out if the market

town was open,if the market was on,whether the product they'd

harvested could be sold, what price they'd fetch.They'd often send aneight year old boy all the way on this trudgeto the market town to get

that information and come back,then they'd load the cart.Today they're

saving half a day's labor with a two minute phone call.

So this empowerment of the underclassis the real result of India being

connected.And that transformation is part of where India is heading

today.But, of course that's not the only thing about India that's

spreading.You've got Bollywood. My attitude to Bollywood is best

summarizedin the tale of the two goats at a Bollywood garbage dump --Mr. Shekhar Kapur, forgive me --and they're chewing away on cans of

celluloid discarded by a Bollywood studio.And the first goat, chewing

away, says, "You know, this film is not bad."And the second goat says,

"No, the book was better."(Laughter)

I usually tend to think that the book is usually better,but, having said

that,the fact is that Bollywood is nowtaking a certain aspect of Indian-

ness and Indian culture around the globe,not just in the Indian diaspora

in the U.S. and the U.K.,but to the screens of Arabs and Africans, of

Senegalese and Syrians.I've met a young man in New York whose

illiterate motherin a village in Senegaltakes a bus once a month to the

capital city of Dakar, just to watch a Bollywood movie.She can't

understand the dialogue.She's illiterate, so she can't read the French
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5/9

subtitles.But these movies are made to be understood despite such

handicaps,and she has a great time in the song and the dance and the

action.She goes away with stars in her eyes about India, as a result.

And this is happening more and more.Afghanistan, we know what aserious security problemAfghanistan is for so many of us in the world.

India doesn't have a military mission there.You know what was India's

biggest asset in Afghanistan in the last seven years?One simple fact:

you couldn't try to call an Afghan at 8:30 in the evening.Why? Because

that was the momentwhen the Indian television soap opera,"Kyunki

Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi," dubbed into Dari, was telecast on Tolo T.V.

And it was the most popular television show in Afghan history.Every

Afghan family wanted to watch it.They had to suspend functions at 8:30.Weddings were reported to be interruptedso guests could cluster

around the T.V. set,and then turn their attention back to the bride and

groom.Crime went up at 8:30. I have read a Reuters dispatch --so this

is not Indian propaganda, a British news agency --about how robbers in

the town of Musarri Sharif*stripped a vehicle of its windshield wipers,

its hubcaps, its sideview mirrors,any moving part they could find, at

8:30,because the watchmen were busy watching the T.V. rather than

minding the store.And they scrawled on the windshield in a reference to

the show's heroine,"Tulsi Zindabad": "Long live Tulsi."

That's soft power. And that is what India is developingthrough the "E"

part of TED:its own entertainment industry.The same is true, of course

-- we don't have time for too many more examples --but it's true of our

music, of our dance,of our art, yoga, ayurveda, even Indian cuisine.I

mean, the proliferation of Indian restaurantssince I first went abroad as

a student, in the mid '70s,and what I see today, you can't go to a mid-

size town in Europe or North Americaand not find an Indian restaurant.It may not be a very good one.But, today in Britain, for example,Indian

restaurants in Britainemploy more people than the coal mining,ship

building and iron and steel industries combined.So the empire can

strike back.
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6/9

But, with this increasing awareness of India,with you and with I, and so

on,with tales like Afghanistan,comes something vital in the information

era,the sense that in today's worldit's not the side of the bigger army

that wins,it's the country that tells a better story that prevails.And India

is, and must remain, in my view, the land of the better story.Stereotypesare changing. I mean, again, having gone to the U.S.as a student in the

mid 70s;I knew what the image of India was then, if there was an

image at all.

Today, people in Silicon Valley and elsewherespeak of the IITs, the

Indian Institutes of Technologywith the same reverence they used to

accord to MIT.This can sometimes have unintended consequences. OK.

I had a friend, a history major like me,who was accosted at SchipholAirport in Amsterdam,by an anxiously perspiring European saying,

"You're Indian, you're Indian! Can you help me fix my laptop?"

We've gone from the image of India asland of fakirs lying on beds of

nails,and snake charmers with the Indian rope trick,to the image of

India as a land of mathematical geniuses,computer wizards, software

gurus.But that too is transforming the Indian story around the world.

But, there is something more substantive to that.The story rests on a

fundamental platformof political pluralism.It's a civilization story tobegin with.Because India has been an open society for millennia.India

gave refuge to the Jews, fleeing the destruction of the first templeby the

Babylonians, and said thereafter by the Romans.

In fact, legend has is that when Doubting Thomas, the Apostle, Saint

Thomas,landed on the shores of Kerala, my home state,somewhere

around 52 A.D.,he was welcomed on shore by a flute-playing Jewish

girl.And to this day remains the only Jewish diasporain the history of

the Jewish people, which has never encountereda single incident of

anti-semitism. (Applause)That's the Indian story.Islam came peacefully

to the south,slightly more differently complicated history in the north.

But all of these religions have found a place and a welcome home in

India.
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7/9

You know, we just celebrated, this year, our general elections,the

biggest exercise in democratic franchise in human history.And the next

one will be even bigger, because our voting population keeps growing

by 20 million a year.But, the fact isthat the last elections, five years

ago,gave the world extraordinary phenomenon of an election being wonby a woman political leaderof Italian origin and Roman Catholic faith,

Sonia Gandhi,who then made way for a Sikh, Mohan Singh,to be sworn

in as Prime Ministerby a Muslim, President Abdul Kalam,in a country

81 percent Hindu.(Applause)

This is India, and of course it's all the more strikingbecause it was four

years later that we all applaudedthe U.S., the oldest democracy in the

modern world,more than 220 years of free and fair elections,whichtook till last year to elect a president or a vice presidentwho wasn't

white, male or Christian.So, maybe -- oh sorry, he is Christian, I beg

your pardon --and he is male, but he isn't white.All the others have

been all those three.(Laughter)All his predecessors have been all those

three,and that's the point I was trying to make.(Laughter)

But, the issue isthat when I talked about that example,it's not just about

talking about India, it's not propaganda.Because ultimately, that

electoral outcomehad nothing to do with the rest of the world.It wasessentially India being itself.And ultimately, it seems to me,that always

works better than propaganda.Governments aren't very good at telling

stories.But people see a society for what it is,and that, it seems to me, is

what ultimatelywill make a difference in today's information era,in

today's TED age.

So India now is no longerthe nationalism of ethnicity or language or

religion,because we have every ethnicity known to mankind, practically,

we've every religion know to mankind,with the possible exception of

Shintoism,though that has some Hindu elements somewhere.We have

23 official languages that are recognized in our Constitution.And those

of you who cashed your money heremight be surprised to see how many

scripts there areon the rupee note, spelling out the denominations.
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ww.ted.com/talks/lang/en/879000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/874000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/874000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/871000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/869000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/869000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/867000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/865000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/861000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/861000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/858000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/856000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/856000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/852000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/850000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/850000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/848000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/845000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/845000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/843000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/843000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/841000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/839000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/839000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/837000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/834000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/834000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/829000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/829000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/827000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/825000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/824000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/822000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/820000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/820000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/818000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/816000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/816000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/814000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/811000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/811000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/809000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/809000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/805000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/805000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/802000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/798000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/798000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/796000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/796000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/793000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/784000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/782000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/782000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/779000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/777000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/777000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/774000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/771000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/771000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/767000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/765000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/765000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/763000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/763000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/761000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/758000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/758000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/756000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/756000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/753000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/753000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/750000


8/9

We've got all of that.We don't even have geography uniting us,because

the natural geography of the subcontinentframed by the mountains and

the sea was hackedby the partition with Pakistan in 1947.In fact, you

can't even take the name of the country for granted,because the name

"India" comes from the river Indus,which flows in Pakistan.

But, the whole point is that Indiais the nationalism of an idea.It's the

idea of an ever-ever-land,emerging from an ancient civilization,united

by a shared history,but sustained, above all, by pluralist democracy.

That is a 21st-century story as well as an ancient one.And it's the

nationalism of an idea thatessentially says you can endure differences

of caste, creed,color, culture, cuisine, custom and costume, consonant,

for that matter,and still rally around a consensus. And the consensus isof a very simple principle,that in a diverse plural democracy like India

you don't really have to agree on everything all the time,so long as you

agree on the ground rulesof how you will disagree.The great success

story of India,a country that so many learned scholars and journalists

assumed would disintegrate, in the '50s and '60s,is that it managed to

maintain consensus on how to survive without consensus.

Now, that is the India that is emerging into the 21st century.And I do

want to make the pointthat if there is anything worth celebrating aboutIndia;it isn't military muscle, economic power.All of that is necessary,

but we still have huge amounts of problems to overcome.Somebody said

we are super poor, and we are also super power.We can't really be both

of those.We have to overcome our poverty. We have to deal with the

hardware of development,the ports, the roads, the airports,all the

infrastructural things we need to do,and the software of development,

the human capital, the need for the ordinary person in Indiato be able

to have a couple of square meals a day,to be able to send his or herchildrento a decent school,and to aspire to work a jobthat will give

them opportunities in their livesthat can transform themselves.

But, it's all taking place, this great adventure of conquering those

challenges,those real challenges which none of us can pretend don't
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talks/lang/en/1004000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/1004000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/1001000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/1001000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/997000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/995000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/993000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/993000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/991000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/989000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/987000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/985000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/985000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/982000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/982000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/979000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/977000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/975000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/972000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/972000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/970000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/970000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/966000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/961000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/961000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/958000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/955000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/953000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/953000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/951000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/949000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/949000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/945000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/941000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/939000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/936000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/936000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/931000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/931000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/927000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/927000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/924000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/924000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/920000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/917000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/915000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/915000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/913000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/910000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/910000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/908000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/905000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/903000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/901000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/901000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/898000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/898000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/895000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/893000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/893000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/890000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/890000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/888000http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/886000


9/9

exist.But, it's all taking place in an open society,in a rich and diverse

and plural civilization,in one that is determined to liberate and fulfill

the creative energies of its people.That's why India belongs at TED,and

that's why TED belongs in India.Thank you very much. (Applause)
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shashi tharoor

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