India's Approach to Public Diplomacy in the Information Age

During his recent visit to India, President Obama remarked that “in Asia and around the world, India is not simply emerging; India has emerged.” Though President Obama’s appreciation may be contested by analysts and policy makers across the globe, one dimension of India’s foreign policy has definitely ‘emerged’ during the past year – public diplomacy. The Government of India is actively investing resources in promoting its public diplomacy campaign and the first Public Diplomacy Conference is taking place in New Delhi on December 10-11, 2010. The Conference is a recent step is a series of efforts by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to energize the country’s public diplomacy. Panel discussions on day one (with live streaming) are to be followed by workshops on the second day.

Public Diplomacy refers to the means by which a sovereign country communicates with publics in other countries aimed at informing and influencing audiences overseas for the purpose of promoting the national interest and advancing its foreign policy goals. In 2006 the Public Diplomacy (PD) Division was created in India’s MEA and the Division has gradually gathered steam. The Division did have a slow start and adopted the traditional diplomacy style during the initial years. However, much seems to have changed now especially after the use of Web 2.0 tools by the MEA.

The Conference was used as an opportunity by the PD Division to demonstrate its new public diplomacy approach and to learn from a wider discussion on the issue. The Division took to digital diplomacy in a big way when it launched a Facebook page, blog site, created a twitter account and Youtube channel earlier this year. The website of the PD Division, integrating the various social media tools, was also refurbished. Unlike previous instances when MEA conferences were confined to conference rooms, proceedings of the PD conference were streamed live to ensure wider participation.

Dr. Shashi Tharoor, member of Indian Parliament and former of Minister of State for External Affairs, was lucid and insightful in his discussion on the importance of public diplomacy and soft power. Dr. Tharoor emphasized on the need for attending to the substance as well as the tools of public diplomacy. According to him it was time to turn ‘Incredible India’ into ‘Credible India’. Though he appreciated the recent efforts of the PD Division, Dr. Tharoor expressed the need for further changes in the style of public diplomacy. Diplomats of most countries are encouraged to blog actively and use social media tools. President Obama’s recent visit to India was being updated by his team members on various social media forums. Dr. Tharoor felt that it was time for India to adopt this technique. As a proponent for furthering India’s soft power, Dr. Tharoor emphasized on the need to project “who we are” since India’s public diplomacy could be strengthened through its commitment to pluralism. According to Dr. Tharoor the weak linkage between soft power and national security does not undermine its importance as a strategy to further national interests.

Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao’s address elucidated the Government of India’s approach to public diplomacy.  While stressing on its domestic and international dimensions, Ms. Rao referred to public diplomacy as a vehicle for dissemination of ideas and as a ‘public good’ for ‘public good’. She elaborated on a variety of national and international efforts of the PD Division for projecting a lucid and composite image of brand India.

Nicholas Cull, Professor of Public Diplomacy and Director, Annenberg School of Communication, USC, provided a theoretical enunciation of the concept of public diplomacy while H.E. Mr Jérôme Bonnafont, Ambassador of France to India, shared insights from country’s impressive public diplomacy campaign. Suresh Goel, Director General, Indian Council for Cultural Relations and Bobby Bedi, Founder and Managing Director, Kaleidoscope Entertainment, expressed their discomfort at the use of the term soft ‘power’. Mr. Goel preferred to call it cultural diplomacy while Mr. Bedi talked about the need to harness the energy created by people-to-people interaction.  Discussions were held on the need for adapting public diplomacy to the contemporary environment characterized by 24×7 news, web 2.0 and corporate interactions.  Nik Gowing, Chief Presenter at BBC, talked about the new accountability of states to citizens in the 24×7 news age. Professor Philip Seib, Professor of Journalism and Public Diplomacy and

Director, Center on Public Diplomacy, University of Southern California, suggested that in foreign affairs late communication is lost communication. Suhasini Haider, Deputy Foreign Editor and Prime-Time Anchor, CNN-IBN, drew attention to the Indian case by observing that prime time on Indian news channels was still unutilized by the top decision makers to communicate and interact with the domestic public.

Nitin Pai, Founder and Fellow for Geopolitics, The Takshashila Institution, highlighted the viability of investing in digital diplomacy. Mr. Pai made an interesting suggestion when he observed that India should have an Ambassador for Facebook, which has a population larger than some states. Describing new media as relevant to all facets of public diplomacy, Mr. Navdeep Suri, Joint Secretary (PD), MEA, found its use attractive for three main reasons (i) Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are powerful and low cost channels of communication and should be used effectively to put forth our perspective; (ii) new media tends to be interactive. This provides you feedback, gives you a chance to listen to your audience and develop an engagement with them. This is crucial for successful public diplomacy. It also improves the interface between government and citizens and (iii) it’s a great way to reach out to the internet savvy youth which is going to be an increasingly important part of our demographics.

The session on corporate diplomacy discussed how companies are engaged in diplomacy and sought to distil how to best engage and partner with them for public diplomacy objectives. Second day of the Conference on December 11, will feature a series of workshops on public diplomacy strategies, role of global media and the concept of national branding. Leading academicians from across the globe would be conducting these workshops for bureaucrats and students of foreign policy to better understand the challenges and potential of public diplomacy.

It is comforting to see that PD Division has moved beyond mere acknowledgement of public diplomacy to actively devising public diplomacy strategies. Next steps in public diplomacy for India should inculcate features of public diplomacy enunciated by Prof. Nicholas Cull at the Conference: India needs to learn to tell its story, listening is as important as telling and success in public diplomacy has a long gestation period.