Indian soft power fails---empirics prove

As the Cold War wore on, Nehru was succeeded eventually by his daughter Indira Gandhi, who continued to speak the language of non-alignment and anti-imperialism but pursued policies that were far more “realist” in substance. This had the effect of undermining some of India’s international legitimacy, especially when India concluded a defense pact with the Soviet Union in 1971. The following two decades were also marked by increasing Indian interventionism in the affairs of neighboring countries, especially Sri Lanka, Nepal, and the Maldives. The end of the Cold War, according to one scholar, marked a transition from realpolitik back to softer forms of diplomatic in- 53 tercourse for India, largely due to the realization that hard power had failed to achieve beneficial objectives in the preceding two decades (Wagner 2005). While this might be true in terms of grand strategy, it was certainly not the case that any of the foreign policy gains made by India after 1990 were due to its use of soft power. Increases in investment from and trade with developed economies, rapprochement with the US in the mid-2000s, and improvements in bilateral relations with other South Asian states (including Pakistan, despite setbacks) can all be traced back to the end of the Cold War and India’s economic liberalization and rapid growth since 1991. Soft power has been a very minor aspect – if at all – of Indian foreign policy during this period.