Defining power is a difficult thing not because of literacy snags, but due to different manifestations of this simple word.
In social context power is of many types, inspirational, rewarding, informational, legitimate, cohersive and referent. These aspects of power are very pertinent, because in this era of technological advancement there is a need to be socially correct, even before being politically correct.
21st century is the century of Social Scientists, the empirical science have had, their Newton, Einstein and Hawkings etc. As the technological tools of social intents, like personnel computers, smart phones and other electronic gadflies are getting smarter by every passing day due to Artificial intelligence, the homo sapiens is withering away. World is now waiting for a Einstein who is so socially correct that he might retrieve the lost homo sapien from the integrated circuits of smart devices. Humans of today live alongside the electromagnetic highways, the width of happiness is incarcerated in the Bandwidth. Geographical frontiers are blurring, every one now lives in a cyberspace, therefore a new definition of power is taking shape. Joseph. S. Nye, a Harvard professor with many acclaimed publications was the first one who defined power in academic terms, earlier Kissinger, Brzezinski and Morgenthau also defined power, but in its political context.
Joseph. S. Nye defined power of Physical intent as hard power and power of persuasion and creating consent as the soft power.
The application of soft power is easy as it rides the wave of globalization and the global village effect. Soft power is based on the strongest tool of human history, the culture. People change their religion, but are hesitant to change the culture. How to change culture, it is through the application of soft power in the most subtle way. The dominant culture prevails over the surviving culture. Third type of power is the smart power. Smart power is the combination of both the soft and the hard power. The forth type of power is new emerging concept of sharp power. It is the combination of smart power and power based on Artificial intelligence and Augmented reality. India is applying sharp power against Pakistan which is a comprehensive strategy. The firing incidents along line of control on the eastern border and the Afghan shenanigans on the western frontier is Indian’s hard power application.
India is trying to isolate Pakistan in international diplomatic arena through soft power. The bollywood, the Haldiram, yoga and meditation ashrams in India are soft power van guards of Indian South block. Indian embassies all over the world were re-organised, number of political and cultural second secretaries were posted. These were the ones whose Job description was the projection of Indian Soft Power and the cultural recruitment of “whose who” in the country where they are posted.
With in a span of few years haldiram, a sweetmeat confectioner of Dehli is a household name in Islamabad. The west and European nations are over whelmed by yoga and meditation classes all along the Alpine and the Mississippi.
The bollywood is now even a craze in China, where the movie Danghal was so liked that almost every Chinese became an instant fan. Now Bajrangi Bhai Jhan which is ready to take the Chinese audience will make a mark of soft power.
In 1949 Pakistan and India signed Karachi agreement. In 1960 the ground rules agreement, Tashkand, Simla, Agra and ceasefire agreement of 2003 only followed to be vandalized at will whenever the opportunity appears. All these agreements failed to prevent the application of a type of power suited for the moment.
The 2003 ceasefire agreement had proviso, like the bus service between both the Kashmirs, Train service through Thar, ferry service between Karachi and Mumbai and bus service between Lahore and Delhi etc. This was to enhance people to people contact but possibility of such Phenomenon taking place diminishes once rhetoric and deeds are Juxtaposed. Noam Chomsky in his 1988 book, “manufacturing consent” made the prophecy of soft power being chaining into something like sharp power due to changes in world power dynamics.
The Financial action task force’s terror financing watch list and what all happened in Paris is a reminder that in this globalised world the natural endowments of any country, be it the culture, history, Archeology, Music, agricultural produce and its people are all the tools for diplomacy. The NRI, in USA acted like the political and cultural second secretaries of Indian embassies and changed the American public opinion about Pakistan. There is a need to increase the cultural export. India is falsely trying to tell the world that Pakistan is exporting terrorism, world is listening, not because it is true, but due to the reason that we are not exporting our cultural exports. We can export our Sufism, our heritage, the northern areas with highest mountain ranges in the world, the Gandhara land, our connection to silk route, the link to Hafiz and shiraz, poetry of Iqbal and Bullah Shah, tribal areas as the Eldorado of gem stones, the archeological sites of all the non-monolithic religions of the world and what not. Our cultural and political second secretaries are required to be trained in this new upcoming concept of diplomacy of cultural export.
After Elvin Toffler’s third wave cultural is the fourth wave, which is just beginning to take over the world.
Augmented reality around us is changing. There is a need to reach out to all the neighbors and weave them in the centuries old fabric of common history and heritage. The warp and weft of our foreign policy is to be realigned towards all the regional countries. Depending upon one friend is like fishing in open waters with a net whose both ends sans meet to have a catch.
The writer is a freelance Journalist who contributes regularly on security related issues. He is also Ph.D. Scholar who can be reached at [email protected]
Published in Daily Times, March 4th 2018.