ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the capacity of India's soft power to point out the country's greatest strengths in this area. Culture seems an obvious asset of India's soft power – one could argue the most important. Indeed, it has fascinated outsiders since the time of Alexander the Great, bringing invading armies, travelers, merchants, migrants and religious refugees fleeing persecution, colonial powers. Democracy worked effectively to assimilate and protect against extreme pluralism of Indian society. The Economist Intelligence Unit gives India a "free democracy" label in its overview of countries' political systems. Another important political value is federalism. Regions are governed by local political forces, which play an active role in national politics and foreign policy. The value of the diaspora as a soft power instrument lies not only in their numbers and distribution but more so in the positions, roles and prestige they acquired in their respective countries.
