ABSTRACT
Introduction This chapter critiques the existing school of thought that characterizes Bollywood as India’s flagship soft power, basing this assertion on limited and often contradictory perspectives drawn from postmodern and post-critical theories. This study not only elaborates on inherent shortcomings in this lopsided approach but also argues that Tollywood (the Telugu film and television industry) is more deserving of being nominated as India’s flagship soft power asset, taking India’s deeper culture and tradition into consideration. Engaging the three important definitions that Nye (2011) offered for soft power and interpolating them with the discussion of heritage and contemporary soft power sources in Ch. 1 (See Tables 1.1.1.4 and 1.1.1.5), this study is primarily grounded in the modernist/ foundationist (Bauman 1991; Smith 2001) perspective of cultural theory.
