ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to analyse India’s respond to the Covid-19 crisis, and how this response has been used as a tool to leverage its global image and reputation as a trusted and credible international partner, and to gain greater regional and global influence. Primarily carried out through the lens of soft power, it explains and understands the dynamics of the process by analysing India’s internal anti-Covid-19 policy. It then links these to the use of Indian culture and values, and notions of a ‘culture of service’ (seva paramo dharma) and ‘the world is one family’ (vasudhaiva kutumbakam) in shaping anti-Covid-19 policies in the Indo-Pacific and beyond. The chapter’s results provide important insights into how successful was India’s respond to Covid-19 crisis in building up its soft power to present itself as a trusted, neutral and credible partner. The pandemic has had a mixed effect on building up India’s soft power, which New Delhi could use to gain greater regional and global influence. In many ways, through India’s domestic and international failures, India’s soft power may actually have been diminished.
