An analytic interpretation on the importance of India's soft power in international cultural diplomacy over the centuries

India’s Soft Power which is part of Smart Diplomacy or cultural diplomacy in India. India’s soft power diplomacy can be traced back to the time when Swami Vivekananda visited Chicago Parliament of Religion and spoke about Hinduism and India, which attracted many Indians and Foreigners who visited India and learnt about the Indian culture and the Sanskrit, his book on Raja Yoga influenced Western countries to practice Yoga who came to India and visited asharams, India’s main soft powers include spiritualism, yoga, Ayurveda, the world is shifting towards organic method of treatment which has its trace in India. There is culture exchange of arts, music, dance. Indian Diaspora and Young youth are the weapons for the spread of Indian culture across the globe, People are interested in Indian culture and epics of Ramayana and Mahabharat and studying on Kautliya. India literature and craft have received international recognition, countries abroad have included Sanskrit as part of their educational curriculum. India has also emerged has an export of herbs medicine to many foreign countries like Middle East, Europe, Africa etc. and this soft power of India will help in creating a massive influence across the world but before that Indian should have ample knowledge about their own history and culture and languages.

The Colonialism and Post Colonialism Diaspora and its unique effect on the world culture over the years

Indian Diaspora has never been acknowledged and been neglected in India’s cultural diplomacy for long period of time but their contribution and immense leverage in local communities and government has been recognised in recent years and the Indian Government has taken some measures to link with the diaspora and make them partners in India’s growth and part of International relation. Diaspora Diplomacy plays a crucial role in the foreign policy and in increase economic, political and defense cooperation between different countries. Indian communities are spread across the global in 6 continents and 125 countries, Indian Diaspora is categorized into old, new and gulf Diaspora according to their labour characteristics. The success of Indian entrepreneurs, scientist, academics, media personalities, filmmakers, IT professionals, CEOs in the US has created trust in India’s intellectual abilities abroad. It has been a major source in branding India as a source of well-educated and hard working professionals. Ethnic Indians particularly in New Diaspora countries have become known for their economic, professional academic, scientific and artistic successes and general peaceful integration. The government of India has taken many initiatives for their betterment and organize various programmes for being the India Diaspora close to their host country and also to resolve the issues and challenges faced by the government from the Indian Diaspora.

Coming of Age in the Diaspora: Bollywood and the Representation of Second Generation British Indian Diaspora

Bollywood films are a unique visual repository of India’s public imaginings, and they can, therefore, serve as guides to how India sees its past, present, and aspirational future (Dwyer, 2010). Through close intertextual readings of three key popular films depicting British Indian youth, this article explores the ways in which the UK-born/raised second-generation Indian diaspora has come to be represented within Bollywood. We argue that inter-generational negotiations around long-distance nationalism, social reproduction, and marriage are pivotal to the articulation and regulation of diasporic youth subjectivities in Bollywood films. By foregrounding the interplay of gender, sexuality, and nation, our analysis illuminates the role of Bollywood in mediating a transnational Indian identity which is tethered simultaneously to economic neoliberalism and social conservatism.

Indian diaspora in Ghana: cultural and family heritage of tourists' travel preference

PurposeThe literature has acknowledged the importance of diaspora studies because of the influx of funds into the local economy, including the tourism and hospitality sector. However, little empirical research appears to be known about the subject matter, principally within the developing country perspective. This study aims to respond to research calls by investigating the impact of diasporic cultural heritage, family heritage on travel preference of West African Indian migrant visitors to their homeland.Design/methodology/approachThis research is guided by the theory of acculturation. A quantitative data were gathered from a sample of 312 diasporas, and the regression analysis was used to analyze the data.FindingsThe study finds that cultural heritage and family heritage have positive and significant impact on travel preference of migrant visitors to their homeland. Further analysis of the independent sample t-test reveals a significant difference between Indian Ghanaians and Ghanaian Indians in their thought of cultural heritage. However, no significant differences were found in the Indian Ghanaian and Ghanaian Indian’s family heritage and travel preference to their homeland.Research limitations/implicationsThis study is destination-specific of Indian migrant visitors. The application of the study’s outcome to other diaspora would demand a larger sample size for generalization to be made. The study offers compelling insights on cultural heritage, family heritage and travel preference to marketing a diaspora tourism site.Originality/valueThe study expands the application of the theory of acculturation within the diaspora literature and establishes that integration and separation strategies of the theory explain the positive interests of the migrant visitors’ traveling preference to their homeland.

DIASPORA IDENTITY: CASE STUDY OF NAIPAUL’S FICTION IN A FREE STATE

The literature produced at global level by dispersed community that has common ancestral homeland is known as the literature of Indian diaspora. Indian communities are spread all over the major countries of the world. The total population of Indian diaspora in the world is near about twenty million. People from India settle abroad and maintain a strong bond with motherland. The diaspora literature have certain important features, that separate their writing from the mainstream of contemporary writers. The Indian writer have brought diaspora literature at world wide recognition. Nobel laureate V.S. Naipaul was famous writer of Indian origin had he has great contribution in diaspora literature. KEYWORDS: Diaspora, Homeland, Dispersed, Indentured, Expatriate, Exile, Migration.

Portrayal of Women Protagonists in the Selected Novels of Bharati Mukherjee

Bharati Mukherjee is a famous Indian born American non-fiction writer, short story writer and journalist. She is one of the well-known novelists of Indian Diaspora. Within a really short creative time, she has achieved enviable position in the field of English literature. In her works, she has very well depicted the Indian immigrant experience of her women characters both in her novels and short stories. In her works, she talks about the lives of Indian women immigrants in the U.S.A and their journey of transformation and adjustment of their lives and personalities. She tries to explore the themes of immigration as well as transformation. She portrays the various phases of her characters such as the phase of expatriation, the phase of transition and phase of immigration. She very well depicts how the cultural clash or cultural conflict between the west and the east leads to the psychological crisis in the minds of her women characters. In her novels, she has given importance to the feministic perspective of her women characters. Her women characters are the protagonist and hero of the novels. She has tried to portray how her female characters sacrifice their dreams, hopes, desires, wishes, what the various problems, fear, torture they face, and how they finally do their best to overcome from all the hurdles. She has drawn her female characters in various situations and circumstances.

The Indian Freedom Struggle and the Kenyan Diaspora

The connections between the Indian Freedom movement and the Kenyan Indian diaspora after the First World War led to the involvement of the Indian National Congress and Gandhi in the struggle of the Kenyan Indians for equality and equal treatment with the British white settlers in Kenya. The Congress considered that the success of the equality struggle in Kenya would also lead to equal treatment of Indians in India itself. This was consistent with the prevailing political goal of the freedom movement in India in 1919, which was self-rule through Dominion Status under the British Crown. But when the struggle of the Kenya Indians failed and equality was denied to them by the famous Devonshire Declaration in 1923, there the Indian freedom movement realized that this signalled unequal status and a denial of self-rule to India itself. Historic consequences followed. This was the turning point and over the years immediately after the Kenyan decision (1923–1929), the Indian National Congress changed its political aim from Dominion Status to Full Independence as a Republic, realized over the 17 years to 1947.