Track III Diplomacy, Soft Power and Cultural Ties with Neighbours

Track I: the official front door

• Track I is official, government-to-government engagement.
• Ministers, ambassadors and negotiators work here.
• It is the traditional core of foreign policy.
• The formal principles behind it are in Panchsheel: The Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence.

Track II: the quiet back room

• Track II is informal dialogue between influential non-officials.
• Think of academics and retired officials.
• They discuss sensitive issues that formal channels cannot easily touch.
• The talks are unofficial, so nobody is bound by what is said.
• Ideas can be floated, tested and dropped without public embarrassment.

Track III: the street and the village

• Track III is grassroots, people-to-people engagement.
• It includes cultural exchanges, NGOs and civil-society contacts.
• The actors hold no formal government role.
• Examples: a school exchange, a film festival, a Red Cross volunteer, a cricket match between villages.
• The trust built here can outlast changes of government.

What soft power means

• Joseph Nye coined the term soft power.
• It means a country’s ability to influence others through attraction, not coercion.
• Hard power is the opposite: armies, sanctions and money used as pressure.
• Soft power makes others want what you want, without being forced.

What India draws on

• India’s culture and cinema.
• Yoga and cuisine.
• Its large global diaspora. See The Indian Diaspora: Terminology, Policy and Remittances.
• Its democratic political model.

Bollywood and Yoga Day

• India has used cultural tools to project soft power.
• Two well-known tools are Bollywood’s global reach and International Yoga Day.
• Read Bollywood’s Global Reach and International Day of Yoga 2026.
• The institutions that carry this out are in ICCR, ICWA and India’s Public Diplomacy.

Trust when governments are cold

• Track III can build trust among ordinary citizens.
• It works even when official relations are strained or limited.

A head start in the neighbourhood

• India shares language, religion and cuisine with its neighbours.
• That gives India a regional soft-power base that distant powers lack.
• See India’s Relations with Myanmar, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Sri Lanka.

Trap 1: soft power is not propaganda

• Soft power works through real attraction: culture, values and example.
• A blatant state messaging push or pressure campaign is not soft power.
• It is closer to propaganda or hard-edged public diplomacy.

Trap 2: which track is the actor on?

• Check whether the person holds any current or former official role.
• Sitting minister: Track I.
• Retired official or academic with government access: Track II.
• Ordinary citizen or NGO worker with no official role: Track III.

Why informal tracks matter

• Informal tracks complement official diplomacy.
• They sometimes succeed where government talks have stalled.
• Soft power is also hard to measure.
• Its long-term effect on public opinion works slowly and indirectly.
• Nobody can count it like tanks or missiles.
• For the wider frame, see India’s Foreign Policy Fundamentals and SAARC.

98 cultural exchange agreements

• Union Culture and Tourism Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat told the Lok Sabha in 2026 that India has valid Cultural Exchange Programmes (CEPs) with 98 countries.
• They give an institutional frame for cooperation in culture, museums, heritage and performing arts.
• Source: PIB.

The money behind it

• The Global Engagement Scheme funds this work.
• It was revised and continued for FY 2026-27 to 2030-31, with an outlay of Rs 299.94 crore.
• It has four sub-schemes: the International Cultural Exchange Programme, Project Mausam, Brihattar Bharat, and Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage.
• So people-to-people ties now have a legal and financial backbone.