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In a world where perception often shapes geopolitics, India’s inability to project its narrative effectively, especially to non-English-speaking global audiences, has become a strategic vulnerability. While India has built formidable strengths in military capability, economic growth, and cultural exports, it lags in the domain of global storytelling. The cost of this narrative gap is mounting, particularly as India becomes the target of increasingly coordinated disinformation campaigns abroad.
A Colonial Legacy India Never Scaled Globally
Ironically, the British colonial empire, despite its exploitative motives, understood the importance of language, narrative, and perception better than independent India does today. During the Raj, key administrative communications were swiftly translated into vernacular languages to ensure compliance. Newspapers in Urdu, Bengali, and Tamil published editorials reinforcing British benevolence and portraying Indian resistance as misguided. It was a systemic, well-funded strategy that ensured the colonial narrative remained dominant.
Post-independence, India inherited much of this infrastructure. Doordarshan and All India Radio were repurposed to broadcast in dozens of Indian languages, pushing messages around national integration, health, and governance. However, this multilingual capability was largely turned inward. While it helped build democratic resilience domestically, it never evolved to serve India’s external communication needs.
Speaking Only to Elites, in English
Today, India’s official global communication remains heavily English-dependent and diplomatically formal. Speeches at the UN, press releases from the Ministry of External Affairs, and op-eds in Western newspapers do little to shape perceptions among everyday citizens in Cairo, Paris, Jakarta, or São Paulo. In an era where a TikTok video in Turkish or a meme in French can go viral in minutes, India remains digitally absent in many vernacular ecosystems.
Meanwhile, rivals like China, Qatar, and Russia have invested heavily in multilingual outreach. CGTN, Al Jazeera Arabic, and RT operate as sophisticated narrative arms of their respective states, offering tailored messaging in dozens of languages. India has no comparable media presence. The result is a growing gap between how India sees itself and how much of the world understands it.
The Risk of a Narrative Vacuum
India’s muted global voice comes at a time when it faces rising scrutiny over domestic developments, whether in Kashmir, Manipur, or during communal tensions. These events are often repackaged and weaponized by hostile actors online, especially in Arabic, French, German, and Turkish social media ecosystems. Comparisons to Gaza or apartheid South Africa are made not in policy papers but in viral Instagram posts and YouTube shorts.
India’s responses are usually slow, reactive, and confined to English. A government tweet or a formal rebuttal rarely makes it into the digital bloodstream where the damage is being done. This elite-to-elite communication misses the digital grassroots.
Diaspora Warriors, But No Doctrine
Indian-origin influencers and content creators, particularly youth in the West, have increasingly stepped up to defend India online. They translate context, counter disinformation, and promote India’s image using local languages and cultural codes. Their efforts are sincere, but often scattered and unsupported. Without training, institutional backing, or strategic alignment, they remain digital vigilantes – not narrative architects.
Compare this with Turkey’s organized cultural diplomacy across Europe or China’s Confucius Institutes, which project soft power under the guise of academic and cultural engagement. India lacks a formal doctrine or infrastructure to scale such influence.
What India Must Do
India urgently needs a global narrative strategy grounded in multilingual communication, cultural fluency, and digital engagement. Here are some key steps:
- Launch a Global Media Platform: Build a broadcaster akin to BBC World Service or Al Jazeera, producing news, documentaries, and short-form digital content in major world languages—Arabic, French, Spanish, Russian, Mandarin, Bahasa, and more.
- Modernize the ICCR: Expand the Indian Council for Cultural Relations to go beyond promoting yoga and classical art. Let it support creators, podcasts, and influencers who can present a modern Indian story in global idioms.
- Create Vernacular Diplomacy Units: Every Indian embassy should include officers fluent in local languages, trained to engage local media, influencers, and civil society.
- Invest in Digital Storytelling: Develop short, engaging explainers on India’s policies, culture, and democratic institutions in native languages, tailored for platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.
- Train Diplomats in Narrative Warfare: Equip Indian diplomats, military attachés, and even bureaucrats with skills in strategic communication and narrative response.
India’s Soft Power Isn’t Just Bollywood
India has no shortage of cultural capital. But in a hyper-connected world, cultural capital without communication architecture means little. A nation of 1.4 billion people, with profound intellectual and democratic traditions, should not be losing the perception battle to WhatsApp forwards and TikTok distortions.
To rise as a genuine global power, India must learn to tell its story to the world’s digital majority, in their own languages and idioms.
Because if India does not tell its story, someone else surely will.