India has a pride of place among the comity of nations with strong credentials in the arena of soft power. Identifying the key attributes of India's soft power, assess the extent to which it has been leveraged in India's foreign policy matrix.

Soft power refers to leveraging one's culture, people to people linkage and global stature to pursue national interests in international setting. India being a civilizational state have used soft power as a key tool of its diplomacy. Key attributes of India's soft power are: - Culture and religion as – Buddhism, Cuisine as – Indian delicacies like Biryani, Traditions & customs like festivals, Historical heritage as – with sacred text like sports, Music, Art – etc By vast used elegantly by India and one can see its extent of use as – 1. Fortes neighbor shared relations – India has used shared Buddhist heritage to develop peace & strengthen relations as – Well Nepal, Sri Lanka, Myo Rameyen about

2. Use of sports to strengthen diplomatic engagement with others as – Judo aiding to host Olympic. 3. To normalize relation – By – west Pakistan – Use of Medical Tourism, Katakupu-Gudiaganj corridor has been key in improving relations. 4. Language & cultural connect – as Tamilain connection been used to fortes India-Srilanka relation and seek investment opportunities. 5. Seeking reform in Multilateral institutions – as at UNSC, India has been 2nd largest contributor to UN peacekeeping mission this instance it to claim a seat at UNSC. 6. Using its distracted image as a staunch supporter of global peace & being impacted – India has proposed to placate situation between Ukraine & Russia. – also been able to source its energy import from Russia. However, their as instances when soft diplomacy turned out to be a failure – 7. India – Pakistan cross – dispute commonly of

language, culture and cuisine. 8. India – China relations – Chinese aggression at border defies the principle of a shared Buddhist heritage. 9. Similarly, care of Maldives which practically is pursuing pro-China policies. 10. Care of Sri Lanka postcolonial picture. While joint Tamil culture could not give much result as – Fisherman issue. The need is to pursue an optimum combination of hard and soft power i.e. smart power diplomacy to prune national interest.