Soft power at the core of India-France ties

AMONG India’s external relationships, if there is one that rises above the cliché ‘going from strength to strength’ when it is used as a description, it is New Delhi’s relationship with Paris. Three things have made it possible. Understated history, the strength of soft power, but most of all, putting the right people in the right place, even when it is by happenstance, to suit the all-round growth of a relationship.

There is something for everyone in both countries in Franco-Indian engagement, unlike in ties with other nations.

A convergence of views between successive governments in India and France, chemistry between their leaders and shared interests in global matters have helped, no doubt. But those can be said of many of India’s other friendships. Those alone have not pushed other friendships to grow from strength to strength. In fact, those alone have resulted in similar relationships hitting a plateau: excellent, but without magic or any special charm as in the Franco-Indian bonhomie.

First, the understated history of synthesis that has produced a unique community of French citizens, who look Indian but do not speak a word of any Indian language and live their lives as the French do. They are unlike Indian-Americans, British-Indians or people of Indian ancestry in the Caribbean or the Pacific islands, commonly known as the Girmitiyas. The word is a corruption of “agreements” because they were taken to work on plantations with contractual agreements. The Girmitiyas are still Indian at heart.

On the other hand, Reunion Island, off Mauritius, has 2,80,000 ethnic Indians who are French citizens and are as French as they come. Guadeloupe, near Antigua and Barbuda, has 60,000, while Martinique and Saint Martin have a smaller but significant numbers of Franco-Indians. These are Caribbean islands. All these are French Overseas Territories. Most of these Indian-origin French people watched with national pride Friday’s Bastille Day Parade, but for them, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s presence at the parade was incidental. Not so for the 10,000 or so recent arrivals in France — mostly students and professionals — who were the ones who flocked to hear Modi address the Indian community on Seguin Island in Paris on Thursday.

“Wherever we Indians go, we definitely create a mini-India,” Modi told mainland France’s Indian diaspora, who number about 1,09,000 and are spread all across the country. What he said is only true of the new arrivals. The others integrated into the French society long ago, unlike France’s Maghrebi Arab population. That made it possible for the people and the government of France to look at their former enclaves in India — Puducherry, Karaikal, Yanam, Mahe and Chandernagore — differently from how other European colonial powers, including Britain, look at their former colonies. French colonisation of India is understated in history. But it helped France and India to be equals in their mutual dealings long before the Anglo-Saxons came to terms with the end of colonial rule in India.

Two, putting the right people in the right place at the right time has been the key. In 2016, the Ministry of External Affairs posted to its embassy in Paris the only blind person to have been recruited to the Indian Foreign Service. Beno Zephine quickly became a sensation in Paris. Folkloric as it sounds, her story that she went to Alliance Francaise in Chennai when she was in lower kindergarten, asking to be taught French, had an emotional appeal among the French people, who are obsessed with their language. When she joined the IFS, she chose French as her compulsory foreign language. As her story spread across France, eight Parisian institutions offered to teach her the language. But Mohan Kumar, then India’s Ambassador in Paris, found for Zephine a blind French teacher as personal tutor. She taught the language to the young diplomat in conversations and in Braille. The Ambassador also pushed her into maximum public appearances instead of giving her office assignments. Soon, the embassy was punching above its weight in the megacity, where such stories have a big appeal.

A similar story with a different twist is being played out now in Paris. India’s Deputy Chief of Mission in Paris is KM Praphullachandra Sharma, an ayurvedic doctor who is qualified to practise the traditional medicine and perform surgery. During Covid-19, ayurveda and yoga skyrocketed in popularity among the French people. ‘Monsieur doctor’, as the French-speaking Sharma is popularly known, is as much of a sensation in Paris as Zephine was during her tenure. Because of Monsieur doctor, ‘Ayurveda Day’, with a holistic approach to well-being, was celebrated by the embassy in October last year, with Sharma in charge of the initiative. One of Modi’s meetings last week was with yoga teacher Charlotte Chopin, who is doing “ground-breaking work in the promotion of yoga in France,” the PM told her.

Lastly, India’s soft power in France. Modi was, no doubt, a big draw when he spoke at La Seine Musicale, Europe’s newest cultural venue, which opened in 2017 at the island site of a now-dismantled Renault vehicle factory. But his audience comprised entirely Indians and local people of Indian origin. Sometime before Modi went to Seguin Island, thousands of people of all nationalities had flocked there for a nearly week-long ‘Namaste France’ festival. India’s diversity and variety were at their best display at La Seine Musicale. It was a treat for the French people: handmade collectibles, artisans’ market, storytelling through dance, performances of Kuchipudi, Kathak, Odissi, a ‘bhakti utsav’ featuring Bombay Jayashri, Ustad Chand Afzal, Pandit Ravi Joshi and Madhavan Nampoothiri, among many others. There was cultural fusion when French musician Mathias Duplessy performed with Mir Mukhtiyar Ali from Rajasthan. Even remote states like Arunachal Pradesh got a chance to entertain Parisians. And in separate events, a few days before Modi, L Subramaniam and Amjad Ali Khan drew full houses on Seguin Island.

There is something for everyone in both countries in Franco-Indian engagement, unlike in relations with the USA, Canada, Germany or Japan. Looking at the outcomes from Modi’s visit, Indians will benefit from scientific cooperation with France, sustainable development and microfinance, while France will continue to marvel at the splendour that is India in its outlook, way of life and orientation.