Civilizational soft power and its limits: Hindu nationalism, religion and the international projection of India since 2014

Abstract

The article examines how the Indian state since 2014 has fused Hindu religious identity, nationalism and foreign policy into a strategy of civilizational soft power. It argues that Hinduism operates simultaneously on three levels: as a religion, as the foundation of a nationalist definition of Indian identity, and as a resource of external attraction presented to the world as the heritage of Indian civilization. Through qualitative analysis of official discourse and four instruments of projection – the global promotion of yoga, the civilizational framing of the 2023 G20 presidency, sacred architecture at home and abroad, and the mobilization of the diaspora – the study identifies a soft power paradox: the universalist language used abroad coexists with a majoritarian framing at home, and this gap increasingly erodes the credibility on which soft power depends. A comparative section places the Indian case alongside the use of Orthodox Christianity in Russian and Georgian foreign policy and shows that civilizational soft power is a broader non-Western phenomenon with shared strengths and shared vulnerabilities.