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Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Repositioning Bharat’s Brand

Brand Management by other countries in USA

Bharat is under-represented in American academia compared to China, Islam/Middle East and Japan, among others. Even the study of Tibet is stronger than that of Bharat. Worse than the quantitative under-representation is the qualitative one: While other major countries positively influence the content of the discourse about them, pro-Bharat forces rarely have much say in Bharat Studies.

China:

China is fortunate that its thinkers are mostly positive ambassadors promoting its brand. Chinese scholars have worked for decades to create a coherent and cohesive Chinese Grand Narrative that shows both continuity and advancement from within. This gives the Chinese people a common identity based on the sense of a shared past — one that maps their future destiny as a world power. Pride in One Unifying Notion of the National Identity and Culture is a form of capital, providing an internal bond and a defense against external (or internal) subversions that threaten the whole nation. Scholars play an important role in this construction.

China’s Grand Narrative is a strong, centripetal force bringing all Chinese together, whereas many Bharatiya intellectuals are slavishly adopting ideologies that act as centrifugal forces pulling Bharatiyas apart.

The China Institute’s New York mission is to influence public opinion on China. It holds art shows, language classes, lectures, films, and history lessons. Unlike the Bharat-bashing films and lectures on many American campuses these day (selected by self-flagellating Bharatiya professors), the Chinese project a positive image of China. The key difference is that China’s scholars are not trying to go public with China’s dirty laundry — they are not trying to use international forums to fix domestic problems.

In sharp contrast, Bharatiya academics often lack self-confidence and pride in Bharat, and use every opportunity to demean Bharat internationally, and to justify this as a way of helping Bharat’s human rights problems. These Bharatiyas seem too desperate to join the Grand Narrative of the West, in whatever role they are granted admission, whereas Chinese scholars have not sold out to the same extent.

The China Institute also has many pro-China programs for Chinese parents and kids, K-12 curriculum development, teacher training, student scholarships, and seminars for corporate executives and journalists. The Institute has a successful program to teach Chinese-Americans to project a hyphenated identity that combines both American and Chinese cultures, and they call this ‘leadership training,’ while South Asian scholars often labor to undermine the Bharatiya-ness of our children’s identities, by equating Bharatiya-ness with chauvinism.

Pakistan:

A good analysis would also scrutinize the Pakistani government funded Quaid-e-Azam Chairs of Pakistan Studies at Berkeley and Columbia. The appointments to these chairs are under the control of the Pakistani government, and are rotated every few years. Note that this is accepted as normal and has not attracted any criticism from academia. It is little wonder that the American media has interviewed more pro-Pakistan scholars than pro-Bharat scholars.

Pakistani scholars have established their leadership over South Asian Muslims’ campus activism in the US, and claim to represent Bharatiya Muslims. Many Bharatiya academicians have joined their bandwagon to denigrate Bharatiya culture in the name of human rights activism and South Asian unity. These scholars hold great influence over young impressionable Bharatiya kids in college. It seems that the Pakistani government has adopted a corporate-style strategic planning process, while many Bharatiya-American donors have not approached this as competitive brand management.

Tibet:

Another good example of how soft power can be developed and projected via academic intervention is the case of Tibet. Twenty five years ago, H H the Dalai Lama asked his Western disciples to get PhDs from top Western universities, and to become Buddhism professors in colleges. Today, almost every major US campus has practicing Buddhists on the faculty, who project their spiritual identities very publicly and confidently.

Even though Buddhism shares most of its meditation techniques with other Indic traditions, Buddhism has become positioned as a valid research methodology for neuroscience, whereas Hindu Dharma is plagued with the caste, cows and curry images. Buddhism is explained intellectually and sympathetically, not via an exotic/erotic lens. Buddhist scholars have a powerful impact on students, and serve as media experts and public intellectuals. Buddhism has major Hollywood endorsements. Bharat has nothing even remotely comparable to the influence of Tibet House in building its cultural capital.

Japan and Korea:

The Japan Foundation and Korea Foundation are also great institutions worthy of study by NRI donors. The Japanese have funded over fifty academic chairs in USA.  Pro-Japan scholars occupy these chairs, and they have close ties with scholars based in Japan; they are loyal to the Japanese identity and culture. An ambitious teacher training program has certified thousands of Americans to ‘Teach Japan’ in schools. The Japanese drive the Americans’ study of Japan, and not vice versa as in Bharat’s case.

The Korea Foundation has sponsored a series of books on a variety of subjects on Korea and donates/subsidizes these books to libraries worldwide.

Repositioning Bharat’s brand

As a priority, Bharat’s image in American academia needs a corporate type analysis of the market/competition and current status. This would lead to the diagnosis and identification of key problems needing correction. Only then could a viable strategy emerge. This brand repositioning is necessary for more Bharatiya-Americans to succeed on their own terms in management and political arenas. It is also necessary for an independent profile of Bharat.

The strategy for influencing Bharat Studies could begin with looking at Bharat’s technology developments and opportunities, and the resulting geopolitical implications. This could build on the recent positive Bharatiya image in corporate America and American business schools. Donors may want to think about initially working with business schools instead of South Asian Studies Departments, especially since Bharatiya-American donors have better experience in evaluating business scholars than humanities scholars. Many of the contentious issues listed at the end of this article would not apply because of greater convergence between Bharat’s interests and the mindset of business schools.

At the same time, culture is an important form of capital and must be positively positioned as a part of any brand management. Cultural branding should not be allowed to become a liability under the control of anti-Bharat forces. Yoga and Ayurveda are examples of positive cultural areas that are now in the mainstream and deserve to be brought back under the Bharat brand. Two illustrations will show the economic cost of not managing cultural capital:

Yoga is a multi-billion dollar industry in the USA, with 18 million American practitioners, $27 billion/year revenues (from classes, videos, books, conferences, retreats), over 10,000 studios/teachers, and 700,000 subscribers to Yoga Journal. However, cultural shame has kept Bharatiyas out of this field, and over 98% of yoga teachers and students in USA are non-Bharatiyas.

Clearly, the economic potential here could be as big as Bharat’s software exports, especially if yoga were included in Bharat’s proposed initiative to export health care services. America’s yoga centres are potential retail outlets for Bharatiya culture and brand marketing.

Ayurveda is a $2 billion/year industry and a part of the high growth international market for plant medicines. The popular consumer brand, Aveda, was started by an American devotee of Bharatiya gurus to bring Ayurveda to the West. (Aveda is short for Ayurveda.) He later sold it to Estee Lauder: Now, Estee Lauder sources herbs from countries other than Bharat, and there has been no royalty to Kerala’s farmers who are being displaced from their traditional industry. Nor is there any recognition of this loss in the Bharatiya intellectual’s mind. Contrast this with the way the Chinese government has turned Chinese medicine into a multi-billion dollar vehicle for Brand China, or with the way the French wine and cosmetic industries have endowed their products with a mystique that protects French jobs.

To explain why educated Bharatiyas are amongst the best knowledge workers in the world, the common reason given is that the British taught us English, science and governance. But under this theory, all former colonies, such as Kenya, Uganda, Egypt, Zaire, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Trinidad and Myanmar should be suppliers of knowledge workers on par with Bharat. Few Bharatiyas have the courage to articulate that the reason is partly because of Bharat’s long cultural traditions that emphasize learning and inquiry, including the openness fostered by its pluralistic worldviews.

In fact, Bharatiyas were exporters of knowledge systems and knowledge workers throughout the Middle East and Pan-Asia for centuries prior to colonialism. Arab/Persian records indicate that many hospitals in the Middle East were run by Bharatiya doctors and that Bharatiya scholars ran their universities. Bharatiyas were chief accountants in many Persian courts. Bharatiya mathematics went via Persian/Arab translations to influence European mathematics.

Furthermore, Buddhists took Bharatiya knowledge systems to East and Southeast Asia, including medicine, linguistics, metallurgy, philosophy, astronomy, arts, martial arts, etc. Bharatiya universities (such as Nalanda) attracted students from all parts of Asia, and were patronized by foreign rulers. All this is well appreciated by scholars in East and Southeast Asian countries but is hardly known to Bharatiyas.

Bharatiya corporate executives are playing a key role in charting Bharat’s future through knowledge based industries. Therefore, it should be important for them to sponsor an honest account of Bharat’s long history of exporting both its knowledge workers and complete knowledge systems. This historical account is important in reinventing Bharat’s non-innovative education system and repositioning its brand. Hence, Bharatiya-Americans must question the colonial discourse which promotes the view that ‘anything positive about Bharat was imported from elsewhere.’ The impact of such skewed discourse on Bharatiya children is pertinent and must be examined.

I have found that American audiences are very open and even eager to learn about Bharat’s contributions to American culture. But most professors of Bharat Studies in American universities consider such themes irrelevant or, worse still, chauvinistic. In doing so, they apply a different standard to Bharat as compared to other non-Western civilizations. This has a lot to do with the cultural shame that many Bharatiyas in academe feel burdened with – in contrast with successful Bharatiya executives who project positive identities.

Consider the following examples that are usually not emphasized in the academic research/teaching in Bharat Studies, when equivalent items concerning China, Islam, Japan, etc are emphasized:

– America’s ‘Discovery’ was the result of venture capital from the Queen of Spain to explore new trade routes to Bharat, because Bharatiya goods were highly sought after. Most persons find it hard to believe that Bharat could have had such prized export items, and some find such suggestions troubling given their preconceived images of Bharat’s culturally linked poverty. Any genuine exploration of Bharat’s economic history is nipped in the bud.

– The New Age Movement is neo-Hindu, with 18 million Americans doing yoga, meditation, and adopting vegetarianism,  animal rights and other Bharatiya values. Eco-Feminism was brought to America by Vandana Shiva, who explained to Americans the philosophies of the sacredness of the environment. American Pop Culture owes a great deal to Bharatiya music (via the Beatles and others), film, art, fashions and cuisine.

– Icons of American Literature, such as Emerson, Thoreau, Whitman, Eliot, the Beats, among others, were deeply involved in the study and practice of Bharatiya philosophy and spiritual traditions. While they are widely read and admired, the Bharatiya wellsprings of their inspiration is often downplayed, to the detriment of all students. Modern Psychology, since the work of Jung and others, has assimilated many theories from Bharat, and this has impacted mind-body healing and neurosciences.

– American Religion has adopted many Bharatiya theological ideas transmitted via Teilhard de Chardin’s study of Ramanuja. Transcendental Meditation was learnt in the 1970s by monks in Massachusetts and repackaged into the popular ‘Christian Centering Prayer.’ The study of the Hindu Goddess became a source of empowerment for many American Christian women.

– American Civil Rights drew inspiration from Gandhi: Martin Luther King, Jesse Jackson and others wrote about satyagraha as their guiding principle with great reverence in the 1960s, but this has faded from the memory of African-American history as taught today. How many Bharatiyas know that Bharatiya social theories influenced J S Mill, who is regarded as the founder of modern Western liberalism, and that many Enlightenment ideas also originated in Bharat and China? The Natural Law Party is considered a pioneer in American political liberalism, but it is generally unknown that it was started by, and is run by, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s Western followers.

Such positive themes are rarely reflected in the humanities curricula concerning Bharat. The disciplines are populated by scholars who typically entered the US after the Soviet collapse, when funding by Soviet-sponsored sources ended. They still continue to espouse sociological models that have been discarded for decades, thereby hindered Bharat’s progress in the global economy. They continue to promote divisive scholarship about Bharat. One wonders why the West legitimizes such persons and positions them as representatives of Bharat. Now they have reproduced their mindsets in a whole new generation of confused Bharatiya-Americans with PhDs in the humanities.

Challenging the Bharat-Bashing Club

While Bharat’s positive image is not adequately projected in US academia, the many negative stereotypes abound, devaluing Bharat’s brand into fragments and chaos. These include:

Anti-progress: Bharatiya culture is depicted as primitive, obsolete, and frozen until outsiders come and push it forward. Hence, the implication seems to suggest, we must invite outsiders to come and fix our problems for us.

Unethical: Bharatiya culture is essentialized by images of abusive caste, sati, dowry deaths, and other human rights atrocities, including aggressive charges of fascism, violation of minority rights and violence. Bharatiya scholars often lead these parades that overemphasize public tirades against Bharat in the West, while failing to understand the implications of brand damage in a global capitalist system.

Unscientific: Bharatiyas are shown as mystical people lacking Western style rationality.

Everything good about Bharat is assumed to have been imported: The British gave us a sense of nation. There was no worthy Bharatiya culture prior to the Mughals. The Greek brought philosophy and mathematics to Bharat. The “Aryans” brought Sanskrit. By implication, Bharatiyas are doomed to dependency, which contradicts the vision of Bharat’s future trajectory being based on knowledge-based industries.

Many Bharatiya scholars in the humanities, journalists, and ‘intellectuals’ in Non-Government Organizations depend on Western funding, Western sponsored foreign travel, acquiring legitimacy in the eyes of Western institutions, the ability to parrot canned Western ‘theories,’ and even identifying as a member of the Western Grand Narrative – not as options but as necessary conditions for success. Clearly, such loyalties, identities and ideologies must resonate with their sponsors.

Unlike China Studies and Islam Studies, Bharat Studies is controlled by the West, often with the help of Bharatiya mercenaries. The frequent bombardment of negative imagery of Bharatiya society is devastating its soft power. The globalization of Bharat’s ‘human rights’ issues is not solving any social problems in Bharat. It has become a cottage industry for many Bharatiyas – whose role may be seen as analogous to the sepoys who helped the British rule over the rest of their brethren. Many Bharatiya scholars are, at best, apologetic about Bharatiya culture. They go about with great aplomb ‘exposing’ internal problems of Bharat at international forums, for which their careers are well rewarded.

Certainly, there is legitimacy and urgency to human rights concerns. But the academic treatment of this subject is asymmetric vis-à-vis Bharat as compared to other countries. More importantly, American campuses are not the place to resolve them. Students are being brainwashed into thinking of Bharat as a quagmire.

Proposed Mission Statement for NRI Philanthropists

Prior to supporting Bharat Studies, Bharatiya-American philanthropists must, first, establish their mission statement. I submit the following statement for their consideration, at least as a starting point:

The mission is to bring objectivity and fair balance to Bharat Studies so as to: 1. strengthen and enrich America’s multiculturalism at home; 2. empower Bharatiya-American kids’ hyphenated identities; 3. improve US-Bharat cooperation as cultural equals; and 4. improve Bharat’s cultural brand in the globalization process.

It is important to note that this mission statement does not include using American classrooms or media as platforms to cure Bharatiya society of its problems. This is the point over which there is a serious conflict of interest between Bharatiya-American donors and many ‘South Asian’ academicians in the humanities who are deeply entrenched in anti-Bharat activism. To put it bluntly, some oppose the very notion of a strong Bharatiya nation state, calling that chauvinism, and would like a balkanized Bharat consisting of weak sub-nationalities. Many have taken the position that to expose Bharat’s ‘human rights atrocities’ is central to their mandate. This is usually done without giving equal time (or any time) to Bharat’s many positive accomplishments in social development and pluralism. Naively putting such individuals in charge of one’s well-intended donations would be like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse.

Questions that donors must address

Since Bharatiya-Americans have already earned the highest levels of success and self-esteem, they should not be overly impressed by the prestige of academic institutions. They must utilize their best negotiation skills and not get bulldozed into accepting ‘standard’ terms from the universities. Bharatiya-Americans have no reason to be over-awed by the Western-centric approaches to social sciences and liberal arts, whose very validity and effectiveness are being challenged by serious thinkers in the West. Bharatiya-Americans should bring to these discussions their own reference points from the corporate world, such as the following questions and issues suggest.

A strategic choice must be made between promoting Bharat Studies (which would be a centripetal force helping Bharat’s unity as a nation state without compromising its diversity) and South Asian Studies (which is a centrifugal force pushing Bharat towards balkanization).

Should the overarching theme support mutual understanding between cultures through exploring Bharat’s vast cultural capital, or support political activism against Bharat? What is the brand damage currently being done by Bharatiyas engaged in one-sided public tirades, who exaggerate Bharat’s internal problems in front of audiences that are ill-equipped to make balanced judgments? How should one approach Bharatiya scholars who have become mercenaries? What is the connection between such scholars and Marxism and its derivatives?

To address the above issues, Bharatiya-American donors first need to clearly articulate what they consider to be their own vision of Bharat. Next, they need to examine the degree to which their vision is compatible with that of various humanities scholars. Bharat’s brand must not be outsourced to people whose ideologies are subversive of Bharat’s integrity.

How is Bharat’s brand positioned relative to other civilizations? Who are the major competitors, and what are their strategies, strengths and weaknesses? A comparison between Bharat Studies and China Studies, among others, is very important. What are the major brand problems that Bharat faces today?

What is the relationship between Bharat’s cultural capital and its brand equity? For example, if Bharat can supply world class professionals in so many fields, then why does Bharat have less than two percent of the market share in the massive American industry of yoga, meditation and related areas? Why are there no world class Bharatiya institutions in this field producing the equivalent of IIT graduates to go and capture world markets – given that the trend in holistic living is increasing worldwide and Bharat has unmatched brand equity that could also boost its health care export industry? Furthermore, the positioning of Bharatiya Classics in academe, as compared to Greek Classics and Chinese Classics, must be examined in relation to cultural capital formation.

What are the distribution channels that control the production and dissemination of ideas about Bharat’s brand? Who are the key players in control over each stage and what are their critical success factors? In particular, who funds the production and distribution, and who controls the intellectual platforms to think about Bharat? The critical bottlenecks, especially those that tend to be monopolistic, should be identified.

What were the key trends over the past 25 years in Bharat Studies? Why has Bharat failed to enter Bharat Studies as a serious player and, by default, allowed Bharatiyas to be reduced to consumers who lack their own intellectual capital to drive the field?

Why is there no funding for Bharat Studies within Bharat, to empower a new generation of ‘insiders of the tradition’ to enter the global field of Bharat Studies; to contest old paradigms about Bharat; and to shift the center of gravity of Bharat Studies back to Bharat, in the same way that most other major civilizations are controlling their own intellectual discourse?

Donors need to examine the consequences of these brand problems — such as Bharatiya students’ identity crises, and the marginalization of Bharat’s soft power.

There are valuable lessons in the successes of other American minority cultures that have taken control over their own brand management — Jews, blacks, women and gays being prominent examples.

Based on this type of research, donors should establish targets for the future. They should also establish the criteria for evaluation and the mechanisms to monitor the progress.

Undoubtedly, there will be those in Bharat Studies departments who feel threatened by enlightened Bharatiya-American donors entering the discourse as equal partners. One strategy to ‘buy out’ Bharatiya-American donors is to admit them to prestigious committees where they can hobnob with dignitaries and send pictures home.

Meanwhile, below are two good role models for objective Bharat Studies in the US:

The Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania focuses on the business and political aspects of Bharat: http://casi.sas.upenn.edu/

The Center for India Studies at the State University of New York at Stony Brook is more multifaceted and emphasizes the humanities — including culture, languages, history, religions, arts and dance: http://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/india/

Each is an Bharat-centric approach, in which ‘South Asia’ is treated from Bharat’s perspective.

The former example (UPenn) is easier to implement in a pro-Bharat manner, because corporate and political winds have shifted in Bharat’s favor lately. However, the latter (SUNY) has made a bigger impact on the identities of Bharatiya students in that university — one that is attributed to the courage and leadership of the scholars in charge and the Bharatiya-American donors in that vicinity.

In the long run, culture will play a vital role in Bharat’s brand. Some Bharatiya-American groups are hesitant to tackle the systemic biases that plague the academic work on Bharatiya culture and society. They should delay funding in this area until they have a better understanding of the issues at stake. Their safer bet is to fund business schools. A good example of Bharat’s brand management is the recent joint initiative by the Government of Bharat and the Confederation of Indian Industry. (See: http://www.ibef.org/index.asp )

Recommendations for Academic Funding

– Continue pushing the US to upgrade Bharat on par with China in its discourse, and to decouple Bharat from the South Asian grouping. Furthermore, expose the entrenched academic forces that are subversive of Bharat’s stability, which would be very dangerous for US interests.

– Establish a clear mission statement for Bharat Studies. This should include a position on whether it should remain positioned as a ‘ghetto’ separate from mainstream humanities, or if, as in the case of Western civilization, Bharat should be in the mainstream curriculum of various departments, such as history, philosophy, music, dance, science, medicine, psychology, politics, and so forth.

– Keep the Bharatiya-American endowment with a trust/foundation that is in the hands of the Diaspora, and do not give the corpus away to any university. Give an annual budget to selected universities under a 2-year or 3-year contract, subject to evaluation and renewal. Universities do accept these terms.

– Appoint a knowledgeable Diaspora evaluation and monitoring committee to oversee what goes on in each program, and don’t just leave it to the university scholars to send you status reports. The committee should attend classes, read the publications of the department and participate in the events organized. Many problems of shoddy or biased scholarship disappear when the scholars know that they are being watched by the funding sources – as it is done by Western funding sources routinely.

– Keep the appointment durations no longer than 2 or 3 years in the beginning, until there is enough experience. Tenured appointments are very counter-productive in case a Bharat-hater gets in.

– Require the program to be Bharat Studies and not South Asia Studies. There is no point in including anti-Bharat scholars on committees and having deadlocks in the decision-making. Examine the program details, and avoid funding scholars and topics that are counter to your vision.

– Do annual surveys and publish reports on what the effect of the sponsored work is on students and the American public at large.


Rajiv Malhotra is a researcher, author, speaker. He can be contacted at:

Facebook: RajivMalhotra.Official

Webhttp://www.rajivmalhotra.com/

Twitter: @RajivMessage

rajivm

(Disclaimer: This article represents the opinions of the Author, and the Author is responsible for ensuring the factual veracity of the content. HinduPost will not be responsible for the accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity of any information, contained herein.)


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Rajiv Malhotra
Rajiv Malhotrahttp://www.RajivMalhotra.com
Researcher, author, speaker. Current affairs, inter-civilization, science.

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