Broadly, soft power is utilisation of a country’s cultural strengths as opposed to being coercive to influence and prevail over other nations. More commonly, the arts, entertainment, language and institutions have been components of cultural diplomacy. But sports, too, plays a role, from the extravaganza of the Olympic Games and football World Cups to the Wimbledon championships.

In the early 1970s, ping-pong diplomacy broke the ice between the US and China. Cricket diplomacy has occasionally been employed by India and Pakistan as confidence-building measures. Today, the game has bestowed India with a valuable soft power ingredient.

In 1928, India, despite being under British rule, stunned the world by lifting the gold medal in hockey in the Amsterdam Olympiad. Other than Mahatma Gandhi’s non-violent freedom struggle, no facet of India in that period made an impact on the international community as Jaipal Singh’s team’s triumph did.

Thereafter, India completing a hat-trick of golds in the 1936 Berlin Olympics rather jolted the German dictator, Adolf Hitler, whose world view was of white Aryans constituting a superior race. To his dismay, India thrashed Germany 8-1 in the final. In short, independent India inherited hockey as an instrument of soft power. People worldwide would yearn to witness the Indians’ dribbling skills.

Fast forward to Mexico 1968: India earned neither a gold nor a silver in........

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